Image from Arend van der Kam’s Master’s project (Landscape Architecture): Spectres of Binckhorst The 2024 edition of Dutch Design Week (DDW) in Eindhoven will once again have a Wageningen presence through Design United, the design section of the 4TU partnership between the four Dutch science and technology universities. If you can’t make it to Eindhoven, an impression of DDW will be given in a Design Dialogue in Impulse.
Design United is showcasing a number of Wageningen projects in the prestigious exhibition in the Klokgebouw building. That includes Arend van der Kam’s Master’s project (Landscape Architecture, see photo). Based on the principles of Dark Ecology, he developed a park for the Hague district of Binckhorst, where the soil is severely contaminated. The design is a memorial for what was lost in the Anthropocene, with plants that can cope with the toxins in the soil and even absorb them.
Dialogues about design topics
Wageningen is also involved in three of the five daily dialogues (in English) in DDW on key design themes: Living Environments, Thriving Planet and Equal Society. These are sessions with professionals in the field in which various creative and interactive methods are used to shed new light on that day’s topic. The dialogues are partly intended to present the design themes the universities are working on, but community formation is another important aim.
In the session on Living Environments (on Monday) WUR will be represented by Landscape Architecture professor Sanda Lenzholzer, game hub manager Federico Andreotti and design researcher Danielle Ooms, among others. The organizing teams for the dialogues on Thriving Planet (Tuesday) and Equal Society (Friday) also include people from Wageningen, namely Katharine Legun (Thriving Planet) and Angeliki Balayannis (Equal Society). There is no charge to take part, but participants do need a DDW ticket and to register in advance.
Kneel before soil life
Dutch Design Week will also feature a kind of rerun of Soil, Live!, the recent soil life concert in which Wageningen sound artist Remco de Kluizenaar joined forces with soil biologists Marie Zwetsloot and Giulia Bongiorno. De Kluizenaar has used recordings from that concert in the artwork Vibes from Below, in which you hear music and spoken texts that literally come from inside the earth. ‘After you have spent a moment with this artwork, you will appreciate each plot of land you see even more because you will know the beauty to be found beneath the surface,’ promises the DDW announcement. Vibes from Below can be found in the grounds of the Bio Art Laboratories.
Dutch Design Week takes place from Saturday 19 October to Sunday 27 October in Eindhoven. Design United’s contribution this year has as its theme Changing Gears. You can read more about this in the online magazine.
If you are interested but don’t have the time or money to visit Eindhoven, the design@WUR network will soon be organizing a Design Dialogue in Impulse with the WUR DDW representatives. Details about the lunchtime event will follow.
