Dutch Design Awards (DDA) has been leading in the interpretation of excellent Dutch design for years. Several Rotterdam-based nominees have won.
Independent expert juries of design specialists nominated three projects in each of the following categories: Product, Habitat, Communication, Fashion, Design Research, Data & Interaction, Best Commissioning, and Young Designer. They assessed the projects based on the criteria: impact, distinctive character, expressiveness, and production method, sometimes with additional category-specific criteria.
Dutch Design Awards go to Rotterdam
The category Habitat is for design and layout of private and public spaces that improve the quality of life. From infrastructure to interior and from cultural to commercial, permanent or temporary. Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen by MVRDV, led by Winy Maas has won.
Fashion looks at collections, unique pieces and accessories to offline or online performances. Yamuna Forzani got the award. She is a fashion designer, art director, organiser and member of the current Dutch ballroom scene. A community by and for trans BPOC people and non-binary and queer people of colour. In 2018 she came up with the concept of The Utopia Ball x Fashion Show. A traditional ballroom competition with an added fashion show.
The concept has since grown to become an alternative platform that celebrates and strengthens the (fashion) talent of young designers and this community. In 2021, the Utopia Ball was held in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. As part of Rotterdam Pride, co-organised with Seven Angels. During this ball there was a fashion show with designs from members of the Dutch and Parisian ballroom communities: Timothy Scholte, Michelle TSM, Augusto Junior and Miidorie.
Catalyst for the sustainable (re)development of M4H
WATERSCHOOL M4H+ has won the Design Research-category. Commissioned by IABR (International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam) and together with forty designers, Studio Makkink & Bey has researched the optimal ecological habitat for the 6,300 future inhabitants of Merwe-Vierhavens in Rotterdam (M4H+). The project includes a sustainable and circular learning environment. In which our disproportional western footprint becomes clear in terms of water use. Insects, duckweed, seaweed, wood, and fungi are the five resources that shape the future of living and working in M4H+ and can influence it on all fronts. By gathering and disseminating knowledge, WATERSCHOOL M4H+ works as a catalyst for the sustainable (re)development of the area.
The prize for Best Commissioning bodies that make strategic and structural use of designers and design in their organisation or institute. From selection and briefing to offering space for creativity and safeguarding the results within their organisation. Victim Support Fund asked Morrow to touch upon the core of design as a strategy with WTFFF!?, connecting young people and helping them start a conversation about online sexual abuse. Morrow took this raw task as the basis for the interactive platform WTFFF!?, made by and for the first generation growing up with social media. The stories can be discovered while scrolling through an intriguing illustration and are told by the young people themselves.
