WaterSpiegelingen (WaterReflections)

The Cuypershuis showcases the life and work of architect Pierre Cuypers in his former home and workshops. The work of his son Joseph is also featured. By placing their ideas from different perspectives and disciplines in a contemporary context, we discover again and again that they were well ahead of their time. The WaterReflections exhibition brings together Cuypers’ vision and the WaterSchool design-research project by Studio Makkink & Bey to tell a story about the design of our living environment.

In the exhibition, you will see collages and imaginary landscapes showing what the city would look like if we designed it with our water footprint in mind. You will discover objects by contemporary artists and designers that show how using new bio-based materials and small-scale local production lead to other forms of architecture, urban development and a new way of living together. The chosen examples invite wonder while telling stories about the world, its history and potential future. Together they represent a sustainable, circular and regenerative movement to address today’s environmental and social challenges.

From June 15, 2024 to January 5, 2025.

WaterSchool exhibition @ Cuypershuis
Tuesday to Sunday 11:00 — 17:00h

More information on WaterSpiegelingen
More information on Cuypershuis

WasserSchule in Hubertusburg Castle Germany

“WaterSchool, a speculation in four seasons”, a project of Studio Makkink & Bey in collaboration with Kunstgewerbemuseum and the Design Campus of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the municipality of Wermsdorf, funded by the Free State of Saxony.

The exhibition is hosted at the historic Hubertusburg Castle, the site of the Peace Treaty of 1763. Water is one of the most valuable resources and acts as a central theme and starting point for extensive reflection. Studio Makkink & Bey developed one of their WaterSchools in a rural context in Germany as an exhibition and accompanying Design Campus summer school.

Hubertusburg Castle – once a royal hunting lodge, military magazine, manufactory, and healthcare facility – is a place of learning for the duration of the exhibition. The historic building showcases innovative approaches to a sustainable and inclusive society with the smallest possible “water footprint”. The exhibition is structured according to the four seasons, to which the areas of domestic, agricultural, aqua, and forestry farming, as well as other local productions, are assigned. Possible future scenarios are developed for these subject areas. Historical and contemporary works from the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, as well as loans from the fields of art, design, and architecture, are important key objects. They serve as the basis for a dialogue between the past and present and open up speculations about possible futures.

You can now visit the exhibition until October 13, 2024. Thank you to all the participants for their remarkable works and contributions.

WASSERSCHULE | Eine Spekulation in vier Jahreszeiten
WATERSCHOOL | A speculation in four seasons

From May, 26 to October, 13 | Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 — 17:00h
Schloss Hubertusburg — 04779 Wermsdorf

More information:
Exhibition page Kunstgewerbemuseum
WaterSchool SummerSchool

WaterSchool proposes a rethinking of the economic and infrastructural model of education: this school could produce everything it needs to function onsite through small-scale industrial collaborations with selected designers/artists.

Within the framework of exhibitions, Studio Makkink & Bey acts as a curator, inviting upcoming artists/designers to present their work in thematic exhibitions and series of lectures. Through uniting works within a speculative framework, Studio Makkink & Bey hints towards a future in which art and design are more integrated into education and life in general. In the exhibitions, projects are categorised according to themes, being Clean, Grow, Harvest, Make, Build and Document. Each of these themes pertains to a broader context and water-related issue, as well as a space and an act.

WaterSchool can be displayed in various ways such as working exhibitions and temporary knowledge centres, pairing the exhibition with lecture series and designers in residence. On a smaller scale, they present fragments of the WaterSchool, bring works together within settings connected to education and the classroom. Earlier iterations of the WaterSchool exhibition series include a working exhibition and lecture series during the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in 2018, and a presentation at the Istanbul Design Biennal in 2018.

Studio Makkink & Bey proposes to thematically position the curriculum of the WaterSchool, directing all efforts towards studying water and analysing how it links to all subjects taught at school.

This was first explored in the exhibition presented at the Istanbul Design Biennial, where works by selected designers and artists were categorised according to the subjects taught at Turkish primary schools. Also included in the exhibition were fictional texts written by imaginary pupils inhabiting this future WaterSchool, which provided visitors with an insight into how these works related to the subjects taught and how they could be integrated within everyday lessons.

Parallel to this speculative approach, Studio Makkink & Bey is working hands-on in collaboration with several educational institutes in the Netherlands – integrating artists and designers into their curriculums. The aim is to develop both a system on how to incorporate them, as well as an archive of designers/artists who are willing to work with education, with the purpose of confronting pupils with alternative and unconventional approaches to topics and subjects.

United by a common idea and led by Studio Makkink & Bey, the local community invites artists and emerging designers to construct the entirety of the WaterSchool collectively. In this way, the school and its building site become both a Learning Landscape and a Production Landscape, aiding students in developing an alternative relationship with water, as well as engaging them and the local community practically in constructing a real-life example of a more sustainable future.

As opposed to conventional architecture, Studio Makkink & Bey herein proposes to first construct all spaces separately on the plot: the Sanitary, the Garden, the Kitchen, the Workshop and the Library. When all of them are built, all functions are unified within one building through the construction of walls. In this process, the WaterSchool can decide to make several of the functions and spaces semi-public, allowing for the neighbourhood to use them whenever the school doesn’t feel the urge to do so. In this way, both community and school become connected and intertwined, maximising the impact of the WaterSchool.