Modular lighting is a seldom encountered genre, and when it is encountered, then invariably in a very technical form, a form that implies the computer software has taken a greater role in the creative process than the designers understanding of form-giving, There are however exceptions..... 304 by Nick Beens, as seen at Dutch Design Week Eindhoven 2017 Although we saw the 304 collection by Nick Beens' at the 2017 Design Academy Eindhoven Graduation Exhibition, it's inclusion here should in
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Although as an event Dutch Design Week has always had a focus on presenting design in context, design in practice, our feeling is that of late that focus has intensified, something we thoroughly approve of as it helps make tangible that design is, can be, more than pretty objects; does however mean that you increasingly need to take more time with you to Eindhoven. Or accept that you are going to miss a lot of, potentially, interesting and thought provoking presentations. Necessity meant that
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As we believe we've noted before, the joy in that exhibition format in which designers present objects which are important and/or relevant to them, is that no matter how often it is repeated it is always new. Same, same, but different. For their 2017 show Dutch Invertuals are presenting collections of objects from 45 alumni which have an importance to/relevance for them, or which simply represent an object of wonder and inspiration to the relevant designer. And because it's Dutch Invertuals
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Although one primarily goes to Kazerne Eindhoven to experience experimental, challenging, yet invariably accessible and pertinent design, during Dutch Design Week one also gets the chance to experience young, emerging, furniture brands. At Dutch Design week 2016 we were particularly taken with the presentation by Dutch brand Functionals. Tracing its origins back to 1972 and the establishment of a metal workshop in Goirle, near Tilburg, by Henk van Esch, the contemporary Functionals was
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It goes without saying that picking a "best of" from an event such as Dutch Design Week is impossible. Too varied are the projects, too wide the scope, too incomparable the works be that classic product design, classic architecture, classic craft, or more conceptual and/or research projects in and across genres. Rarely does urban planning sit so comfortably and naturally alongside pottery, high-tech and politics. While everywhere in Eindhoven one finds people 3D printing with all manner of
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Cohesion is a concept with which we are very familiar. Largely because it is a state we never achieve. Much like the geometry's asymptote never touches its associated curve, so to do our lives approach cohesion, without ever achieving such a condition. It remaining something tantalisingly ahead of us. Infinitely so. And so it was with a particular personal interest we viewed the new 2014 Dutch Invertuals' exhibition: Cohesion. As is traditional with Dutch Invertuals the participating
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One of the highlights for us of Dutch Design Week 2014 is and was the showcase of works by Eindhoven based studio Ontwerpduo a.k.a. Tineke Beunders and Nathan Wierink. For although in the past we have seen various Ontwerpduo projects individually, there is no real alternative to seeing a studio's collection together in order to build a more complete picture of the designers and their work. In addition to reunions with those Ontwerpduo products with which we were already familiar, including the
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The presentation of Dirk Vander Kooij's current collection during Dutch Design Week 2014 took place at Kazerne - the new star in Eindhoven's already well illuminated design sky. Established by designers/curators Annemoon Geurts and Koen Rijnbeek who used run the temporary Eat Drink Design "exhibition restaurant" during Dutch Design Week, Kazerne is their new permanent "exhibition restaurant". They obviously having tired of "popping up" once a year. Featuring a combination restaurant cum
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For us the passion, indeed interest, for living in a shared flat ended approximately 18 months before we moved out of our last shared flat. It ceased to be our thing. We needed our peace. We needed our space. We became anti-social. Some people however remain sociable. Even professionally. Some such as the design studios Daphna Laurens, Studio Mieke Meijer, OS ∆ OOS, Studio Maatwerk and Bogaerts Label who since summer 2014 have shared a space in the so-called TAB Building, somewhat inevitably a
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Back in the day when the CD was new and exciting we remember watching a breakfast TV host spread honey on one to demonstrate how indestructible they were. Other CDs were attacked with keys, dowsed in hot coffee and stood on. These days we all know much better. CDs are destructible. We've seen the light. And at Dutch Design Week 2014 you can can see the light a recycled CD emits. Or at least the luminescence produced by a mass of recycled CDs in the thoughtfully and intelligently formed
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Proving that Eindhoven is full of old factories, but that they are not necessarily all former Philips factories, Sectie C is a former industrial estate on the eastern edge of Eindhoven that has become home to a, seemingly, thriving community of creatives. Featuring a nice mix of creative genres and small businesses Sectie C's real charm is the way the tenants have colonised the available space just as vegetation does in derelict industrial estates: offices constructed under the rafters like
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It is very rare that one comes across an object where a manufacturer has combined two independently developed products into one. And even rarer that we like such an object. Our natural resistance reaction is to say, No. No. Not on our watch. Begone. We were however instantly taken with the so-called Blumenampel Edition by Zascho Petkow and Birgit Severin for Berlin based Atelier Haussmann. Possibly because initially we didn't know its provenance. That only became clear in conversation with
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In 1951 the German designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld created a glass punch bowl for Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik, WMF: the clou of which is a glass tube which passes through the lid and down to the bottom of the bowl. The ideas being to fill this tube with ice, when the ice, inevitably, melts the resulting water remains separate from the punch, can be thrown away and replaced with fresh ice. Thus ensuring your punch remains chilled, and unadulterated, until the last drop. A revolution in its
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Despite what popular myth may have you believe, the Design Academy Eindhoven is not alone responsible for Eindhoven's current status as one of the most important design city's in Europe. But love it or loath it there is no getting away from the Design Academy's influence on the development of contemporary European design. And so of course on Eindhoven's current status as one of the most important design city's in Europe. Consequently the annual Design Academy Graduate Show is one of the
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Design weeks are part of the daily grind of our profession. For those outwith the industry it all just looks like jaunting off to another exotic sounding location and going to a lot of cocktail parties with unfeasibly gorgeous and entertaining people. For others it may be. For us it's early mornings, heavy rucksacks, lots of polite small talk, little food, lots of walking, lots of avoiding polite small talk, late nights. And we generally have to buy our own beer. Which we typically drink
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Every year at Dutch Design Week we always take time out to escape the design circus and visit Area 51 Skate Park. Because even if it does make us feel really old; Area 51 probably has more to do with design than a lot of what we see at most designer furniture trade fairs throughout the year. Established in 2002 - so one year after Dutch Design Week - Area 51 is 3000 sqm metres of landscaped wood inside an old industrial building on the former Philips estate where youngsters can skate and
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Obviously in his old age our colleague with the camera is getting a little slower. He'd only just recovered from the shock of getting photographed by Christoffer Martins at the Nils Holger Moormann "Hölle von Aschau" race day: when in drops another snap of him pushing the limits of design photography. And his own physical capabilities. Snapped with an iPhone by Eindhoven photographer Kasper van‘t Hoff while documenting the "Great Taste for Waste" exhibition in Kasper's Klokgebouw atelier, the
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One of our highlights at Dutch Design Week 2010 was Made Out Portugal #1, and so logically we were keen to see how the project had developed over the past 12 months. At the most obvious level, in comparison to their first show the project has expanded and now includes Portuguese designers who aren't based in Holland. Which was of course one of the aims of the project, to create a network of exiled Portuguese designers. And so in that sense the project certainly appears to be moving in the
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Inspiration for a design exhibition can come from the most unlikely of places. Even the rubbish your dog picks up and brings home. Kasper van ‘t Hoff's black lab Gus likes to pick up rubbish and bring it home. Rather than throw it away, Kaspar keeps the rubbish and photographs it. Kasper van ‘t Hoff is a photographer. So it's not weird. If he wasn't it would be. One day Kasper told ceramic artist Marina Relou about Gus and both agreed that he should be honoured for his contribution to
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Pretty much half-way between Piet Hein Eek's design wonderland and Sectie C, with among other tenants Nacho Carbonell, is Atelierdorp. Based in an old office block near the middle of town, Atelierdorp is both a workspace for designers and platform for contemporary design and research. With a wonderful view over, but sadly not into, the PSV Eindhoven stadium Under the title "In Between" Atelierdorp's exhibition during Dutch Design Week 2011 explored the relationship between the fluid state of
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During Dutch Design Week the Eindhoven based design platform Onomatopee is hosting an exhibition looking at ways of adding cultural value to raw materials. In a time when raw materials are becoming rarer and our economic prosperity ever more dependent on the fluctuating prices of such, how can we disengage from this cycle and give these economic materials a cultural value? Or, put another way, how can we use raw materials in an alternative fashion, that removes them from the economic cycle
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During Dutch Design Week 2011 Premsela, the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion, opened an exhibition in the Designhuis Eindhoven that both celebrates Dutch Design Week's 10th anniversary and honours 15 Dutch designers who got their break and/or made their name in Eindhoven. Rather than simply present the 15 in isolation, curator Miriam van der Lubbe presents them in the context of a young designer they admire and of someone who inspired them. And so, for example, Richard Hutton is
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We've long since accepted that there are more design weeks in a year than actual weeks. But we still can't accept the poor coordination between the various festivals. June, July, August.Basically nothing. September, October. Every day Copenhagen, London, Brussels, Budapest, Istanbul, Vienna, Eindhoven, Leipzig, Lodz, Zürich.... Every 2 years Orgatec in Cologne. And in the midst of all this Berlin sprouts Qubique. Hallo! We however have no choice. Or at least little choice. Our October
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In the history of (smow)blog only two designers have contacted us to comment on our comments. The first was Brooklyn based Jason Miller and the second was SintLucas student Vivienne van den Dungen. Writing about a stool she was exhibiting at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven we commented that : "Our one complaint would be that the current version doesn’t really seem to know what it is: the higher component being to short to be a back rest and to narrow to be used for holding, for example, a
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