A report on Dutch Design Week 2021 with a selective choice of highlights of the exhibited products and projects, compiled & written by KHALIL Design.
SCRAPTOPIA
by Marlo Lyda
Welcome to ‘Scraptopia’, Marlo Lyda’s renewed world where salvaged or dismantled metal waste is treasured. Not just as the sole material source for producing tools for daily life, but also for creative experimentation and expression. Assuming the role of metallurgist, craftsman, and novice alchemist Marlo cultivates a working method of extracting valuable qualities from waste metals. Encouraged by the concept of Urban Mining – which asserts that all required raw metals can now be recovered from waste stockpiles rather than from the earth – her toolkit embodies this scenario of scarcity.
Marlo presents her toolkit: a collection of artefacts and sensorial observations that encourage a renewed worldview.
The use of transformational techniques, such as electrolysis and lost wax casting, account for the look and feel of embellished artifacts from ancient civilizations.
POST REPLICA, POST IMAGE
by Si Young Yang
Never before have we been so aware of how much copying exists, nor found copying so unavoidable when making anything. Post-Replica, Post-Image* is an ongoing exploration into how the nature and status of objects, images and creative practitioners changes when copying is destigmatised, and instead recognised as a legitimate creative methodology and tool for social inquiry. Iconic design objects that are known almost entirely through images, have been replicated through different materials and techniques, emphasising the incomplete forms, functions, and styles that became a symbolic identity. Then the physical objects are copied back into the digital realm and the cycle repeats.
INDUSTRIAL DEVOLUTION
by Ruben Warnschuss
Driven to respond to the growing disconnect between consumers and manufacturing, Ruben Warnshuis set about decentralising production by creating a workshop where anyone can weavee their own shoes from rope using looms and moulds.
Four wooden work stations invite us to create footwear in four steps: weaving soles on a loom, threading upper yarns trough soles, weaving the upper and finishing.
Warnshuis explains that the low-tech initiative is aimed at helping us ‘learn self-sufficiency, expand our skills and material knowledge’ while inviting healthier relationships with our belongings.
ANTISHAPE
by Anna Resei
Antishape explores our relationship with objects and asks: What happens to materiality and tactility in a world where images of objects become more important than objects themselves? Surrounded by a scene of physical and digital objects the work aims to evoke the uncanny feeling that occurs when objects from the digital realm enter our domestic spaces.
The work consists of several abstract interior objects that were generated through processes of analogue and digital manufacturing. Digitally generated patterns were combined with physical materiality like acrylic, glass fibre, textile and steel. The objects are accompanied by a website, a thesis called »Antishape – designing in times of the hyperreal« and a short film titled »wishing well« which acts as the narrative backdrop of the work.
ANTISHAPE reflects on the nature of objects we create for ourselves, the impact technology has on our current world and the role of human creation and reflection within it. As we flee into the realm of the digital, the virtual, the hyperreal, the stories we tell ourselves about our surroundings become increasingly important, as they remain the only thing that gives us the perception of a stable reality.
We are no longer looking at each other, we are looking at images of each other. We are no longer looking at objects, we are looking at images of objects – or are we?
THE ART OF KNITTING A TINY SHELL IN LARGE SCALE
by Carolina Sardal Jerhov
The aim of this project is to explore free-floating and texture, based on tractile and visual properties of shells and pearls, in order to design knitted three-dimensional textile surfaces for a body and interior context.
This work places itself in the field of knitted textile design and the context of body and interior. The primary motive is to investigate the tactile and visual properties of oysters and pearls, inspired by Botticelli’s painting The birth of Venus. The aim is to explore free-flowing and texture through knitted three-dimensional textile surfaces.
Material and colour choices have been made based on the source of inspiration, the oyster, and investigated on industrial circle knit and flat knit machines. The circle knits expression has been explored from a hand knitting perspective, using the manual elements to push the machine’s technique to design new expressions. The result of the project is a collection that has four suggestions for a knitted, three- dimensional surface, each inspired and developed from one specific part of the oyster; the shell, the nacre, the flesh, and the pearl.
This work investigates the potential of using circle knit machines, commonly used in fast fashion for bulk production, as a tool for handicraft and higher art forms. The final collection pushes the conversation regarding the future uses of the knitting machines and investigates how rigid objects can be expressed through the flexible structure.
SYSTEMIC CHANGE TROUGH BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
by Bea Brücker
In order to use biodesign effectively as a political intervention in Fashion, it is necessary to question the status quo and try to achieve a systematic change. Instead of trying to make Biodesign compatible for the current market, we should observe and learn from biological systems. Biodesign is not only a sustainable material alternative but has the potential to resist the capitalist system and question current power structures. This happens not only through theory but through practice. Designing with living organisms creates new ways of working, from petri dishes to labs to computation. It creates a new relationship with nature, a new relationship with our garments and finally: it changes the relationships with each other and our view of ownership and equity.
ADAPTISM
by Paul Youenn
Adaptism is a design lab created by paul youenn and eliott vallin two passionate about industrial, fashion, and collectible design.
Our primary objective is to bring together these three universes with our creations, it can be garments, furniture,installations ... The name Adaptism came naturally to us, it's a philosophy that aims to embrace the change and honor the matter. We always start with the material, we are interested in itscultural heritage, the latest production methods and its technical potential to create adaptive pieces.
Tapestry 270 is an investigation into the transition between the indoors and outdoors. Through delving into the heritage of tapestries we found out their importance to warm-up, protect spaces and tell stories. By taking a microscopic view of the fibre we were able to understand its structure and enhance its protective aspect. We wanted to tell the story of the material by showing where its characteristics come from, and how the tapestry can protect the interior space of the house, as well as, in the form of a garment protect the body. To embody the transition of the Tapestry from an indoor piece towards an outdoor garment we selected the Merino Wool. The white shapes seen are the patterns of the garments created, and the rest for the interior space, through this process nothing is going to waste.
Linen marks folds. Linen vibrates when you create a movement. Linen changes colour with light. While these characteristics are usually perceived as flaws of the material, eliott vallin and paul youenn embrace them in three designs that combine research with the cultural and technical heritage of flax fibre. First, an overshirt jacket, where folds create the feeling of wearing a blanket. Second, a chair-tapestry, where the sitter adapts to the scale of the architecture. Third, a light diffuser, where the imperfections of the fibre modify the light intensity. By highlighting the identity of the material through the microscope, they explored what the linen could structurally become. When not in use, the objects in the collection become sculptural artefacts in space.
MYCELIUM PAVILION
by Sina Dyks
The „Growing Pavilion“ was a temporary event space. It consisted of panels that rested on wooden frames. The special feature: The outer panels were grown from mushrooms with the mycelium in the roots providing the necessary strength. Additionally, the panels were coated with a plant-based coating developed by Mexican Incas. Complementing this wall concept, the floors were covered with cattails - a type of reed - and the benches were made of agricultural waste.
All in all, the concept offers a flexible and sustainable system and signalizes in an inventive way that already today changes in the construction industry are very well possible.