After the big success of the exhibition in the former and abandoned tram remise station in Oud-West, we were invited to design and organised another exhibition as part of the project Desycling Amsterdam in 2008 in Westergasfabriek. The main idea was to show the results of the projects to a broader public, other citizens of Amsterdam and to open the dialogue by gathering different important actors of the production and waste cycle to reflect on how to work together in order to achieve social and environmental wins for the community.
The event was a huge success. In four days there were over 1500 visitors, including many group of children’s from different schools of the city.
Visitors were fascinated with the design of the exhibition. We displayed thousands of (borrowed) plastic bottles that hung in four cylinder shapes from the 10 meter high ceiling. Each cylinder was a pavilion. Each pavilion was destined for a different activity: a workshop to make chairs from cardboard, another, where various products were on display and several others with different topics. A much visited pavilion was the hospitality pavilion which was decorated as a Moroccan restaurant.
The visitors to the exhibition participated in a discussion panel about waste and participation. We invited different important actors from the waste cycle to discuss the importance of working together to achieve awareness and participation in the whole cycle.
Representatives of all major sponsors and partners were present: the municipality, waste management companies, funds, neighbours, desycle coaches and designers. The discussion was led by Joeri van den Steenhoven, the president of Kennisland Foundation at that moment. This event was organised in association with MWH Global and Kennisland Foundation.
One of the important outcomes of the discussion was the joint support and interest in finding more activities to work together and include design actions to achieve positive participation. The exhibition received broad attention in the printed and audiovisual media, like Het Parool, other journals and BNR news.
After this exhibition we could conceived many other local activities in Amsterdam and other cities that meant an important step towards finding solutions working together within different sectors. We could inspire as well many other designers with our approach and help them to start projects.
My role in this project was general direction, concept developer, co-design of the exhibition, stakeholders engagement and fund raising. I worked together with a fantastic multidiscipline group of high talented people. To know more read the report of the Descyling Amsterdam project.
