Knock Knock Who's There
Editor note: If you are need any advice finding an accommodation, please have a read at this comprehensive housing guide compiled by DAE Housing Officer, Ned Kaar. You can also contact them directly for advice at .
Housing new students has also been a top priority in the relocation of the Academy. It is agreed that 250 student houses will be built in the areas of the Caai, De Kanaalzone (future location of DAE) or in the Koelhuis District by 2027. R
Finding a house in Eindhoven is difficult, but finding a community isn’t.
For this spin off edition of Who’s Who interviews, Anwyn Howarth, photographer and current third year bachelor student, set out to document three colourful houses that have homed many Design Academy Eindhoven students over the years. In this photo essay, she also interviewed some of the students to hear their tales of being students in Eindhoven.
When searching for a house in Eindhoven, one of the most efficient ways is through the infamous Facebook group called Design Academy Student Affairs, which is completely student run and populated with current students and alumni. The 37,000 members-strong group is where the annual turnover happens, one generation of graduating students leaving their living space to a new generation of incoming students. This is how Mim, Maija and Clemens found their new shared living space.
When the three got together at the start of their academic year, they began to make their own additions to the space, tidying it from those who lived there before. They first painted the purple walls white, then repainted them with red wine (from a painting party with red wine) and then white again. Like an organic archive, each layer of the wall paint preserves another chapter of the lived history of DAE students. When you enter a student house in Eindhoven you can trace who once lived there from the furniture or left-behind design projects and hear the stories of what it was once like. These time capsules are passed from one generation to the next with care.
While Mim, Maija and Clemens were some of the few lucky ones who found a house quickly, they also learnt about others who didn't have a place to stay. They generously opened their space up to their fellow students, converting their workspace and living room into makeshift bedrooms.
“If you meet anyone who doesn't have a house, tell 'em they can sleep in the living room.” They recalled telling everyone at the intro camp.
Most houses in Eindhoven are run by either private owners or housing agencies. In Min, Maija and Sen’s case it has been the former for many years, and this is how the graduating students are able to bring in other new students under their terms to replace themselves. This is one of the the DAE student house that has been rented to - sometimes decades - of DAE students.
The student housing crisis is very real in Eindhoven. Willem, Lucas and Mils speak about the struggles: contracts falling through, neighbourhood complaints before they even moved in, potential scams from uncredited agencies, misunderstandings with police etc. are but a few snippets from their quest for housing.
They stuck together as a team and eventually they were able to find an affordable big space in a good location. Taking advantage of this welcomed certainty, they wanted to exercise their entrepreneurship by turning their living space into a creative endeavour, and hosted a series of exhibitions.
The first (and largest one yet) was set up during Dutch Design Week 2022, as an unofficial part of the design week’s programme. They put up signage outside their house and made posters which they plastered around the city, enticing people to drop by the ‘Trap House’, as it’s referred to.
To their surprise, their efforts attracted the attention of the former director of the Academy, Lidewij Edelkoort, who entered the exhibition unannounced. “She stood there for a while with Willem and myself in our living room and I remember we were looking at a lamp designed by one of our friends, a follow DAE student, and she was like, ‘Hmm, I like this.’” Lucas recalls.
Willem, Lucas and Mil faced a lot of challenges with getting a home in Eindhoven. This can be stressful and difficult to deal with, especially whilst studying. However, they concluded, “It is the same housing crisis every September, then it mellows out in November, December. It is just part of collective experience as students studying in any growing city. As creative individuals and together you have to make the most of it!”
Share houses in Eindhoven become community centres, hosting an almost constant flow of students from around the world, dropping in to eat together, work together, play together, navigating obstacles from flat bike tires and malfunctioning printers, to ominous letters in a foreign language and the Dutch housing crisis. Here, home is about trust. Trust in the houses that adopt us with questionable legality, that make room for us and the strange and obscure objects we add to the inventory of design academy projects that came before. Trust in the meal we cook together, to heal. Trust in the future - that it exists - and the present, that there is enough of it.
