IDENTITY
As a designer, I portray myself as someone who thrives on complex societal challenges and has a strong interest in the relationship between the (natural) environment, people and products. I love to work on different scale issues and in interdisciplinary ways; meaning I am not hesitant to switch between and engage with different perspectives, while also letting them co-exist within my work. For example, by zooming in on material properties and contextualizing these in a landscape-related experience.
Within projects, I enjoy working with some level of uncertainty and uncontrollability. This can be attributed to me working in between different disciplines/scales which, when mixed together, by no means present themselves as a paved road. Yet, this also means that I sometimes tend to be too ‘’romantic’’ in the sense that I stick to my vision and keep iterating on it, even though it is better to finetune the concept you have in order to realize it. Despite this challenge, it also leaves room for a potential spark, or inductive jump to occur; I think this ‘spark’ is something that distinguishes me as a designer, and therefore would be an interesting personal contribution to the field of design. By designing with ambiguous qualities, I want to create room for interpretation and imagination; zooming in on aesthetic friction and sensitivity can explore new dimensions and symbioses, which can be transposed into novel experiences and solutions. Yet, in order to manage this somewhat ‘’uncontrolled’’ way of designing, I also strive to incorporate participatory design within my work, thus involving people’s expertise in the design process to make context-bound decisions.
VISION
Design can help to change someone’s perception, interpretation, and engagement with the world. Given the state of our planet, we cannot be stuck with our definition, we must stop and rethink our relationship with the environment. We have to step on a new and more sustainable path, minimize our ecological impact, foster greener technology and be more space-efficient. Along these lines, I envision designing new symbiotic dimensions in public spaces, operating within the context of experiences, values and histories of both the user and the environment.
This approach coincides well with a biophilic design approach. Applying biophilic design has the capacity to alter the environmental conditions of a building or landscape in the short term, while over time supporting an ecologically robust and sustainable natural community. The question is not whether ecological change occurs, but rather if the net result over time will be a more productive and resilient natural environment as measured by indicators (e.g. biological diversity). I believe this is only possible when you are willing to design for other time frames than conventionally used; adopting an explorative and open-endedness within your design that aims to let users discover something they do not know yet. On a different note, I think incorporating principles that have lost their relevance in time and resituating them within modern society has the ability to be impactful and bring new value to those principles.
Essentially, I believe design should bring people closer to nature in a sense that both can seek refuge within their mutual public realm, thus rethinking their relationship to each other and to themselves. Rather than being rooted in dominance, the relationship between humans and nature should be based on a continuous process of reciprocal adaptation. By constituting this sense of awareness, responsibility and continuous exploration through design, I foresee environments that are socially and ecologically sound, yet also aesthetically satisfying.
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