Part II: Eindhoven and Dutch Design Week

The next installment of my fall break adventures, dutch design week in Eindhoven (WARNING: super image heavy post):

Sunday School of Madness, this was a great exhibit.

I loved this, see description above. ID+Shoes= <3

one word: BIOPLASTICS

This bathroom terrified me, I thought I was in a David Lynch film.

I'll write more about these soon.

Plastic bags, way better than the uarts grad that did this.

UNDERGROUND BIKE PARKING GARAGE?! I am in love with this country.

I had such a great time in Eindhoven. I had the whole week planned out with design week activities, but I only ended up staying in town for two days instead of four or five. When one is in the Netherlands, one must go to Amsterdam. But more on that later. Eindhoven is a lovely little city in the south of the country. The great european god of cheap flights, Ryanair, flies there from Pisa for less than the price of a new winter coat (which I should have brought with me, brrr!). I arrived in town Tuesday afternoon, with a good amount of daylight to wander around and eventually end up at my couch for the night. Yes couch. I am yet another success story with couch surfing. I stayed two lovely ladies in Eindhoven, was greeted with pumpkin soup when I got there, and was lent a bike the next day. Really it was great. You get a much better sense of the city when you actually get to know the people that live there and how they live. 

On Wednesday I had a full day of dutch design. I got to check out the student work at both the Design Academy Eindhoven and the technical university. It's funny how design student shows always have the common thread. Not saying anything to mean that the work is sub par, but we all just seem to be thinking about similar things. How technology and objects can bring people together rather than push them farther apart. So far no school has shown me any magic solution. The student shows were by far my favorite though, especially the design academy (grad school? maybe?). 

The main building and heart of the event was in Strijp-S, the run down industrial area, that like so many of those spots is now experiencing an art/design-fueled renaissance. Sweet buildings though, if I may be so eloquent. Overall this part of the show was a lot like dutch ICFF. A super nerdy highlight of mine was actually getting to sit in Droog's 'Do Hit' chair. They're not nearly as protective of it as DroogNYC is. (Just so I can say Droog one more time: Guess who's flagship was less than a block away from my Amsterdam hostel. Yes, you're right, they were). Also deli.wear was another favorite. Any of my ID classmates can join in a collective giggle about the bioplastics experiment nosing its way into an international show. Mind you, bioplastic = somewhat more sophisticated high school science project of evaporated mix of gelatin and glycerin. But I do like the spin they put on it.

And to top it off, that night I saw the wonderful documentary Citizen Architect, and got a button with my face on it!