Christien Meindertsma delves into the history of Dutch material culture

Dutch Design Week – from rediscovering local raw materials to transforming waste into new products: Christien Meindertsma’s vision for a more ethical design

Christien Meindertsma: Raw Materials and Local Research

Christien Meindertsma’s artistic practice is rooted in the study of local raw materials. These include substances in their unprocessed or minimally processed forms, such as raw latex, crude oil, cotton, coal, raw biomass, iron ore, plastic, air, logs, and water.

Drawing from her own heritage and surroundings, she delves into the history of Dutch material culture, focusing on resources intrinsic to the Dutch environment, climate, and fauna. Her work revolves around analyzing raw materials and their (non) use in large-scale production, with an emphasis on transforming waste into new life, recycling to foster a sustainable and ethical understanding of industrialization.

“I am interested in where a product comes from and where it is going, i.e. the life of a product and local materials and how you can use them in an industrial way.”

Local Production: The Flax Project (2012)

Christien Meindertsma is a Dutch product designer and researcher based in the Netherlands. Her design practice explores the life cycle of raw materials, focusing on their origins and transformations. Through meticulous research and documentation, she examines themes of local production, aiming to reconsider industrial processes with a circular approach.

An exemplary project of Meindertsma’s practice is The Flax Project, commissioned by design publisher Thomas Eyck in 2012. For this project, Meindertsma purchased an entire harvest from a Dutch flax farmer, aiming to explore the potential of locally produced flax products. The 10,000 kilos of fiber were spun into the finest yarn, later used to create a collection of table linen, tea towels, napkins, and a tablecloth. The design of a Damask woven pattern was inspired by the topography of the flax fields, with images of the Flevopolder region captured from a hot air balloon transformed into a woven tea towel.

In addition to revealing a network between source and consumer that has become increasingly invisible, Meindertsma seeks to repurpose waste, exploring ways to reuse it by reimagining large-scale production processes.

Reworking of Waste: De Zachte Stad Project (2020)

De Zachte Stad (The Soft City) was commissioned by the municipality of Rotterdam in 2020. Although the Netherlands is renowned for its cattle, sheep are also common, particularly in the south, where they are primarily raised for meat production. The coarse hair of these sheep is typically used for brushes, ropes, and rough fabrics. However, the wool from Dutch sheep breeds is often considered of low quality, unsuitable for textile production, leading to wool imports from New Zealand and Australia.

“I try to rely on wool and linen, mainly because they are available close by. In Dutch history, before synthetic materials and cotton, wool and linen were our main materials. Now Europe discards a lot of wool, especially from local breeds. This is partly because we have switched to synthetic materials, but also because the wool we use is imported from New Zealand and Australia, which is considered to have higher quality. I wanted to develop a special technique specifically for the wool that we throw away.”

For this project, Meindertsma researched ways to utilize the 5,000 kilos of wool discarded annually by Rotterdam’s sheep. Her ongoing research has shown that this material can be reworked into a range of applications, from fashion and interior design to concepts for the construction and music industries.

Flocks Wobot

Building on the De Zachte Stad project, Meindertsma has been developing new techniques to create truly three-dimensional wool structures without size limitations. Two techniques are being explored: the so-called Wobot, designed for creating free needle-felted forms, and a new ‘Block Wool’ machine that shapes blocks of wool for cutting.

The Flocks Wobot is an independently developed collaborative robot (cobot) created to work with local European wools that would otherwise be discarded. It allows for the industrial production of three-dimensional wool structures without adding materials or using water in the felting process. These structures are both strong and soft.

This alternative production technique aims to make use of the 1.5 million kilos of wool discarded each year in the Netherlands and to develop an eco-friendly alternative to materials like foam rubber, glass wool, stone wool, and polystyrene foam. The process highlights wool’s unique properties—softness, strength, warmth, acoustic qualities, and air permeability—while repurposing waste.

The Flocks Wobot was developed in collaboration with TFT (Tools for Technology), a Dutch company founded in 1998 that creates automated solutions for various industries, including the consumer market, automotive, defense, and aviation.

Circular Economy: From Waste to Product

Central to Meindertsma’s practice is the concept of transformation: instead of a linear approach to production—create, use, dispose—she emphasizes repurposing materials, giving them new life through innovative industrial techniques. This model is known as circular economy: it minimizes resource use, redesigns materials and products to be less resource-intensive, and recaptures “waste” as a resource for new manufacturing.

This approach supports a sustainable production process, balancing economic, environmental, and social dimensions. By focusing on local materials and resources, Christien’s practice bridges these three areas.

Christien Meindertsma and the Dutch Design Foundation

The collaboration between Christien Meindertsma and the Dutch Design Foundation began in 2021 with her project Sharing Elements, selected as an ambassador project for Dutch Design Week (DDW). In 2022, she presented her Zachte Stad project, showcasing the results of her research on Dutch wool. In 2023, she participated in The Product Chronicles curated by Lisa Hardon, presenting the first model of the Wobot. For the most recent edition of DDW, she demonstrated the latest model of the Flocks Wobot, developed as part of the MECCA x NGV Women in Commission series, of which she was the 2024 recipient.

Christien Meindertsma and the MECCA x NGV Women in Commission

The NGV Australia is a museum in Melbourne that showcases art and design collections. The MECCA x NGV Commission series recognizes female-identifying designers and architects worldwide, inviting them every five years to create new works for the NGV Collection. Supported by MECCA M-POWER, a social change initiative, the series aims to promote equality and opportunity for women and girls, including elevating women in art and design.

“Thanks to this project I was able to make the first version of the Wobot bigger and faster and design two products, an object and a bench that are now exhibited in the NGV. The goal is to develop this project even further and hopefully apply the machine on large-scale production practices.”

Christien Meindertsma

Dutch designer and researcher Christien Meindertsma graduated from the Eindhoven Design Academy in 2003. Her work is part of the collections of MOMA (New York), The Victoria & Albert Museum (London), and the Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein). She has won three Dutch Design Awards (2008) and an Index Award (2009) for PIG 05049. The Flax Chair won the Dutch Design Award and Future Award in 2016.

The Dutch Design Foundation, based in Eindhoven, promotes Dutch designers on the international stage and provides a platform for them to develop and share their work through events, exhibitions, talks, awards, and debates. The foundation organizes initiatives like Dutch Design Week and the Dutch Design Awards, as well as year-round programs such as World Design Embassies, What if Lab, Driving Dutch Design, and Eindhoven Design District.

Sara Van Bussel