Design Academy Eindhoven students protest 'economic segregation'

By Grace Kim

Master's students at Design Academy Eindhoven staged a protest at the opening of the school's annual Graduation Show on Saturday morning, chanting "No space today, no work to show" and carrying a banner reading "DAE overenrolled under-spaced". The demonstrators gathered at the entrance to the exhibition during Dutch Design Week, accusing the academy of creating "economic segregation" between students.

The protest targeted a concrete problem: the school has lost part of its building. The Design Academy had been due to move to a new facility in the Kanaalzone, a mixed-use district under development on the edge of Eindhoven's city centre, in 2026. That move has slipped to September 2028. In the meantime, the academy had to return parts of its current home — the Witte Dame (White Lady), a former Philips factory it has occupied since 1997 — to the landlord at the start of this academic year, including the fifth floor previously used by master's students.

What did the students say?

In a statement, the campaign organisers laid out the practical consequences: too few tables per student, a lack of teaching space, and no maker space (a shared open workshop for building physical work) suitable for large-scale production. The library has been closed since the end of September due to staff shortages.

"The situation reached such a state that a number of incoming students took the decision to leave the institution, only a month into their studies," the statement said. "Other students have felt forced to rent private spaces, off campus, at their own personal expense."

The statement continued: "The academy's institutional misguidance has created economic segregation between students. The student body feels that the institution should take responsibility and provide equitable opportunities to each and every blooming designer."

Master's student Pao Redó, speaking to Dezeen at the protest, described the squeeze from the ground. "We're protesting as master's students because basically we've seen our floor completely erased from the building, and we had to fit within the already existing spaces," he said. He said there is now less than one table per person, and students can "really not work beyond the computer".

"We've been complaining the formal way for months, and we just had cosmetic and minimal solutions, so we're here to pressure them to make major changes," Redó said.

The students' demands are specific:

• Provide external working and study spaces to ease overcrowding at the Witte Dame
• Offer financial transparency
• Improve communication
• Give students representation in decision-making

How has the school responded?

DAE executive board chair Raf De Keninck told journalists at the Graduation Show that the school had acted on one guiding principle. "We have one principle: it's education first," he said. "So we shrink all the administration, all the other functions of the school, and try to facilitate students the same as before."

He acknowledged the limits of that approach. "And we know that's not possible because we lost one-third of the building," De Keninck said. "It's quite a complicated thing."

Rather than announcing new space, he framed the students themselves as part of the answer. "We have really critical students, and we teach them also to be critical," he said. "And I have a lot of faith in the fact that we have a house full of designers, so the problem can be solved."

What does this change for the school?

The dispute lands at an awkward moment for an institution that ranks among the world's top design schools, with alumni including Hella Jongerius, Maarten Baas, Piet Hein Eek, Formafantasma and Sabine Marcelis. The Graduation Show, staged during Dutch Design Week, is the academy's most visible annual showcase — and the students chose its opening to make the overcrowding public.

The protest also follows a wave of youth-led student movements across Europe, including recent secondary-school protests in France. With the Kanaalzone move not due until September 2028, the academy faces at least two academic years of operating in a building it has already partly surrendered. Dezeen reports that it has approached Design Academy Eindhoven for further comment.