Three weeks did our five groups of students have to realise design an interior for an actual client to be presented during The Great Indoors Design Route.

Inspired by workshops and lectures from Jurgen Bey, Alexander van Slobbe, Gillian Schrofer, Bart Guldemond, Anouk Vogel, Chris Kabel, Wieki Somers, Bas van Tol, Christiane Muller, Vinca Kruk, Daniel van der Velden and Fred Greve they worked day and night to realise five impressive designs for clients such as top chef Hans van Wolde (Beluga) and hotelier Camille Oostwegel (Chateau hotels).

The Nominees of The Great Indoors Award 2009 were their judges and selected the design for a night shelter for The Salvation Army as the winner. The winning group received The Great Expectations Award! Read all about the students design below.

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SHELTER

Here the local Salvation Army was the client, and the question was to rethink the current shelter where the homeless can only spend the night. Keywords for this shelter is safety, hygiene, privacy, soberness, and separation.

 

The current shelter is functioning, but it is not a popular location for the homeless to spend the night. If they can, they look for alternatives. The shelter only takes care of people for one night and they don’t expect any kind of responsibility from their night guests.

 

The homeless have developed their own habits whilst living on the streets. For example they carry their personal belongings close to them at all times, and at night they sleep on top of them to protect them from getting stolen. In the shelter however they need to part with their worldly possessions, which they need to store in a locker during the night. In addition the homeless spend the nights in bunk beds, in crowded rooms with very little privacy, since there are camera’s everywhere.

 

The design challenge here was to come up with a design that is more related to their life on the streets. In effect a design that enables them to keep their own belongings with them – stored underneath the mattress in the specially designed bunk beds. In addition to add an item – the blanket - that gives the homeless even more privacy at night when it works as a separation curtain, and that during the day on the streets can keep them warm.

 

The act of taking care and returning the blanket creates some responsibility; therefore the homeless person becomes part of a routine with a daily scheme. This is a first step to reintegrate into the social system where he can be trusted and respected.

 

CLIENT

The Salvation Army, Maastricht

 

DESIGNERS

Mahen de Beule (Media & Design Academy Genk)

Mie Frey Damgaard (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Farina Frank (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

Tom Tack (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Sun Veerman (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

 

MENTORS

Daniël van der Velden and Vinca Kruk

AND

Jurgen Bey, Alexander van Slobbe, Fred Greve and Cor Peussens

 

LOCATION

Townhouse Hotel Maastricht, lid van La Bergère group

 

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SHOP

What if your client is Winkeldochters, an online second hand clothing store that sells vintage top brands? How would you create a webshop in real life?

 

Buying is about seducing. And online you need to seduce people in a different way, since they can’t touch the actual product, nor try it on. An online purchase is made based on the information given about the product in photo’s and description. The customer relies heavily on his own imagination: how the clothing would fit and look. And on the possibilities of having virtual contact with a salesperson via mail. So an online purchase comes down to information and interaction, to the sole communication of (visual) information about products.

 

In effect there is no point in designing a real shop for an online shop, if we are talking about ‘changing ideals’. Instead the retail space that was available could better be used to promote the webshop as such.

 

The unique approach of the webshop, that centres around exchange and sharing of unique vintage pieces, rather than mass consuming them, is to stimulate the imagination of the potential customer by seducing them to go online for a virtual shopping spree.

 

Therefore our design for the space is to mark it with a flag, to turn the window into a real-life computer screen where the potential shopper is seduced by being dressed in Dior and Gucci. The visitor can register as a client and even send paper e-mails. The design is a promotional stunt for a permanent virtual shop.

CLIENT

Winkeldochters & Kiki Niesten

 

DESIGNERS

Rony Chan (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Gerrit Hoppe (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

Joon Lee (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Maurizio Montalti (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Vicky Pauwels (Media & Design Academy Genk)

 

MENTORS

Chris Kabel and Wieki Somers

AND

Jurgen Bey, Alexander van Slobbe and Fred Greve

 

LOCATION MADE POSSIBLE BY

Cushman & Wakefield, Ad Hoc Beheer and Tenstone

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OFFICE

This commission was to design the ‘open’ office of local entrepeneur Paul Rinkens.

 

This office – renamed PR Office - is by definition a local hub for business networking. Acting as an open source hot spot between creatives and financiers, the system is designed to facilitate communication and collaboration, providing intermediary services between talented individuals and organizations. The space is free to use for transient meetings, improvised events, and serendipitous encounters, but it is expected that visitors will leave some information behind for other visitors to interact with.

 

Information left behind may include topics of discussion, formulated hypotheses, and conclusions reached.  By allowing for a focused build-up of this information, the office develops a history of activity over time and fosters an open-ended discourse.  Participants in the office are not labeled superficially by job title or profession, but rather by areas of interest, ambition, proximity. By operating as a content machine and talent agency, the office can create connections on a local level.

 

In effect what happens in this office on a local level in reality can be compared to the workings of the internet. The world wide web offers a surplus of search options and avenues for people to connect on a global scale. Yet when attempting to ‘navigate’ on a more local level, the lens of the world wide web is often not focused enough.  

 

The design of PR Office is conceptual. It literally wants to reflect what happened between these walls. PR Office brings attention to projects and ideas by making them visible. An entire wall of file drawers illustrates the networking library that is being created here. The furniture and extra large accessories are brought into hyper-reality. In this way the emphasis is put on the ‘language’ and the ‘myth’ of this office, as a place to literally share ideas.

 

CLIENT

Paul Rinkens (Conceptisch)

 

DESIGNERS

Frank Becker (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

Stefan Leuchter (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

Devereaux Noma (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

Patricia Schraven (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Dries Vandecruys (Media & Design Academy Genk)

Lisa van de Waterlaat (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

 

MENTORS

Bart Guldemond & Anouk Vogel

AND

Jurgen Bey, Alexander van Slobbe, Fred Greve, Matthieu Bruls

 

LOCATION MADE POSSIBLE BY

Conceptisch, lid van La Bergère group

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HOTEL

From hotelier Camille Oostwegel came the assignment to come up with a stand-alone hotel room that can be situated anywhere. Yet at the same time this hotel room should be able to be hooked up and connected to the real world. For the traveller of the future this would create the ultimate luxury of privacy in the one hand and being connected – if desired - on the other.

 

The idea behind this stand-alone hotel room is that it will be located in a (monumental) site that is characteristic for the city, during the season that fits the location. So for example placing the hotel room in the Sint Pietersberg caves in spring during the TEFAF. In summer the room could be placed somewhere else, thus offering unique opportunities to discover the city.

 

All hotel rooms are characterized by three functions: sleeping, bathing and working. In this design the circular space of the room can be divided in a different way to customize these functions in the different sites and locations. The walls, the skin, are made of soft material, so the guest is more connected to his environment and the circular shape emphasizes the temporary presence of the room, almost like a tent. The bathing area is contained within a box. There is a fine balance with privacy inside and the possibility to look out and enjoy the site.

 

CLIENT

Camille Oostwegel

 

DESIGNERS

José de la O (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Niels Engels (Media & Design Academy Genk)

Luke Jenkins (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Michael Leung (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Eva Sanders (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

 

MENTORS

Gillian Schröfer (Concern)

AND

Jurgen Bey, Alexander van Slobbe, Fred Greve, Henk Vos and Bart Kockelkoren

 

LOCATION MADE POSSIBLE BY

Dos Vastgoedmanagement

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SNACKBAR

 Hans van Wolde, chef of Maastrichts renowned restaurant Beluga, wishes to venture out to the world of the snack. It is his dream to serve a very simple and honest croquette with some good French fries. But on the other hand he wishes to create some lavish over-the-top snacks as well. So the challenge here was to design a fast food restaurant that caters for both ambitions.

‘Do I want to tone down, be pragmatic and minimalistic?’ or ‘do I prefer to live as if this was the last day of my life, give in to play, carelessness and indulgence?’. These are the choices the customer has in this snackbar. It is a place here you can go out for dinner for less money (pragmatism) or treat yourself to a guilty pleasure (Indulgence), both of which can be considered to be ‘changing ideals’.

 

In the design for this fast food restaurant the customer is given a choice. You can go for pragmatism or indulgence both in the interior and in the choice of food. Healthy or unhealthy are no longer issues at stake, all the food is prepared with the best biological ingredients and eaten in moderation all the snacks are healthy.

 

So the kitchen will offer the extremes in menu. The tastes go from very basic and clean to strong and rich. There are small little one bite snacks and food you can eat with your hands. The interior design offers the opposites in atmosphere from straightforward to playful. Turning this restaurant into a place of opposites. Yet in the core of this design one thing is fundamental: the restaurant serves comfort food made from good, honest ingredients in a relaxed atmosphere. But most importantly the snacks were a joy to prepare and will be an even greater joy to eat!

 

CLIENT

Hans van Wolde (Beluga) and Herman den Blijker

 

DESIGNERS

Lars Alleleijn (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

Olivia de Gouveia (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Nichon Glerum (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Saara Järvinen (Design Academy Eindhoven)

Joeri Reynaert (Media & Design Academy Genk)

Steffi Schmid (Academie Beeldende Kunsten Maastricht)

 

MENTORS

Bas van Tol en Christiane Müller

AND

Jurgen Bey, Alexander van Slobbe, Fred Greve, Matthieu Bruls

 

LOCATION MADE POSSIBLE BY

Beluga

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