The Dutch Design Week is one of the largest design events in Europe with more than 100 locations across Eindhoven sharing the work of 2,500 designers for 9 days. Colleagues from SAP Design who visited the event last year have given me the motivation to travel to Eindhoven with my family.
Eindhoven is the “city of light” where Philips was founded in 1891 and made the city a major technology and industrial hub. Nowadays it’s the creative capital of Holland that makes use of the industrial space left by Philips when they moved to Amsterdam in the year 2000.
More than 300,000 visitors were attracted by the mix of exhibitions, presentations, discussions, and other activities. I’ve been impressed by the variety of products, solutions, concepts, or installations. Also the diversity among the designers was huge: from young talents, to experimenters, and already established labels.
Design is all about looking at the real problems, building empathy with all senses and contributing solutions to make our world a better place: simpler, more beautiful, more useful, less polluting, healthier, yes even happier! Therefore, the Dutch Design Week covered a wide range of important topics like e.g. future of food, man-machine interactions, social issues, future of work, circular economy. The event also offered a stage for traditional crafts in the digital age. There were also many exhibits with a focus on the “sense of taste”.
I’ve explored only a portion of the more than 100 locations: former shop floors, parking garage, storehouse, museum, makers’ space, ship containers, former shopping center, culture center, market place etc. The Dutch Design Week is also a paradise for people who are interested in workplace design.
Two days were just not enough to cover the main areas. Therefore, it has been inspiring to read what design professionals have highlighted, e.g. the Architecture Digest, the Design Week, or Dezeen magazine.
