By the end of April, the new book by Aaron Betsky “Renny Ramakers Rethinking Design” will be presented. As one of the first and few women in design, Droog’s co-founder Renny Ramakers established herself and her brand in the scene and gained international reputation. As a writer, curator, and thinker, she has worked to redefine our human-made world for more than a quarter century. She has championed the notion of furniture and industrial design as a way to re-imagine today’s world, re-thinking design as a project of reuse and critical action that can effect a better future.

In 1993 Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker started Droog as an anti-statement; a no-nonsense, down to earth design mentality that opposed the high style and form-based world of design. 

In all her projects Ramakers focuses on creating interaction with the public, new collaborations, tools and systems. She is challenged by highly innovative art and design projects that are embedded in the social context but that always have a twist. 

Shop the book in our store or online. 

Book presentation
Join us for a festive evening with an open table discussion hosted by Wim Pijbes. In conversation with Aaron Betsky, Irma Boom, Renny Ramakers and others, the evening is dedicated to their ideas on design and the future of Droog.

Program 23 April 2019
@Droog, Staalstraat 7, Amsterdam
Walk-in: 18:00 – 18:30
Open table discussion: 18:30 – 19:15
Bites & drinks: 19:15 – 21:00. 

Disarming Design from Palestine – thought provoking December gifts
On display from 4 December 2018 until 6 Januari 2019

Foto: Nieuwe Beelden Makers

In the month December the thought provoking products by ‘Disarming Design from Palestine’ will be exhibited and sold at Hôtel Droog.

 ‘Disarming Design from Palestine’ is an unusual design label with products from Palestine. The platform develops, presents and sells design pieces, designed by contemporary designers, artists and students in collaboration with local producers and artisans.

The label wants to spread alternative narratives about contemporary Palestine and reflect upon the function of creative practices in situations of conflict.
The products embody — often in a poetic and unusual way —the characteristics of Palestinian life today, and enable us to look at this reality from another angle.
The products are objects for everyday use. From silk scarves to T-shirts, from earrings to eye mask, but also honey, spices and olive soap.

All proceeds from the sales will go to the Palestinian design label and will be used for further development and production of new designs.

Saturday 8 December between 11 am-5pm Raed Hamouri from the design label will be present at Hôtel Droog. He will talk to visitors and customers about the label, the products and the context in which this label was founded.

For more information and more products: www.disarmingdesign.com
This exhibition has been generously supported by: Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK)

foto: Nieuwe Beelden Makers

New Material Award 2018 exhibition @droog from 30 October-2 December 2018
 
More and more designers are thinking about the effect of their designs in the circular chain from raw material to raw material. The role of the designer and design research are crucial in this. They contribute to a better and more sustainable society. The fifteen design and research projects nominated for the New Material Award 2018 are uncomfortable, confrontational, optimistic and visionary.
 
Material innovation encompasses much more than just the development of completely new materials. Generally, it revolves around a revaluation of raw materials, techniques, or residual products that are currently overlooked by industry as unsuitable for the intended purposes. This is done by exploring – without prejudice – new possibilities through research. From a loaded substance like animal blood, to bamboo that has been used for centuries; and from hair that we leave behind at the hairdresser, to waste glass that, according to established industries, would be impossible to reuse.
 The fifteen nominated projects for the New Material Award 2018, including the winning projects ‘Algae Lab Luma’ and ‘Blood related’, are on display at Hôtel Droog from 30 October until 2 December 2018.
 
Museumnacht Amsterdam 2018
Hôtel Droog is one of the new locations for this years’ edition of the Museumnacht Amsterdam. On Saturday 3 November, winners Eric Klarenbeek & Maartje Dros (Algae Lab Luma) and Basse Stittgen (Blood related), are present at Hôtel Droog to explain and demonstrate their projects. Nominated Designer Alexander Marinus developed a special make-your-own workshop, based on his project into the material of jute.

New Material Award
The New Material Award stimulates the development of sustainable materials through projects that provide smart solutions to the issues surrounding raw materials, energy and reuse – both in design and production.
This 7thedition of the biennial New Material Award is organized by the DOEN Foundation, the Kwadraat Fund and Het Nieuwe Instituut. 

The fifteen nominated designers are:
Agne Kucerenkaite
Alexander Marinus
Daria Biryukova
Envisions
Inge Sluijs
Iris de Kievith & Annemarie Piscaer
Ekaterina Semenova
Overtreders W & bureau SLA
Sanne Visser
Shahar Livne
Studio Chris Kabel
Telesilla Bristogianni & Faidra Oikonomopoulou
Xandra van der Eijk

Or visit the website of the New Material Award.

We are proud to announce a new product: the glass lantern by Richard Hutten. 
In the project The New Original (2013) Droog investigated the copy culture in Shenzen, China. Droog wanted to advocate copying as a source of creativity. One of the participants in this project was Dutch designer Richard Hutten. He copied the traditional Chinese lantern but he used glass instead of paper and he modernized the design by reshaping the lantern. The lantern is available now!

Download the press release here

picture by Nieuwe Beelden Makers

Now on display: Device people
From 1 October – 28 October 2018 at Hôtel Droog

According to research, the average smartphone user checks their phone 221 times a day. The omnipresent screen culture is responsible for a social transformation. The chat app is what the cigarette was in the last century: a symbolic consumption good that makes a significant contribution to the running of the economy. Devices are taking over our lives, we are becoming device people but at what cost? 

chp…?, the jewelry brand run by Gijs Bakker invited five international designers to reflect upon this theme. The exhibition includes work by Bart Hess, Conversation Piece by Nicolas Cheng & Beatrice Brovia, Jing He, mischer’traxler studio and Patricia Domingues. 

In addition to ‘Device People’, Droog selected other works by BLESS, FormaFantasma,  Timothy Liu and Noud Sleumer to complement the exhibition. Device People was developed by chp…? in cooperation with Design Museum Den Bosch.

picture by Nieuwe Beelden Makers

Hôtel Droog announces its forthcoming show following a memorable anniversary year. Eleven talented graduates from the Design Academy Eindhoven present their work in the lobby of the hotel. With a fresh cultural season, Hôtel Droog takes a look at the students’ final projects and the inspirations behind them. The show presents a selection of young graduated Master students, that received a degree in Social Design, Information Design and Contextual Design respectively. The show is free and open to the public from the 4th until the 30th of September. 

Responding to the fast emerging territory for design practice, the alumni redefine creativity across disciplines.

The mobile toilet Elisa Otañez designed is a perfect example. There is one public toilet for women for every ten urinals for men. To make a statement and present a solution for this problem at the same time, Otañez presents The Yellow Spot. Mobility is important in order to perform as a protest artefact and to be used to campaign, demanding toilets for women.

Thomas Stratmann addresses another current issue with his Arson Archive. It’s a collection of more than 400 arson attacks against refuge accommodations since East and West Germany’s reunion in 1990. In a refreshing and confronting way Stratmann shows us hatred and violence against refugees might be a bigger issue than we realize through anonymous numbers.

Anna Aagaard Jensen on the other hand is worried about how women can claim more space both literally and metaphorically speaking. Our contemporary Western society is represented through images – constantly exposing us to and imposing onto us standards and ideals. The chair Jensen designed encourages a more unconventional attitude in posture and body language. Through this act of sitting, women will feel empowered. For women only.

Other works in the exhibition are by Siri Bahlenberg, Ellie Birkhead, Minji Choi, Erika Emerén, Annika Felder, Robert Johnson, Camilo OliveIra, and Hala Tawil.

You are now welcome to visit the brand new textile interior of the Serre by Nikkie Wester at Hôtel Droog!

Wester transformed the space next to the Fairytale Garden by using elements of 17th Century greeneries as an inspiration. You can recognize the constructions of these original greeneries on the red textile.
 
The Serre is used for various occasions, such as weddings and business meetings. To make the space a perfect fit for every party, Wester constructed three adjustable backdrops. By using this system the back walls can be bare, but the space can also be divided in two without fully removing the elements and therefore keeping their acoustic quality.
 
The intensive process of sewing, transferring the image on the fabric, dry felting, harnessing, damping and cleaning, makes it a true piece of custom-made design!

SUN+, A range of sun protection products by buro BELÉN 
During summer 2018 at Hôtel Droog

During the summer we are pleased to show SUN+, a range of sun protection products (wearable and portable) by buro BELÉN in our window at Hôtel Droog!

SUN+ is a research project into sun protection by designers (and sun lovers) Brecht Duijf and Lenneke Langenhuijsen of the Amsterdam-based design studio buro BELÉN.

Overexposure to sunlight is harmful, but so is overprotecting. Sunscreen products come with serious disadvantages that outweigh their usefulness in the long run. The chemical ingredients used in the products damage the skin and pollute the environment. When UV light touches the skin, our body starts to produce vitamin D. Using sunscreen with high UPF factors stops this process, as too much UV light is blocked. The ideal factor is UPF 8 as it provides both protection and keeps the vitamin D production going.

Buro BELÉN’s research focused first and foremost on traditional, cultural and alternative means of sun protection like henna and ashes. But their research also focused on external layers covering the body and architectonic structures and elements that provide shelter from the sun.

The designers concluded that textile is a good material for sun protection. Every natural textile has its own sun protection factor, based on the fibers, weaving and color. For example, the silk used in the SUN+ veil has UPF8. By doing away with the environmental disadvantages and public health risk of mainstream sun protection, this collection offers textile-based alternatives.

At Hôtel Droog we present several products of the Sun+ collection of wearables and portables. Open daily from 09.00 – 19.00.
Sunbathe with a healthy conscience this summer!

Botanical compositions and perfumes took over Palermo city centre, in the area of Fontana Pretoria. 
During June 14 – 16, the opening days of Manifesta12, designers Frank Bruggeman and Alessandro Gualtieri | The Nose were commissioned by Droog to create perforative installations.
Knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly the public became carriers of the local flora and spread them, possibly around the globe.

THE FLORILEGIUM
The Florilegium seeks to record collections of plants from within a particular place. Designer Frank Bruggeman and perfumer Alessandro Gualtieri | The Nose were cataloguing the flora of Palermo and tracing back the Greek, Roman, African and Arabic origins. The Bottle Tree and The Dragon Blood Tree are examples of trees that are to be found nowhere else in Europe.
In their collaboration, on the occasion of Manifesta12, they took different approaches but the idea of pollination is cen- tral in both their performative installations.

WEARABLE BOTANICAL COMPOSITIONS
Frank Bruggeman, a designer with a special interest in nature, explored the flora in and around Palermo and collected several seeds, flowers, plants and roots. These cuts were be the material used for large and small botanical compositions. These were  distributed in public space during the opening days of Manifesta12 and could be worn or used as corsage or small bouquet. The wearer of the corsage contribute in that way to the further pollination of the nature of the island. 
Click here to view the website of Florilegium via Frank

ATTRACTING SCENTS
Alessandro Gualtieri, a perfume creator based in Amsterdam, has created scents that centred around attraction and rejection. 
In order to reproduce and diffuse their own species, plants use scent and flowers to attract pollinators. The scent of pollen is the most ancient floral aroma and beatles the oldest pollinators. Beatles are attracted to both the pollen as well as the smells of rotting and excrement.
The perfumes created by Gualtieri was distributed in different ways around the city of Palermo during the opening days of Manifesta12. The smells were in conversation with one another and with the public who encountered them directly or indirectly and carried out these scents further around the city.
The main performance took place at the Fontana Pretoria, where the scent of the Zagara, the citrus flowers, was distributed through the heart of Palermo. 

To mark the quarter-century anniversary Droog presents a new exhibition Then … Now in the lobby of Hôtel Droog. In 1993 Droog debuted with a modest show of offbeat items by Dutch designers. Here young Dutch designers chose to use discarded materials and embraced imperfection, and everyday simplicity with a conceptual twist. Looking towards the future, Droog presents the same designers, but in Then … Now their more recent works are on show. From Richard Hutten to Jurgen Bey, Tejo Remy to Marcel Wanders, the exhibition gives an insight in the new works of Droog’s iconic designers. Then … Now touches upon multiple developments in and around design and connections the past and future. 

Then: 1993
At the beginning of the 90s one could recognize design a mile away: slick and stylish with a perfect industrial finish. But in the Netherlands, Droog founders Gijs Bakker and Renny Ramakers discovered something completely different. In 1993 Droog presented 16 unconventional products at Salone del Mobile in Milan. The exhibition observed the uncustomary design mentality in the work of great many young Dutch product designers. It was an overnight success. Not only for Droog, but also for this generations of designers.

Now: 2018
25 years later time has evolved and designers still create noteworthy and fresh pieces. Then … Now delves in the work of several designers showcasing their latest works.  The exhibition also includes work by designers Eibert Draisma, Gijs Bakker, Piet Hein Eek, Jan Konings, Arnout Visser and Ed Annink.