From 19 to 23 October 2026, What Design Can Do brings NEXT GEN DESIGN to Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. The programme has three parts: a residency for young designers, a touring exhibition and two EDU Talks. The exhibition and the EDU Talks are open to the public. The residency is a closed programme.
NEXT GEN DESIGN EINDHOVEN RESIDENCY
Sustainable Digital Futures
19 – 23 October 2026 | Next Nature Museum, Eindhoven | Closed programme
For five days, Next Nature Museum becomes a studio for ten young designers, all winners of the Next Gen Design Open Call. Working in pairs, they take on the theme Sustainable Digital Futures. They spot opportunities, shape concepts and turn them into prototypes. A design educator guides the process, and the EDU Talks and the wider Dutch Design Week programme bring in fresh perspectives. What Design Can Do organises the residency, with Next Nature Museum as host.
NEXT GEN DESIGN EXHIBITION
Futures Worth Living
20 – 22 October 2026 | 12:00 – 17:00 | Next Nature Museum, Eindhoven | Free admission
Futures Worth Living shows selected projects from the Next Gen Design competition. The work comes from Europe’s next generation of designers. It is rooted in circular design and responds to today’s environmental and social challenges. The exhibition tours leading design festivals across Europe. It is supported by the European Commission as part of the New European Bauhaus initiative.
NEXT GEN DESIGN EDU TALKS
20 October 2026 | Next Nature Museum, Eindhoven | Free admission
Two public talks look at how digital technology is changing the way we make, play and imagine. They also feed the residency’s theme.
10:30 | Worldbuilding & Digital Spaces – Sondi
Sondi is an artist and researcher from Germany. She was born in Cameroon and is based in the Netherlands. Her practice centres on worldbuilding and worlding, especially in digital spaces and video games. She looks at how power and narratives work inside virtual environments. That means tracing encoded biases, algorithmic discrimination, game mechanics, and how people, places and ecologies are portrayed.
14:00 | Where AI Meets Craft – Vera van der Burg
Designer and researcher Vera van der Burg treats AI as a creative material, not a shortcut. For her project From Text to Clay, she trained an image model on her own ceramics, then built its outputs by hand in clay. She won the Dutch Design Award for Emerging Talent in 2025. In this talk she explores what happens when AI and creative practice meet.