Been home for a week now. Want to finish up the Dutch design week posts and get that nagging tea ceremony post finished. (No disrespect to the tea ceremony, of course!) It’s awesome being home and holing up feels all kinds of right for me here. I think the cats are helping me out on that front. I’m finally sleeping normally, from 10:30 to 6:30, and I feel rested. YES. The first few days were tough because I was waking up at 4. I’d make my tea as quietly as I could and turn on AC Origins, also quietly, and would play until Ryder woke up. Usually though, it had me hooked until noon… the way video games tend to do.
Happily, I’m now awake with energy and drive so I begin the day with a post. Then it’s on to the task of touching every single thing in this house and deciding if it stays or goes. This is a long, slow play to finally getting around to that room in the back of the house. You know. The one that should be my studio. Then I can make stuff. There are fans and sumi-e drawings calling my name, not to mention the privacy cloaks I want to make.
Ready for a few of the 631 pictures I took in Eindhoven? Here’s an encore “80 Days” post on the cool vehicles I saw.
Wooden motorcycle.
3D printed… sailboat?
Detail.
Mobile recycling lab.
This crazy sucker is a mobile lab. From their info sheet: “In this mobile lab, plastic waste can be converted into new products using a grinder, extruder, 3D printer, and drawing tablet that allows students to design and create their own product on the spot.”
Links:
- nhlstenden.com
- frisiandesignfactory.nl
- bibliotheekservice-fryslan.nl
- dlab.nl
- slimmetrapper.nl
- frysklab.nl
They’re mostly in Dutch. Luckily we’re visual people right? Right?
Biocomposite car.
This is “Lina,” the world’s first bio-based fabricated car. From the info booklet: “The arrival of electric cars led to a reduction in petrol consumption and gas emissions. Fantastic of course, but as long as makers continue to use non-sustainable materials like steel, aluminum, and carbon: what is the benefit? TU/ecomotive literally started with a clean slate and developed Lina, a sustainable running car made from biocomposites ‘from factory to scrap yard.'”
Link: www.tuecomotive.nl
Delft Hyperloop pod.
From the info booklet: “Delft Hyperloop is the winner of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. In this international competition, student teams developed a transport system utilizing pressurized tubes through which vehicles travel at the speed of sound from A to B. Redefining transport like this contributes to faster, cleaner, and more efficient transport and consequently a better world.”
Link: www.delfthyperloop.nl
Detail.
The pod was maybe a 1/10 scale model so people couldnt sit in it. It was just big enough for a group of small goats wearing powder-blue futuristic uniforms.
CRAZY rat bike parked near the hostel where I stayed.
Oh yeah – I didn’t tell you about my first hostel experience. As luck would have it, #DDW17 (Jeez – not to be confused with digestive disease week… trying to usurp the same hashtag…) is happening while I am in Holland, and I am like, so totally there, dude. Dutch design “week” is actually nine days and it needs to be because there is so damn much to see. Knowing this I decide I should stay overnight. I found a hostel that was $29 a night which made it cheaper to stay than it would be to take the train out and back for two days but the idea of a hostel has always made my skin crawl. As a person who hates people*, I never ever ever saw myself giving my vulnerable sleeping body over to a room full of total strangers who are most certainly stinky hippies, all of ’em. Alas, here I am. I checked in and went to my shared room. It’s a dorm room. Look.
The room sleeps twelve so I asked if it was an all women’s dorm room and the person at the desk said she thought it was. Sweet. If there was going to be an attempted rape it would at least be by a doped up, vegan woman that I could probably overpower. It turns out I was on the top bunk of the last cubicle so anyone who was feeling rapey might select the low hanging fruit on the bottom bunks. I have that going for me too. Theft was a minor worry because we had lockers and the things I needed to keep on my person while I slept would go in my pillowcase.
So I get out and see the sights on the first day, eat dinner, and then it’s time to head back to the hostel. I wind up on an elevator with a woman who I had a feeling was going to be my bunk mate. My hunch was correct. I followed her back to the room and she squeezed her way into the tiny area in front of our beds. The room had been empty when I arrived earlier to make up my bed but now there were a few people in there reading and already sleeping. (It’s 9:30 or so at this point.) My other concern was that I’d be in a room with a bunch of chatty pot smokers. The woman who had the bunk under me and I whisper quietly to each other and learn that this is both hers and my first time in a hostel. We quietly chat a little bit about where we’re from and why we’re there. Suddenly I realize that I’m the chatty asshole in the room breaking some unspoken hostel etiquette. I never would hear a peep out of anyone else the entire night and next morning.
There wasn’t enough room for us to both get ready for bed so I let her shuffle around first. Then it’s my turn to awkwardly change into my bed clothes while a stranger sits there trying not to look at you. I consider myself to be a semi-fit, athletic-ish person but my ego was shat upon when it was time to climb the ladder into my bed. I looked around for a rail to grab on to but there was nothing. Determined not to sleep on the floor or next to a possible rapist I placed a foot awkwardly onto the first rung and thrust myself forward to grip the far edge of the mattress. Muscles that may have just enjoyed their first time being called upon were used to scramble up the ladder. My butt was hiked up in the air as my body was bent over and struggling, clearly sending the wrong message to the unknown criminals in the other beds. They acted uninterested but I knew that they were strategizing my demise and would strike once I entered REM sleep. I only want to climb this ladder once, so if I have to pee, I’m just going to do that right here.
My sleep was restless. I had my earplugs in but the noise of people coming and going through the door was loud enough to penetrate the soft foam. The night light that stayed on in the room was also a bit bright and I forgot to bring the sleep mask that was given to me on my flight to Tokyo. I had my phone with me but I didn’t get my charger out of the locker and it died while I slept leaving me no idea what time it was. I laid in bed as long as I could, hoping the woman underneath me would wake up so that I wouldn’t be the one to disturb her. My locker was right freaking next to her face.
It was time to descend the ladder to the floor. Looking around for a new approach to getting myself safely (if not gracefully) to the ground, it suddenly hits me that it was the nearby wall of the next cubicle I was supposed to use to stabilize myself. An embarrassing realization. I was pretty quiet for the most part until it came time to fiddle with the lock on my locker in the dark. The lock was difficult to manage even with the lights on so I knew this was going to be bad. I messed with it as gingerly as I could but for far too long. The sleeping woman’s eyes popped open like something out of a horror movie and I quickly whispered apologies. Worst ninja ever.
Just as I was leaving I saw a guy packing his stuff into a backpack. A guy! I patted my body down thoroughly checking for signs of rape but there were none to be found. I was also pleased to discover that I had not been murdered. I survived my first night in a hostel!
Back to the rat bike. There’s a mini fairing on the front serving no purpose other than aesthetics.
He’s got his own spare gas on the side.
I can almost smell the owner. Note the built-in ash tray.
Aged like a fine wine.
It may sound like I’m making fun of this guy, and perhaps I am, but I actually really love this bike. I bet he looks just like it. I fully expect him to have an ash tray built in to his worn, be-patched, leather jacket.
Cool car sculpture near the hostel.
Front.
Alternate view.
Car made into a bench.
Detail.
A bike inspired by Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory.”
A bike inspired by Picasso’s “Guernica.”
Conceptual detritus skateboards. One a muffler and the other a chunk of asphalt.
This one, a piece of slate.
Armored vintage truck thing?
Just a homemade solar car. What did you do today?
This is called silo and it’s a “mobile sleeping object” by Leon de Bruijne.
Another view.
Super fancy steampunk camper.
Kitchen counter and cooking supplies in the back.
Posh bed inside.
Further in.
This cool freaking thing is “Faceboat.”
Sometimes I’m smart enough to take photos of the identifying information.
The bottom of the boat, contemplating itself.
Other side.
Front.
Detail of the concave side of the wicker face.
I love this boat. I gasped as I came around the corner and saw it. A seemingly functional surreal object! It’s in this boat that I want to travel to another dimension or to the land of dreams.
Link: www.zuiderzeemuseum.nl
That’s it for vehicles! Quite a variety huh? I just filtered through the two pounds of pamphlets that I brought back with me to follow up and research the things I loved. I didn’t find information for everything, unfortunately. There were so many things to see I was completely overwhelmed. I still am as I continue to process. This was like an enormous Maker Faire that took over an entire city. Lots of maker projects for Collin’s maker space and maker club brewing!
Love,
~S
*Ok, ok. I’m finding that I don’t actually hate people as much as I thought I did.
Leave a Reply