The Best of DDW 2016

Dutch Design Week 2016 (DDW) is right in the midst of the second and last weekend. This year, too, the week is a great success, which is really down to all the designers. They are showing off their best projects at one of the more than 430 events taking place in Eindhoven this week. The quality of the participants’ designs, projects and exhibitions is unprecedented. It is exactly this quality that Dutch Design Week wants to celebrate. So we asked seven scouts to nominate two designs, projects or presentations each together with the public for The Best of DDW 2016.

Selection committee

For the last few days Ad van Berlo (founder of VanBerlo), Teresa van Dongen (winner Dutch Design Awards), Bert Hagendoorn (Dutch Digital Design), Peter Kentie (director Eindhoven 365), Kari Korkman (director Helsinki Design Week), Evelien Reich (Elle Decoration) and Janny Rodermond (former director Creative Industries Fund) visited all the DDW presentations in search of the most surprising exhibition, emerging talent and extraordinary projects. These are the chosen projects from The Best of DDW 2016. From these projects, the DDW ambassadors Bas van Abel and Maarten Baas will choose a talent that they believe deserves an exceptional incentive prize. This incentive prize will be announced on Sunday 30 October.

THE PROJECTS

These 16 projects have been selected for The Best of DDW 2016 by the public and our scouts:

The public favourites are the regular Dutch Design Week exhibitions:

•        Dutch Design Awards Exhibition

•        Graduation Show, Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE).

Our scouts delved deeper into the presentations for young students and chose these emerging talents:

•        Guide to Satellite Surveillance by Anastasia Kubrak (DAE)

•        Tulip Vase by Jing He (DAE)

•        Genees Smakelijk by Naomi Jansen (DAE)

•        Forest Wool by Tamara Orjola (DAE)

•        Hugsy, a project by Jiachun Du, Lisa Smits, Sylvie Claes, Miguel Cabral Guerra by the TU/e (Mind the Step)

•        Our Public Youth by Helen Kirkum (Modebelofte)

Elsewhere during the week our scouts spotted lots of talent. A project that was picked out was the interactive rocking chair (DDW Music Lab) by Jeroen Strijbos and Rob van Rijswijk. In addition, the  cross-overs between design and technology produced two tips: Manifestations – Will the Future Design Us? by MAD emergent art center & ViolaVirus and Enversed Realities by Enversed.

Within the DDW theme, ‘The Making of’, the scouts also devoted attention to the makers and the making processes. They appreciated the gesture by Bart Hess who allowed the public to watch him at work in his studio. Earth to Table, by Atelier NL and Dutch Cuisine (and the exceptional cooperation between Mattmo Creative, the Onkruidenier, CuliCultuur.Com and Heerlijk Anders), connecting product, raw materials and the making, is, according to our scouts, among the 16 chosen projects.

Finally, the scouts included the exhibition Broken White by the Design Academy Eindhoven in cooperation with the Van Abbemuseum, the exhibition Eindhoof je mee by Tante Netty in the Eindhoven Town Hall and the presentation of Agri Meets Design on the Ketelhuisplein in the selection.

What do they get?

With these selected projects it is clear that DDW is a wide ranging design festival with attention for every aspect of design. The winners can sport the title The Best of DDW 2016 for a whole year. Tomorrow the DDW ambassadors Bas van Abel and Maarten Baas will choose the talent from these projects that they feel deserves a special incentive prize. The designer of this project will, in addition to this honour, also receive € 2,500 (from a private sponsor) for a project and a guaranteed place during DDW 2017. The winner of the incentive prize will be announced on Sunday 30 October.