The Product Design Finals 2021 were exhibited in the prestigious Gerrit Rietveld building of the ArtEZ academy. The exhibition titled ‘Catalyst_IncitingIncidents’ bridged the gaps between non-human and humans and showcased a wide variety of products that catalysed an interplay of that which is designed and that which induces incidents: creating new imagery, new relations, and new landscapes by the use of the product.

The graduation project called Versatiles was developed to bring back nature into the cities; to diversify the city’s ecology and to help to cool the city down during the increasingly hot summers. The Versatiles is a set of tiles that invites and stimulates ecological awareness of pedestrians and creates spaces for nature to flourish in urban environments. With this work the standard 30×30 concrete tiles, that dominate the Dutch cityscapes, have been altered by applying a low-tech solution to let the rainwater flow through. The retention of water combats the shortage of greenery in the city and helps to keep the city cool in summer.

The design of the Versatiles was inspired by rhizomes of plants that grow in-between the concrete surfaces of an urban environment. The organic shapes of the tiles are digital renditions of the rhizomes as well as the the flow of water. The idea behind the tiles embraced the incentive of promoting an interplay between nature and design by changing