Design Academy Eindhoven students protest over-enrolment, lost workspace

By Marcus Bennett

Master's students at Design Academy Eindhoven blocked the entrance to the school's Graduation Show on Saturday, chanting "No space today, no work to show" under a banner reading "DAE overenrolled under-spaced".

The protest targeted a workspace shortage the organisers say has created "economic segregation" among students. It landed during the opening of the annual show, staged inside the Witte Dame (White Lady) building, a former Philips factory in central Eindhoven that the academy has occupied since 1997.

What caused the shortage?

The squeeze traces back to the academy's planned move to a new facility in the Kanaalzone, a mixed-use district under development on the city's fringe. That move has slipped from 2026 to September 2028. To bridge the gap, the academy returned part of the Witte Dame to the landlord at the start of this academic year, including the fifth floor master's students previously used.

The consequences, according to a statement from the campaign organisers, are cramped conditions that inhibit physical and large-scale work, with no alternative provisions made. Their list of grievances:

• Fewer than one table per student
• A lack of teaching space
• No maker space or open workshop for large-scale production
• A library 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 academy's institutional misguidance has created economic segregation between students," it continued. "The student body feels that the institution should take responsibility and provide equitable opportunities to each and every blooming designer."

What do the students demand?

The demonstrators want the school to secure external working and study spaces to relieve pressure on the Witte Dame. They also want financial transparency, clear communication and student representation in decision-making.

"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," master's student Pao Redó told Dezeen at the protest. He said students could "really not work beyond the computer".

Redó said the school had promised to manage the transition and failed. "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," he said.

How has the academy responded?

DAE executive board chair Raf De Keninck told journalists at the Graduation Show that the school had acted to minimise disruption from the move.

"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."

"And we know that's not possible because we lost one-third of the building," he continued. "It's quite a complicated thing."

De Keninck said he trusted the school's community to resolve the issue. "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."

Why does this matter beyond Eindhoven?

The DAE ranks among the world's top design schools, with alumni including Hella Jongerius, Maarten Baas, Piet Hein Eek, Formafantasma and Sabine Marcelis. Its overcrowding dispute follows a wave of secondary-school student protests in France that has fuelled youth-led movements across Europe. With the Kanaalzone campus now two years away, the academy must find roughly the capacity it surrendered — or keep graduating designers who, in Redó's words, cannot work beyond the computer.