DOEN | Materiaalprijs - Dutch Design Week

Designs with a future
Each year, the DOEN | Materiaalprijs amasses the best design ideas, highlighting the potential of Dutch creativity and ingenuity to develop and apply pioneering, eco-friendly materials and techniques. The competition serves as a platform for a wealth of designs that will help fuel innovative enterprises with a future. Once again, this year’s submissions feature a myriad of new materials and applications, a striking number of which are the outcome of personal, in-depth research resulting in fresh, original designs like the ones described below.

Marjan van Aubel designed The Energy Collection, a range of smart glassware able to gather sun from the surroundings, storing it in the accompanying cabinet that functions as a battery. Everything works on the basis of solar cell technology built into the tableware. So when you use a glass or plate, the built-in solar cell is constantly working to generate energy. An example of one of the latest technological feats integrated into an everyday product.

Less of an everyday commodity is Lieske Schreuder’s Snail Poop Linoleum. Discovering snails’ appetite for paper, she noticed that the colour of their excrement takes on the colour of the paper they eat. Schreuder’s research resulted in an entirely new material – snail poop used in the production of colourful linoleum.

Charcoal and diamonds share a chemical kinship, and belong to the same carbon group, C6. With this as her starting point, Gitte Nygaard achieved a remarkable alchemical transformation, creating diamonds from charcoal. She applied the process in Black to Binchotan, as an alternative to traditional diamond mining, often a drain on natural resources and responsible for appalling labour conditions.

These three nominated projects testify to the enormous variety of experimental materials and applications. Among the other nominees are: Overtreders W and Bureau SLA, Kirstie van Noort, Tristan Frencken, Jan Eric Visser, Gianata Gatto, Steven Banken, Jorrit Taekema, Elena Pereira, Niels Veraart and Daniël Coenraats, Sander Veenhof, Tom van Soest, Jo Meesters, Renée Boute, Formafantasma and Berber Soepboer. Each of the nominated designs can be seen on our website:

The 2012 nomination committee comprised Max Bruinsma (editor-in-chief of Items Magazine), Aart van Bezooyen (founder and director of Material Stories), Tjeerd Veenhoven (winner of the DOEN | Materiaalprijs Incentive Prize 2011), Arjen Bangma (director of Transnatural Arts, Research & (future) Design) and Joanna van der Zanden (curator and artistic director of the Rotterdam Design Prize).

Prize-giving and exhibition during Dutch Design Week
All the selected designs will be on exhibit in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week, from 20 to 28 October. Prior to the exhibition, an expert jury will select the two prize-winning designs. The DOEN | Materiaalprijs awards two prizes: one of 15,000 euro for a final design and an incentive prize of 5,000 euro for a concept that has not yet been put into production. The winners will be announced during the award ceremony on Saturday 20 October 2012 in the Van Abbemuseum.

Initiators
The DOEN | Materiaalprijs is a joint initiative of the Materiaalfonds voor Beeldende Kunst en Vormgeving and Stichting DOEN. Both organisations believe that artists and designers have a decisive role to play in shaping a sustainable world.

The Materiaalfonds provides visual artists, designers, fashion designers and architects with interest-free loans for an artistic project or production. The aim of the fund is to stimulate the financial and economic independence of creative professionals and to promote new developments in art and design.

Stichting DOEN is committed to shaping a liveable world in which everyone has a part to play. DOEN is looking for pioneers and change-makers; people committed to improving the environment, and to building an open, cohesive society. With financial support from the BankGiro Loterij, DOEN is able to back a variety of innovative cultural activities, of which the DOEN | Materiaalprijs is an excellent example.

The DOEN | Materiaalprijs 2012 is produced by Tuttobene.