Morning programme: Today’s Materials for Tomorrow’s Interiors

On Thursday 14 March, the vistor of MaterialDistrict Rotterdam can enjoy a sensational speaker programme with the theme ‘Today’s materials for tomorrow’s interiors’, in which renowned (inter)national architects, scientists, designers, and other experts share the latest innovations regarding materials.

Lex Pott employs a raw and intuitive method. In his work, he returns to the origin of the materials he uses most: wood, stone and metal. He does not hide his designs under indirect layers, but reduces them to their very essence. Pott works from his design studio based in Rotterdam. He graduated cum laude in 2009 at the Design Academy Eindhoven. 

Miriam van der Lubbe is an experienced designer with a demonstrated history of working in the design industry. She is skilled in Product and Interior Design, Work places and health environments, Museums, Concept Development, Design Thinking, and Design Strategy. Miriam is also co-founder of Dutch Design Week and a strong entrepreneurship professional with a MFA focused in Applied arts from Sandberg Institute.

Arne Lijbers is associate architect at Mecanoo architecten, founded in Delft in 1984. Their experience, gained over three decades, results in designs that are realised with technical expertise and great attention to detail. Mecanoo’s projects range from single houses to complete neighbourhoods and skyscrapers, cities and polders, schools, theatres and libraries, hotels, museums, and even a chapel. 

Jos Stuyfzand leads the global experience design consulting team for Philips Healthcare Transformation Services. His multi-disciplinary global design team is part of Philips Design creative force of some 500+ design professionals and more than 25 nationalities. Its headquarters are in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and it has 10 branch studios in various parts of Europe, the USA, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Lunch programme: Raquel Laranjeira by Amorim

Cork is an incredibly versatile natural material, that is harvested from living cork oak trees. The trees are unharmed by the process, and they continue producing cork for an average of 150 years. Amorim, the largest producer of cork products, presents a lecture about this material.

Raquel Laranjeira is designer at Amorim.

Afternoon programme: Today’s Materials for Tomorrow’s Textiles & Fabrics

On Thursday 14 March, the vistor of MaterialDistrict Rotterdam can enjoy a sensational speaker programme with the theme ‘Today’s materials for tomorrow’s textiles & fabrics’, in which renowned (inter)national architects, scientists, designers, and other experts share the latest innovations regarding materials.

Anne Marie Commandeur is specialised in textile innovation for both interior and apparel. She heads a team of multidisciplinary designers working on creation and communication in the area of material innovation, forecasting, colour trends and strategic design concepts. Her work includes projects for Heimtextil, Swarovski, INVISTA and Textile View Magazine among others. She lectures on trend forecasting and design application at Design Academy Eindhoven and is appointed as guest lecturer and external examiner at various international design schools and universities.

Title: State of Emergency

By expression and creation Niek Pulles aka HEYNIEK is building a bridge between the present and the future. He brings out his vision and dreams about our manufacturable prospective through the use of inventive material, technology and visual communication. His story and authentic message is asking us questions about who we are, how we see the future and how we want to experience it. Niek takes the lead and shows us how he creates this language.

Working alongside the traditional fashion system, Liselore Frowijn did several internships, one at Peter Pilotto in London, the UK, and one with textile company Mantero Seta S.p.A in Como, Italy, before working as a freelance-designer for companies, all while developing seasonal collections with my own studio. These were presented in Paris fashion week by a catwalk-show as well as a showroom devoted to my eponymous brand. Her signature is recognisable for its bold sense of colours, prints and the layering, both conceptually and materially.

Simone Post is a Dutch textile and product designer. She graduated with honours from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2015 and since then her work has received numerous accolades and been distinguished with several international awards and nominations including ‘Domotex Best Studio Artist Design’, ‘Dutch Design Award Product’. Her work is characterized by material experiments, in-depth research and a love for colour, print and crafts. She strives for her designs to be sustainable, either in terms of material use or with reference to cultural heritage like traditions, storytelling, clothing and traditional skills and technologies.

Morning programme: Conscious Leather

Bags of plant fibers, a fish leather stool and leathery accessories of cow stomachs. Designers devise all sorts of sustainable alternatives for leather. And develop ways and methods to give leather a longer life or to recycle and reuse leather. 

Leonne Cuppen is owner, designer and curator at Yksi Connect, which connects designers with the industry, initiates cooperation and brings parties together.

Simon Angel is Curator Sustainable Innovations at Munich Fabric Start that opens the new season twice yearly with a vast selection of collections ranging from plains to haute couture fabrics and accessories.  

Shahar Livne is a conceptual material designer located in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Her lifelong fascinations in nature, biology, science, and philosophy developed into intuitive material experimentation way of work during her bachelor studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Shahar’s body of work focuses on conceptual material research in a multi-leveled methodology, bringing to life narratives through objects and installations centered around materials as carriers of narratives.

Nicole van Enter is a renowned footwear forecaster and visionary, with a broad background in engineering, journalism, marketing and design. She is known for seeing connections where others do not and to create innovative solutions that improve the footwear industry from the inside out.

Agniezka Mazur is a material and design researcher focusing on developing materials and personal vision of design. Not only the craft of leather processing got the attention of Agnieszka during a trip to Morocco, but also the remnants that remain. She made a few tapestries by hand from leftovers of leather, which she named Medina. The patterns arise more or less by chance, as a result of the availability of the material. Imperfection as the basis for new beauty.

Lunch programme: Victor Mids by Michel Oprey & Beisterveld

Michel Oprey & Beisterveld presents a lecture by illusionist Victor Mids.

Victor Mids is a famous Dutch illusionist and actor. Last year Victor became an ambassador for the brand Neolith, distributed by Michel Oprey & Beisterveld. Not only will Victor tell about why he became an ambassador and why he thinks the sintered stone of Neolith is an amazing product, Victor will also do one or two illusions with Neolith. You don’t want to miss this.

Afternoon programme: Pakhuis de Zwijger

Pakhuis de Zwijger is a unique cultural organisation which opened its doors in 2006 and has grown to be an independent platform for and by the city of Amsterdam and its inhabitants.

Els Zijlstra is founder and Creative Director of MaterialDistrict. Her specialties include finding solutions for material challenges and connecting the creative professional with design industry to generate innovation and business, and seeing material potential that no one else sees!

Martijn Vinke is director and co-owner of Triboo, a company that designs, supplies and maintains circular furniture. They transform materials that are commonly considered waste into beautiful interior products. 

Tjeerd Veenhoven is a product designer with a love for inventing materials and production techniques. In his mind being a designer is much more than just aesthetics or expressing trends, for him it is closer to activism. From his studio in the North of Holland he experiments with materials and crafts from all over the world, developing new products to strengthen local economies, ecological awareness and design thinking.