DAE & GGzE announce winner Planetree Design Award 2023

Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) is proud to share this year’s winner of the Planetree Design Award. The annual award is a collaboration between DAE and mental health institution GGzE, which seeks ideas that pave the way for a renewed understanding of mental health problems and a care for people with related need.

Daisy Dawson, the Planetree Design Award winner of 2023, and Marita Bossers, director of Planetree Nederland. Photo by Anwyn Howarth.

Planetree Design Award Winner 2023:

Daisy Dawson, Inclusive Club Collective Kit

The Inclusive Club Collective Kit is a design intervention and collective experience around neurodiversity. The kit consists of a methodology, tools, materials to build the club space, neurodivergent timekeeping, team-building exercises and members proposing various workshops, all available on their website. By designing a space that did not exist, Daisy Dawson helped launch the club at DAE to raise awareness and instigate change through design interventions, a summer school, online meetings and more. The goal is not only to create a movement in schools, companies, governments and so on, but also to connect efforts, news, research, activism, designers and institutions to make taking action impactful and creative on a global level. The collective believes in ‘neurodiversity as a design movement’.

The winner was announced during the Mental Health for All seminar at Dutch Design Week. Daisy Dawson received € 2500, and a goblet designed by Willem van Hooff in collaboration with clients of GGzE De Boei.

Daisy Dawson, Inclusive Club Collective Kit. Photo by Femke Reijerman.

About the Planetree Design Award 2023 and the collaboration with GGzE

Starting in 2021, DAE has renewed its collaboration with mental healthcare institution GGzE De Grote Beek in Eindhoven. The main goal is to inspire students from DAE and to offer insights on social innovation to clients and experts of GGzE, as well as sharing and exchanging knowledge on design and mental health.

In 2022, more than one hundred master students, and design tutors looked at mental health issues from their design-oriented critical and creative perspective. Supported by a team of 16 GGzE-experts, the students followed the institution’s daily work with clients and employees and learn from their experiences, difficulties, and ambitions.

This year’s seminar also reflected back on what the impact of such a collaboration is for both institutions.

All students at DAE were then invited to submit their work via the Planetree Design Award open call, which closed in August, resulting in the nomination of eight projects. On Thursday 14 September 2023, the jury of seven mental health and design professionals came together at DAE to listen to all nominees.

The winners of the last three years: Mirte van der Nat, Daisy Dawson and Juliette Vandermosten. Photo by Anwyn Howarth.

The nominees of the Planetree Design Award. Photo by Sean Fisher.

The other nominated projects:

→ Karin Pinto – bruno.
→ Sophie Bohlmann - Permutation
→ Charlene Dosso - Burnout The Game
→ Femke Hoppenbrouwers - Mobility Scooter Dance Collective
→ Layla Junqueira Geurtzenstein & Luuk Diters - 50 ideas for the Woenselse Poort
→ Tino (@littlefishtino) - “Rain” Watchers
→ Marianne Guermonprez - The Cafe Inclusiveness project

The jury of the Planetree Design Award. Photo by Sean Fisher.

The jury of the Planetree Design Award 2023:

→ Valentijn Visch (associate professor at Industrial Design Engineering TU Delft)
→ Marita Bossers (director Planetree Nederland)
→ Yvonne Korsten (member Centrale Clientenraad GGzE)
→ Richelle Semil (chairman Centrale Clientenraad GGzE)
→ Harrie Smetsers (agogic employee De Boei)
→ Rik Konings (sociotherapist De Woenselse Poort)
→ Ingrid Willems (board member GGzE)