Design Academy Eindhoven

My favourite part is definitely DAE. It presents both the thesis and questions asked as well as a solution. Sometimes the thoughts are more powerful than the results and also it opens a possibility to think about the problem on your own. You can find all(?) of the projects here. I'd like to point out just some that caught my attention*(see above).

Lisanne Koning / Inside the box

thesis: By printing the cardboard boxes, in which the first-aid is shipped, these can be then used as toys for children.
comment: The concept of this project is great but I’d also love to see it implemented and put into practise. Although looks very promising but the question is whether it would be able to face the real life conditions. 

Ventri / Billie van Katwijk
thesis: Finding new usage cow stomachs that are generally considered a waste product. solution: transforming each of 4 cows stomachs into unique range of leather products
comment: I have to admit I was repelled even to touch it at first, knowing it’s cows stomachs I even got goosebumps. But I really loved the different shapes and textured and that eventually persuaded me to overcome my disgust.

Ensemble / Cécilia Maarawi
thesis: A range of women swimwear bridging the gap between traditional burkiny and too revealing bikiny. Giving the wearer the option to choose based on their own personal level of comfort. 
comment: Even as a "western" woman I feel like my options are similarly reduced. I'd really appreciate having a wider range of possibilities. Moreover I find the swimsuit very pretty and it would be something I'd like to wear!

Body and Mind / Shani Langberg
thesis: Body sensors should give us a better overview of our body but instead they actually distance us from it. By building feedback loops into garments these should help us to find ways to adjust out behaviour uncounsiosly rather than having to interpret what the sensors tell us and what does it mean.
comment: Very nice observation. Having too much information can be actually stressful hence missing the point of improving our lives in the first place. Here the feedback loop is the most important part, since it's working without control of the of user you may end up getting into self-worsening state.

How to overcome the fear of failure
thesis: Design tends to present only the nice and clear results and thus hiding the messy and fialure full process. But there’s rarelly a success without some frustrations on the way. By moving to new medium the author created for himself a room for failure.
comment: This is something I(and pretty much everyone I know) can relate to. So by showing imperfect objects, for me it doesn't evoke failure, on contrary I see courage to face imperfection while keeping your mind open. Also, it's very refreshing to see such a project in a room full of shiny-pretty things. 

Plastics

It seems kind of obvious but in general the most reoccurring topic of this year was reusing plastics. Melting, bending, crushing, shaping – you name it. I'm just afraid that these very colourful and imperfect objects cannot survive in today's world of meticulous hand-work and perfect manufacturing. We’d have to re-embrace much rougher aesthetics of imperfection. And that got me thinking whether the problem of reusing plastics isn't the current aesthetics itself. Maybe our perception needs to change rather than trying to make it fit into the existing one. 

And if we take a step back, it applies as well. We all know that the current model of overproduction is not sustainable and yet is very hard to resist. And beauty is actually one of the means that make something appealing, thus creating the desire to own, although we know it's not good or necessary. 

Of course the ideal scenario would be stop using plastics altogether but we all know that's not going to happen any time soon. I don't think we can imagine our lives / even close to / the way we live them today without plastics. So the natural next step is trying to make them from bio-degradable materials with acceptance of it's natural properties and life-span. Quite some experiments are being conducted, material including cow's blood, natural oils, milk, etc.

3D Printing

Although (at least on the DDW) it seems like a common future household equipment, personalisation seems to be the next step in 3D printing. Self-assembled bras, knitwear even floors are just few out of many examples.

Bio-engineering

Bio-design was a big topic last year and it kind of went away (although I feel it will be coming back) hacking plants and simple animals like fungi and algae was on spotlight this year. Finding usages and application for these simple organism is now a new concept it just seemed that much more people were exploring this concept. 

Ethical dilemas

One of my favourite parts was actually an exhibition of the World design event – Ministry of Health, in particular one exhibit. It basically asked: If you had a chance to genetically modify your child, would you do it. Although at first it seems like a radicall question it is indeed a very important topic we have to start talk about soon. It's not growing bigger veggies we're talking about here..it's people and it's serious. And as we all know whenever we play with mother nature it has a strange sense of humor and ways of getting even.