Future Design Thinking – China Focus at Dutch Design Week Eindhoven

Gepubliseerd op 01.11.2019

3NTRY China hosted a China Focus conference on Future Design Thinking, in partnership with the Groningen Confucius Institute, the City of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Trade and Innovate organisation. The conference and networking event took place during the 2019 Dutch Design Week, at Fifth NRE in Eindhoven, on 22 October from 12:00 to 17:00, attracting over 130 participants.

The first panel discussion,titled Creative Chances and Challenges in China, included panellists Ronald Ramakers, director of the GLOW Eindhoven Foundation, Marcel Schreuder, co-founder and managing partner of Springtime Design, Justus Bruns, co-founder of VOUW and Xiaocun Ruan, founder of East West Urban Consultancy.Marcel Schreuder pointed to the need of a solution to solve the redundancy and surplus of shared bikes, while Justus Bruns voiced his aim of making people aware of the vulnerability and fragility of the planet, through design. Xiaocun introduced the core business of training Chinese urban planners and architects for sustainable urban development. Ronald Ramakers, fascinated by Nanjing traditional art, suggested trust building and curiosity in the design processas focus points

Panellists during the Creative Chances and Challenges in China session

Daan Roggeveen, co-founder of the MORE Architecture firm in Amsterdam gave the first inspirational talk on the theme Go West, using examples of architectural developments in three Chinese cities to demonstrate three recent phenomena in China: rapid urbanisation, urban life culture and rural nostalgia. The second inspirational talk titled Good Medicine Tastes Bitter by Xinxu Weng, founder and chef-designer of YUUE design studio, showed how his upcycling of shared bicycles waste into lamps, seats and tables conveys the concept of reimagining everyday objects.

Xinxu Weng giving his talk on upcycling the waste of shared bicycle parts

Invited panellists for the second group discussion, Creative Narratives from the East, included Alice Wong, a Story Designer based in Eindhoven, Lu Liang, a graphic designer, Hang Feng, a graphic designer and visual artist, and Jian Lin, an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen.They shared the various creative perspectives in their work and advocated a more diverse stance on culture,a pluralistic approach to counter the ignorance and prejudice that arise from certain cultural stereo types, biases and attitudes.

In the third and last inspirational talk titled Leaving a Trace Between East and West,keynote speaker Wu Yue displayed some of his artistic work, expanding on how he creatively approached and completed his work from illustration to painting, from film animation to directing.
The successful event concluded with drinks and a silent disco, providing participants a platform to network and exchange a wealth of knowledge and ideas.