At Dutch Design Week 2025 (18–26 October, Eindhoven), sensory experience and emotional connection take centre stage. Designers move beyond functionality to explore how light, texture, and material behaviour influence wellbeing and perception. The result is a collection of works that shape atmosphere — quietly changing how we see, feel, and inhabit space.

The Beauty of the Unseen

In Transnatural’s Invisible Matters, designers and artists explore the hidden systems that sustain life in urban landscapes. Part of the multi-year programme Radical City inc., the exhibition presents works where human, natural, and architectural forces coexist. Through projects by Fillip Studios & Omlab, Martens & Visser, and others, it reveals how design can visualise air, moisture, and biodiversity — making the invisible dynamics of our environment perceptible, poetic, and restorative.

Light as a Medium for Calm

In Transparency & Fluidity by A+N Studio, fused glass becomes a portal for light, reflection, and shadow. Inspired by the way sunlight ripples across water, the glass wall objects create meditative “light machines.” Their shifting patterns evoke what psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan described as soft fascination — visual experiences that gently capture attention and restore focus. The installation invites slow observation, turning light into a medium for wellbeing.

Contrast as Creative Energy

Designer Goof Mosmans takes an opposite yet complementary approach in Where Contrast Creates Impact. His furniture and lighting designs play with opposites — curved and angular, bright and muted, wood and metal — to create visual tension and curiosity. The pieces remind visitors that design’s emotional power lies not only in harmony but also in the interplay of difference.

Solar Design for Livable Cities

At Ketelhuisplein, the Umbra Pavilion by Studio Pauline van Dongen and Tentech turns solar technology into an architectural experience. Its woven solar textile, heliotex, provides shade while harvesting sunlight. By day, the canopy cools; by night, it glows. The installation reframes solar energy as something tactile, cultural, and civic — a poetic gesture toward cities that both generate and regenerate.

Digital Craft with Personality

BLUBA Studio’s collection Please Be Seated brings emotional character to 3D printed furniture. Made from biodegradable PLA, each stool or lamp balances bold form with soft light and texture. Rather than hiding the production process, the layered surfaces celebrate it, recording time and craft within digital manufacturing.

Ceramic Playfulness

In Enza, design duo CortoMagDelft redefines ceramics as sculptural, woven, and alive with imagination. Their ceramic stools, paired with petal-like cushions and playful details, blur the boundary between art object and furniture. Each piece invites touch and interpretation, transforming clay into a medium for narrative and joy.

Emotional Sustainability

Across these works, design becomes a sensory dialogue. Whether through reflective glass, 3D printed patterns, or solar textiles, the focus is on how materials make us feel — and how they connect us to our environment. In a world seeking balance, atmosphere becomes sustainability’s quiet partner: nurturing care, attention, and presence through design that resonates.

Source & photos: Dutch Design Week