Master Social Design

Since 2013 Henriëtte Waal has been creating and supervising programs for the Master in Social Design at Design Academy Eindhoven, a highly regarded post-graduate design course that recognizes that a time of mounting social contradictions demands that design incorporates a more nuanced and complex reading of how the social is intertwined with the material and technological, rethinking what society is and could be.

Henriëtte believes it is important for students to develop their practical and empathic skills as part of their post-graduate studies, by means of fieldwork, working embedded in the real world. Waal encourages her students to take a closer look at the current state of the environment, to question systems in place, and test other possibilities. As a mentor and coach, she involves her international group of students in on-site projects when commissions ask for critical investigation of a particular area or subject. 

‘I believe that the current reset of global priorities calls for brighter designers to work closely with social movements and community-based organizations. Designers that will engage with global/local climate crisis, socio-cultural and political uncertainties, make them tangible, and open for discussion in small scale concrete projects. We need projects that embody new forms of world-making, reframing our world like a dynamic living landscape we share with other life forms. As we can interact beyond physical limits we need to rethink the local. Move beyond sensory limits and explore other possibilities.’