During GLUE, the three-day design-tour, I was able to exhibit my project Versatiles in Atelier Iris Nijenhuis on Prinseneiland, Amsterdam. This event is focused on connecting local, national, and international designers and institutes with each other. GLUE stimulates the connectivity between design peers and other parties in the field: it wants to connect the sector better and make it more discoverable. As mentioned, Versatiles is a set of tiles that invites and stimulates ecological awareness of pedestrians and creates spaces for nature to flourish in urban environments. To be able to display Versatiles and meet other designers face to face was indispensable. It was an honour to have been part of GLUE 2022.

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