Ketelhuisplein, Dutch Design Week 2024 – Photo by Max Kneefel.

Design. What feels unreal today might be real tomorrow! This is the main theme of Dutch Design Week 2024, which focuses on questioning and dissolving the boundaries between reality and fiction through design. Until October 27, the largest design event in Northern Europe presents the work and concepts of more than 2,600 designers. We round up fifteen must-visit destinations across the Dutch city of Eindhoven.

• RELATED STORIES: Read more about Dutch Design Week on Archipanic.

Ketelhuisplein

5617 AE, Map.

Trilix Bamboo Pavilion by Studio Akēka and the Dutch Bamboo Foundation – Photo by Max Kneefel.

The Ketelhuisplein is Dutch Design Week’s great central meeting place with a thriving open-air festival vibe. The Trilix Bamboo Pavilion, designed by Studio Akēka in collaboration with the Dutch Bamboo Foundation, is an eco-friendly architecture demonstrating bamboo’s potential in urban design. The Temple of Peace by Peaceseekers Foundation features eighty unique flags created by eighty teams of recent graduates of art & design academies together with refugees.

Glimpses into Green Energy installation by Bits of Space and Waag Futurelab – Photo by Cleo Goossens.

Through a series of colourful urban installations, Bits of Space and Waag Futurelab highlight the invisible energy transition silently transforming our cities. Animations in viewing tubes bring you underneath a manhole cover into a 180-metre-deep well of a thermal storage facility. Vattenfall hosts a joint exhibition by four design studios. Discover their approach and creative solutions for repurposing wind turbine components and their vision for a circular future.

Klokgebouw

5651 GW, Map.

The Rewear Chair by Uncommon Creative Studio, courtesy of Dutch Design Week 2024.

Central to the creative district of Strijp-S is the Phillips blue Clock Building – Klokgebouw in Dutch. Discover individual projects and group exhibitions across four halls with a total of 7,500 square meters of exhibition space. DROSHAKIRYAN presents large textile installations combining biomaterial crafted from raw wool with an unusual mix of coffee waste, charcoal, and chocolate. Uncommon Creative Studio exhibits a seat with collapsible arms for airing out clothes to encourage users to re-wear garments rather than unnecessarily washing them.

Kazerne

Paradijslaan 2-8, Map.

Human=Non Human exhibition – Photo by Nick Bookelaar.

Kazerne is one of the most central design destinations in Eindhoven. It is a place where designers meet and share ideas. The Human=Non Human exhibition features the work of over forty emerging and established designers, labels, and manufacturers exploring the blurring boundary between humans and cyberspace. The CoWave project combines human collaboration with AI technology to create 3D objects based on brainwave emotional responses. The art and design exhibition ROOTS delivers an urgent message about Dutch soil through bio-based and circular methods.

DAE Graduation Show 2024

Microstad, Professor Dr Dorgelolaan 2, Map.

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The Design Academy Eindhoven Graduation Show takes over Microstad, near Eindhoven Central Station. It features 200 Bachelor’s and Master’s graduate projects. The next generation of designers engages with a radically changing world in terms of environments, social practices, and identities. Benze de Ream explores how discrimination is embedded in the algorithms of today’s digital platforms. Katharina Ammann‘s Solar Share project examines and visualises the potential of solar energy through algae. 

Dutch Design Award

MicroLab Hall, Kastanjelaan 400, Map.

Photo by Nick Bookelaar.

The Dutch Design Award celebrates the best of recent Dutch design. At the MicroLab Hall this year, ten former winners were invited to nominate an emerging designer who developed impactful projects. Yuta Ikeya harnesses cutting-edge technologies to foster co-living between humans and bees. Auke Bleij presents a highly porous bio-sensitive concrete that encourages spontaneous moss growth in cities. Studio ThusThat presents an ongoing series of monolithic forms made from a high-performance geopolymer and cement alternative developed from a byproduct of copper refining.

Manifestations festival

Torenallee 100, Map.

Photo by Cleo Goossens.

Gear up for a healthy dose of creativity at the Manifestations festival, which celebrates digital activism through fun, wonder, and curiosity. Robotics, e-fashion, art, and bio-design mix with fun on the eighth floor of the Eindhoven Veemgebouw. Curator Viola van Alphen has selected works by over fifty young artists and recent graduates that aim to shine a powerful light on the exciting interaction between human beings and technology.

Piet Hein Heek studio and factory

Halvemaanstraat 30, Map.

Photo by Cleo Goossens.

Piet Hein Eek opens his studio and factory to present brand-new collections, including a new collaboration with Maarten Baas, bringing together the Dutch designers’ graduation projects. During Dutch Design Week 2024, the office, workshop, showroom, Grand Café, Wonderroom and platform host new circular economy-driven collections by up-and-coming brands and designers. House of Thol celebrates ten years of design for green living. The Re-Craft exhibition explores the connection between design, materials, craftsmanship and culture.

Schellens Fabriek

Bleekweg 1M, Map.

Photo via IG, follow @something.events_nl.

Schellens Fabriek, a former fabric factory turned into a creative hub in the heart of Eindhoven, hosts the Something Bigger group exhibition. “We are all a small part of a bigger whole. Our lives are temporary and transitory on this earth. Yet we can take huge action toward outcomes that go beyond our own lives, needs, comforts, and desires—together.” Experience a wide range of sensorial interactions from the handmade to the virtually augmented. Ineke van der Werff turns porcelain waste into tactile design projects. Marieta Tedenac explores light as a medium that carries and preserves information through time. 

Carte Blanche by Kiki & Joost

Gabriël Metsulaan 1 – entrance Kanaaldijk Zuid, 5613LC, Map.

Photo by Anwyn Howarth.

Kiki & Joost inaugurate their new exhibition space with the Carte Blanche showcase featuring Kiki van Eijk’s brand new collection Sprout, which explores the dynamic interaction between ceramics and handblown glass. Joost reveals Intentional Coincidence, a sculptural object series that converts flat surfaces into 3D forms. The design duo also presents their new collaborations with WEEEF.

Sex and The City

Stadhuisplein, 5611 EM, Map.

Photo by Nick Bookelaar.

What might one possible future look like? It might include escalating temperatures, extreme weather, and critically unaffordable housing. From here, Nøha-Not Only Human Architecture and futurist Lena Tünkers, a.k.a. Q4ll, created a speculative future installation in Eindhoven’s City Halls Square.

The Future is Currently Unavailable by Isola Design

Area 51, Ketelhuisplein 18, 5617 AE Eindhoven, Map.

Photo by ©Anwyn Howarth.

Isola Design platform returns to Eindhoven for the sixth time to take over Area 51, the Netherlands’ largest indoor skatepark in the heart of the Strijp-S design district. Under the theme The Future is Currently Unavailable—an exhortation to create smart and sustainability-driven design solutions—four design showcases feature the work of over 100 exhibitors.

DOMUSDELA

Kanaalstraat 4 binnenplein, Map.

CH01R by Paul&Albert – Photo by Rense van Slageren.

Dutch design duo Paul&Albert present CHO1R, an ensemble of individual robots, each with its own computer and partially AI-generated sounds. They are constantly connected, allowing them to perform their song in perfect sync. Bob Frederik presents Restacked, a multifunctional furniture piece that doubles as a workspace, room divider and more. 

Specimen by Dutch Invertuals

Fuutlaan 12B, Map.

Visual by Dutch Invertuals.

Dutch Invertuals celebrates its 15th anniversary with the Specimen exhibition. The platform challenged fifteen designers to reinterpret and re-design a recently created chair. “Just as biologists collect specimens to gain a deeper understanding of various organisms by closely examining their characteristics,” the exhibition highlights the “craft, skills, vision, and creative expression of each designer as well as his/her evolutionary process.”

Creative Chef Studio at Design Perron

Fuutlaan 12, 5613 AB Eindhoven, Map.

Creative Chef at Design Perron – Photo via IG, follow @designperron.

At Design Perron, to celebrate ten years of food and design experimentation, Creative Chef Studio by Jasper Udink ten Cate takes over Ceramic beans and dinner experiences around a real growing table accompanied by a mix of special sounds, scents and videos. Taste the food of future cities: hyper-local and biodiverse in the name of sustainability.

Van Abbemuseum

Stratumsedijk 2, Map.

Courtesy of Dutch Design Week 2024.

The Van Abbemuseum of Contemporary Art hosts Soil, a group exhibition exploring a renewed connection with the most primitive material: earth. De Onkruidenier teaches you everything you need to know about how tomato plants grow through heat, light, water, and soil. A daily live performance will reveal how design, colour, and materials play a role.

Isola Design at Dutch Design Week 2024 – Photo by ©Anwyn Howarth.

All photos are courtesy of Dutch Design Week 2024 and the designers/exhibitors.

Klokgebouw at DDW 2024 – Photo by Nick Bookelaar.

Ketelhuisplein, DDW 2024 – Photo by Max Kneefel.