“Free” is a word that comes up a lot when you talk to Babke Dekker about Rechargebales, the project she initiated with Jonathan Hofmeijer and Dries van Wagenberg, when they were offered some space for “free” during Dutch Design Week. The combination of low cost space and creative can-do people makes Eindhoven a very exciting place to be right now, and Rechargeables is a great example of the sort of things that are happening all over the city.
The brief to the designers commissioned to fill the space was to create something that people could interact with that would give them energy in some way to create a recharging oasis of calm within Dutch Design Week – beyond that they were completely “free” to do whatever they chose. Babke didn’t see it as the curator’s place to make an aesthetic judgement and wanted Rechargeables to be “a place where everything is possible.”
The result? From left to right, top to bottom:
- Roel de Boer‘s sleeping hut is insulated by planted succulents arranged in such a way that the water draining from one waters the one below and so on until the water is directed off the roof
- A greenhouse formed the centre piece of the installation, filled with work by a number of designers. Visitors were encouraged to explore, to sit and eat, to use the space however they liked
- Babke’s own collaboration with Jonathan Hofmeijer was a windmill that makes lemonade!
- Open wood fires surrounded the greenhouse to provide comfortable spaces for people to sit right into the evening – the hot soup helped too!
- Trudo is taking many of the old industry buildings in Eindhoven and redesigning them as residential accommodation
- Nienke Hoogvliet‘s laboratoy-inspired glassware is part of an interactive event that challenges perceptions about what is really in the food we eat.
- The reflecting curator cabinet by Thier & Van Daalen enables people to put treasured objects inside their mirrors
- Daniel Schipper‘s flatpack Urban Greenhouse encourages people to grow their own vegetables even if they live in an apartment, connecting children and adults alike to the source of their food
- The chicken coop is shaped like a combine harvester and designed to be moved around your garden so the chickens can turn over and fertilise different parts of the garden!
- A modern re-invention of glass blowing has turned this waste PET bottle into a beautiful vase with a handmade aesthetic
The “everything is possible” attitude sums up exactly what is so special about Eindhoven and so exciting about Dutch Design Week.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- out and about :: design academy eindhoven graduate show
- out and about :: imprint
- out and about :: ldf13 at the v&a
- out and about :: god is in the detail
