Philips, PSV, Noord-Brabant; these are the three words that would pop up to my mind when asked about Eindhoven. Well, that was the case before our first ever visit to this city… Our visit to Eindhoven was packed with interesting encounters on the art, history and design realm. We arrived there around 14.30 and left around 17.30, so we had only 3 hours to spend here and walked 12.039 steps.
Despite our limited amount of time, we discovered three ways where the past, present and the future can be found that makes Eindhoven a special place in our eyes.
1. Know where you are and what you can do: City Beacons
Eindhoven is known as the Design Capital of the Netherlands. At least, that’s how they are branding themselves. A walk in the city center already provides a walk in a design paradise, with — what Dima called — curvy designs. What interested us the most however and where we spent some time were the City Beacons. These are information points scattered around the center where people can inquire about what the city has to offer.
2. A dive into the City’s history
Another nice thing about Eindhoven is how they are encouraging people to know the history of the town. There is a checkpoint in the middle of the city with a memory game. The checkpoint confronts the visitor with the question what he or she would’ve done in case of occupation (“Nothing”, “Fight”, “Fly”). We also learned for example that Eindhoven is the only city in the Netherlands that is organising events around their own Liberation Day (18 September). We also played the memory game that consisted of several pictures related to the resistance.
3. Getting in touch with design that makes you think…
That’s what describes the walking adventure we had last Saturday during the Dutch Design Week (DDW) 2019 in Eindhoven. We went to the following free exhibitions in the City Center:
Waste-picker Ecosystem: Mexico City and Bangalore
A huge banner near the entrance of the shop with a comparison of the ecosystem of the waste-picking in Mexico City and Bangalore welcomed visitors. From this overview one can see that there are different ways of waste-picking at places where there is no official waste management. In Mexico City there are volunteers involved who, based on economic incentives and on their own initiative, pick waste and sell them. In Bangalore, the Non-Governmental Organisations are more involved in the waste-picking process by providing means to enhance the working conditions of waste-pickers. To illustrate the overview, there were stories of waste-pickers at the exhibition. For the stories of Pedro and the street sweeper, please check our podcast Walkaholic Discoveries.
Moving IN waste
At our next destination, a part of the shop was covered in pink foils hanging from the ceiling. You could walk through the foils to experience its vehemence. It felt like finding your way through the jungle — although I have to admit that I have never experienced that… At some point there was an open circle where you could take a moment to reflect. This exhibition showed the amount of waste generated by housing. Not only building houses, but also packaging material in huge amounts of waste.
China: hometown in my dream
A sidestep from the DDW and the Netherlands, even Europe, we found ourselves in the exhibition South of the Clouds that portrayed mostly paintings, but also embroideries from Chinese artists from the Yunnan province. Different shades of blue, orange, yellow, green, the colours were dancing on the paintings.
Dead stock
Sometimes you don’t need words to describe something. It only takes one glance or in other cases some deep thoughts to understand what the object in front of you is trying to tell you. This piece of art did exactly that…
Digital & Running
Next stop was all about running, my favourite activity! (Not!) As much as I love walking, I don’t have any special feelings for running. Nothing at all~ I always complain about my knees, and here I found something that could actually benefit me: Kneempact, a sensor warning you for overexerting your knees. There were also other prototypes of products that could enhance the running experience such as running capsules to prevent overexercising; storytelling devices that give location specific information such as how many runners passed at that location , etc.; bracelet with different patterns to share your exercise intentions with friends; and a hanger that would light up and move to get you dress up for exercising.
Gem Tower
Our last stop was the GEM Tower: Green Energy Mill. A large tower that provides energy to festivals and can be transferred in one truck, and build in approximately three hours!
Check our podcast WalkaholicDiscoveries for more information!
Walkaholic Discoveries 
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