Waste Streams and New Material Value at Dutch Design Week 2026

At Dutch Design Week 2026, taking place in Eindhoven from 17–25 October, designers explore how discarded materials can become resources for new products and surfaces. Glass, sanitaryware, construction waste, coffee grounds and aluminium offcuts provide starting points for six projects. Their approaches range from developing new material compositions to letting the dimensions and properties of existing remnants guide design.

New Lives for Glass

Glass beyond Glass, by designer Carina Riezebos and Belgian company Saido, investigates new applications for post-consumer glass. The collaboration incorporates recycled glass into mineral composites and combines it with complementary materials, including textiles. Drawing on glass craftsmanship and material research, the project explores possibilities for product design, architecture and interiors.

Liquid Relic, by Billie van Katwijk, approaches glass through another residual stream. The designer incorporates residues from wastewater treatment into glass, where they influence colour and texture. Experiments with fusing, slumping and lampworking form a growing material archive. Samples, objects and jewellery make these usually hidden residues visible, connecting material exploration with the systems that produce them.

Bringing Building Waste Indoors

Porcelain in Presence investigates how discarded sanitaryware can return to architecture as ceramic surfaces. The research developed two workable formulations containing 20% and 50% recycled material. Slip casting enables forms beyond flat tiles, including curved reliefs, hollow sections and interlocking modules. Alongside technical development, the project examines how revealing a material’s previous use affects its acceptance.

Constructed Commons, by Thomas Jackman Kuwabara, transforms construction waste collected in Madrid into domestic objects. Seating, lighting and smaller products demonstrate how building materials can find new applications through simple fabrication techniques. Freely accessible manuals allow others to reproduce, adapt and develop the designs, making knowledge sharing part of the reuse process.

Letting Leftovers Shape Design

Bakkie, presented by PLANQ, gives a familiar furniture form a different material foundation. The project uses coffee grounds as a raw material for a shell chair, extending the brand’s earlier research into furniture made from discarded textiles. An everyday residue becomes part of an object intended for spaces where people gather.

In 01 ALU EDITION, curated design platform ECHO brings together designers working with aluminium offcuts from extrusion profiles and street lighting production. Existing shapes, dimensions and material properties guide their responses. Furniture, objects, installations and experiments reveal how different practices can develop contrasting outcomes from the same residual resource.

Across these projects, material reuse involves decisions about processing, form and perception. Some designers change a waste stream’s composition; others work directly with its existing characteristics. Together, they show how the origin of a material can inform both its next application and the way people understand its value.

Source & photos via Dutch Design Week