It is not often that a research project is included in a museum collection. “RE-source is exactly right and succeeds in approaching a complicated theme with a pleasant playfulness.” the 2019 committee of the DDA category Design Research wrote. This has also been noticed by the Rotterdam museum.

For the project, a multidisciplinary team researched Rotterdam’s outdoor spaces and material flows to be able to use them as a source for circular thinking, doing and learning. The research is the result of a collaboration between the City of Rotterdam, VU University Amsterdam and Design Academy Eindhoven.

By means of research-through-design and design-through-research, RE-source tries to find out what is needed for a circular flow of materials. Besides the machines and techniques needed for reuse, it also looks at the people and systems involved in the materials. Through the network of the municipality of Rotterdam, RE-source is trying to gain insight into the methods of designing, managing and maintaining the outdoor space and the associated material flows. Want to read the whole story? You can read more about it in the winner’s portrait with Ester van de Wiel and Joost Adriaanse.

“The project has a richness that does justice to the complexity of the topic, from accessible projects to academic applications. In concrete terms, it delivers new design-through-research insights and encourages others to take action in the field of circularity.” according to the DDA19 Committee on Design Research.