The 2024 edition, which took place from 19 to 27 October, returned to Eindhoven’s Microstad—the former KPN telecoms building on the edge of the city centre—with a new framework that brought a much-needed clarity to the visitor’s experience.

It was a deft demonstration of the graduation show's enduring potential and power, with an exhibition that was joyful enough to entertain a five-year-old, while challenging industry expectations and engaging a wider public.

This was the final year in which the show included creations by graduates whose studies were impacted by the pandemic. “It is worth remembering because it was such a traumatic experience," said the school’s Creative Director Joseph Grima in his opening remarks. "When we see the work, we still see traces of this moment of extreme difficulty, when everything—all the certainties we had about the world around us—was suspended for moment.

"But it was also a moment that triggered the understanding that another way, another world is possible. That other ways of organising ourselves, other ways of collaborating, of existing, can happen,” he added.

Certainly, the atmosphere among the exhibiting students was tangibly more upbeat than in recent years. That is not to say that the projects shied away from the reflective approach that DAE has become known for under the leadership of Grima and Raf de Keninck, with sometimes mixed results, but much of the best work took on an archly sardonic, poetic or playful stance.

Standouts included the 2024 DAE awards winners, which offered a snapshot of some of the breadth of vision encompassed by this generation of graduates. They included Bog Bodies Press—a collaborative publishing project that had at the time of exhibiting expanded to include 239 contributors—and an installation representing a post-growth economic model based on solar power, visualised through the production of Spirulina algae. “Design Academy pushes you to be brave, to be a bit radical about the projects that you do, indifferent of what the topic is,” explained Katharina Ammann, author of the latter project, titled The Solar Share.

"I feel like I did something unapologetically me, that came from my origins and from my politics," said Benze De Ream, winner of the Gijs Bakker Award with The Blue Flower Syndrome, which humorously critiqued the way algorithmic systems shape and confine society, connecting 1930s eugenics to contemporary influencer culture in a sharp critique of the ways algorithms shape society.

Where in previous editions projects have been organised by course or topic, this year’s typological approach offered a refreshing clarity. Led by Martina Muzi, head of DAE’s BA Studio Technogeographies, the curatorial team organised the vast array of projects by typology.

Although an increasingly popular medium among DAE graduates, video works often struggle for attention when mixed in with more instantly accessible products and installations. This year they found a fitting home in the basement garage of the Microtuin, with their visual and soundscape enhanced by the dark, cavernous setting. Interactive installations occupied a series of smaller spaces behind it, weaving together technology, craft and research. Among the installations, poetic pieces like Dian Lebbar’s Majammar—a touch-sensitive collaborative musical table bringing together the sounds of traditional Moroccan instruments in an almost cosmic display—sat alongside Jarno van Renswoude’s documentary tracking the removal of chairs from the halls of DAE itself, a critical reflection on the Academy’s self-stated “open-mindedness”. Combined, the two spaces offered an extremely broad interpretation of the role of design.

Performative works were gathered upstairs, where a revolving schedule of performances encouraged repeat visits. Highlights included Escape the Dutch, a reenactment of a neighbourhood WhatsApp group, dissecting themes of surveillance, paranoia and xenophobia. Product design was housed next door, with a decidedly more practical bent, though some projects leaned on familiar ideas. Noteworthy presentations included Remi Reiner’s Unfixed modular furniture made from stone offcuts and reconfigurable steel connectors and Lynn Gong’s humorous Height Hacks customisable chairs, using oversized rollers and foot-pump-inflated cushions and lego to adapt standard wooden chairs.

Glass-walled ground-floor spaces hosted further installations, ranging from tangible outcomes of design research to explorations that pivoted toward research-based practices, merging theory with experimentation to create new narratives. Among the most appealing and intriguing were Mova BoRee Aske Rijzinga’s reimagined aerial circus equipment that activated the inner child in many braver visitors, and an uncannily fleshy bath by Line Dansdotter Murkén made from surgical material Clear Flex, which becomes flexible and soft when warm.

A welcome addition was a newly expanded bookshop, run by Limestone Bookstore and selling thesis books, journals and other written outputs by the graduates, alongside the exhibition catalogue and other publications. Offering visitors the chance to delve deeper into the research and ideas underpinning the showcased projects, it reinforced the show’s dual role as both an exhibition and a space for discourse.

As the Academy moves beyond the pandemic's shadow and prepares to move into its new home, the 2024 DAE Graduation Show reaffirmed its reputation as a barometer of design’s evolving landscape. Giving equitable footing to conceptual depth and practical ingenuity, this year’s exhibition offered a respectful space to the unique voices of its graduates and demonstrated the Academy’s enduring ability to evolve, while suggesting a compellingly unpredictable trajectory for the future of design.