Veenhuizen’s Colony of Benevolence will continue to be a source of inspiration for tomorrow’s designers
The Province of Drenthe, municipality of Noordenveld, and the Penitentiary Institution Veenhuizen (formerly a Colony of Benevolence, a private initiative for fighting poverty) have decided to extend their cooperation with the Design Academy Eindhoven. Today the Design Deal Veenhuizen 3.0 will be signed.
In 2019 and 2020, students of the Design Academy Eindhoven will continue to use the former Colony of Benevolence in Veenhuizen as a treasure trove for ‘social design’ projects. The theme they will be working on this year, in collaboration with the two mayor cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, will be ‘Scarcity and Abundance’ .
According to Veenhuizen’s mayor, Klaas Smid, the key value of the collaboration since 2013 has been the profusion of social projects that students have developed with an eye to added social value, including “…creating projects that offer detainees something to increase their chances in the labour market after their sentence has been completed, like learning new skills or gaining diplomas”.
The extension of the Design Deal Veenhuizen 3.0 paves the way for the students from Eindhoven to get plenty of inspiration from Veenhuizen’s former Colony in the coming years, and to connect that inspiration to social issues, creating new opportunities and possibilities.