Product Design alumnus Thijs Swinkels designs own residential unit
- Design
Thijs Swinkels graduated from Product Design in Arnhem. To reduce his ever-increasing student debt, he came up with a radical solution: cancel the rent of his house and live in his workshop. That would save hundreds of euros a month. And that's how Life at Work was born; a workbench that can also serve as a living unit.
Problem-solving design
How can we live as compactly and efficiently as possible? This question has occupied designers for a century. Thijs Swinkels graduated from Product Design in 2020 and is also working with this question. "As a designer, I constantly challenge myself to apply materials and techniques in innovative ways. Problem-solving design is therefore a working method that I often apply during projects. During my projects, subjects arise that, according to my vision, need a change. I try to push boundaries in today's society and make the viewer look at a certain topic differently."
Part of graduation project 'The house as a product'
In his graduation project, 'The house as a product', Thijs no longer considers the house as we are used to, but I ask myself the question; "how can we live differently?". The collection I developed consists of three research directions, one of which is Life at Work. Besides Life at work, there are also the works The Growing House and The Traveler. The Growing House is a system model that presents an alternative way of modular living, where Thijs emphasises ownership and the modularity of the various living components. At each stage of life, there is a solution where you take a part of the modular housing system and reuse it. The Traveler is a creation in which Thijs combines the two components of living and travelling. The Traveler can be considered the successor to the camper van. It is a mix of futuristic vehicles developed from parts of existing toys and raw materials.
- The search for the optimal all-in-one home has been going on for 100 years and, with today's house prices, perhaps more relevant than ever. Read more at Volkskrant.nl
Product Design
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