3D Printing at Dutch Design Week: The Klokgebouw

During Dutch Design Week, the city of Eindhoven becomes a hub for design. Over a quarter of a million people attend and there are over 100 venues and 2500 participating designers. Events, presentations and shows (and many parties) are held all across town.

The Klokgebouw is but one building of the entire series of events. In this building we can find a lot of startups, businesses and industrial design students showcasing their work. This year I saw dozens of projects that were either 3D printing related or that used 3D printing to prototype. Here is a small selection. Yes I used my iPhone for the pictures, yes they suck.

A team of students looked at preventative heart care and one of the elements was to let young patients understand what was wrong with them and what was happening through a series of 3D printed models of hearts.

There was a mobile miniature makerspace/fablab. Fittingly for the Netherlands this bike-borne fablab was completely transportable. It included power, a pelletizer and a 3D printer.

A company was 3D printing large-scale boat-sized objects. They were looking either to directly 3D print sailboats or to 3D print the molds for sailboats.

Startup Perflex was using Prusa i3 3D printers to produce on-demand custom made shoes made of Filaflex. The company was just getting started but had already managed to make remarkably soft feeling Filaflex shoes.

Researcher Jun Woo experimented with the porosity of 3D printed materials.

This fruit bowl used 3D printing and Field’s Metal to make a flat bowl that could transform and move while being thin enough to be shipped via regular mail.

This team used an Ultimaker to 3D print mushrooms, spores and other biological material.

Smock-it was a new personalized 3D knitting process that produced clothing.

Delight was a collection of four 3D printed lamps that all used texture or shapes to positively delight people when the lamps were touched.

Circular Clockworks is a startup that uses 3D printing and other technologies to make completely circular economy watches.

So as you can clearly see from now and until the 29th of October, Eindhoven is a place where a lot of design and a lot of 3D printing is going on. If you’re close do come on by and be inspired!

What do you think of these designs? Discuss Dutch Design Week 2017, and other 3D printing topics, at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

[All photos: Joris Peels]