Your UT project at Dutch Design Week?

Monday 12 July 2021

DUTCH DESIGN WEEK IS COMING: AND YOUR PROJECT MIGHT BE PART OF IT!

Every year in October, Dutch Design Week (DDW) takes place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. DDW is the biggest design event in Northern Europe, where thousands of designers present their work and ideas. Last year, the programmes were organised a little bit different due to COVID-19 regulations. But this year the organisation is going for it: a hybrid (which means physical ánd online) event, from the 16th until the 24th of October. And your project could be part of Up Close & Personal by Design United

DDW21: The Greater Number

Every programme has its own themes and its own ways of showcasing, but they all connect to this year's DDW theme: 'The Greater Number'; the quest for the better number. With this theme, DDW on the one hand calls for less. Less consumption, less production, and therefore less waste. On the other hand, we know less isn't always possible and that when it comes to more, it should be better. In other words, more sustainable products with more value, so that consumers deal with products differently. The theme is about striving to change the behaviour of consumers and manufacturers. By looking for renewed value between consumer and product, we can move towards changes in design practices. Related themes are:

The pandemic
Wellbeing economy
Climate
Inclusivity
Design field

Visit the website of Dutch Design week for more information about 'The Greater Number'

Up Close & Personal

Up Close & Personal is a programme organised by Design United, the 4TU research centre of design, with representatives who work at the universities of technology in the Netherlands: University of Twente, TU Delft, Wagingen University and Eindhoven University of Technology. In Up Close & Personal 2021 we will communicate state-of-the-art design research to illustrate, reflect and criticise the role of design in society. We will do that around the following 5 themes:

Entangled Ecologies

Designers processes and the products they produce, originate and function within multiple entangled ecologies, including the natural, social and technological. These entanglements challenge designers to identify interdependencies within and across worldly phenomena and find ways to address them together. Singling out elements of an ecology is simply not possible when engaging it in a design.

Connected Interactions

A consequence of ecological thinking in design is that interactions have both a local and global implications. The theme Connected Interactions brings home the idea that interacting with something can be meaningful for a particular time and place or can be alien to it, has impact on other interactions taking place, and can even transcend particular situations, producing effects beyond the local circumstances.

Changing Things

Many ‘things’ that designers envision and make are no longer singular but plural: things with multiple identities and material substrates. Organic living material combined with digital material, assemblages of human and artificial intelligences, blends of machines and meanings. How does this plurality challenge our perceptions of things and which tools and techniques do designers have at their disposal to craft them?

Embedded Designers

How are designers embedded in the ecologies in which they design and intend to transform? Their mere presence is not neutral. How do they choose their position? How do they deal with situations in which they find themselves, and how do they enable change: from within or from the outside, as humble catalysts, or as outspoken activists?

Evolving Methodologies

Design as a discipline is evolving and so as the collective methods and techniques that constitute it. What are the current and future challenges for design as a contributing, co-existing, identical, or even as an opposing discipline to the Social sciences, Humanities and Engineering?

TARGET GROUPS:

Online and real-life visitors of the Dutch Design Week, internal and external network of the four technical universities (students, researchers, employees, collaboration partners, etc.)

ACTIVITIES:

Physical exhibition
eMagazine (last year's edition)
5 themes, 5 talkshows (example of last year, together with the eMagazine)

Yes, I want to join! What do I need to do?

Will you join the UT community of designers/design researchers at Dutch Design Week 2021? Fill in this registration form before the 13th of August! The UT project team and Dutch Design Week need specific information and you might have some requirements as well. Don't worry, we will guide you through the registration process as you are answering the questions on the go. Medio August, the project team will select the projects that comply to the guidelines of both Dutch Design Week and the programme. We will contact you with further information.

Questions?

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