KABK Class of 26: New Perspectives on Design
Four graduates from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK), have been selected to represent the academy’s master’s programmes INSIDE (Interior Architecture) and Industrial Design at *Class of 26 + the Avenue of Fresh Perspectives* during Dutch Design Week. Riekje Paruschke, Stella Kechagioglou, Pien Bruins Slot and Linnis van Kampen will present their graduation projects as part of this annual international group exhibition, which brings together a curated selection of outstanding graduation work from Dutch and international design schools, spotlighting some of the most exciting emerging talent in design.
Their projects reflect the diversity and experimental spirit of KABK’s master’s programmes, approaching design as a way to question established systems and explore new possibilities. From ecological material cycles and social connections within institutions to the relationship between industrial tools and craft, their work engages with pressing questions about how we make, inhabit and relate to the world around us.
Rerooting Forward: Designing for Death Beyond Fast Furniture, Riekje Marie Paruschke
A flat-packed table arrives as a discrete object, its lively origins compressed into standardized materials. Behind this apparent simplicity lie monoculture forests, intensive extraction, global transportation, and synthetic binders. Rerooting Forward reimagines furniture as part of ecological cycles rather than as a static commodity.
The project presents fully biodegradable furniture grown from locally sourced forest residues and fungal mycelium. Leaves, branches, and wood chips collected in collaboration with municipal maintenance services and landscape companies of The Hague are grown with mycelium into new material bodies, creating furniture that can return to soil at the end of its life.
What does decay mean within a culture shaped by industrial production, standardisation, and the pursuit of permanence and control? Furniture functions as a lens through which we might reroot our connection to more-than-human agencies and ecological cycles, where a table is understood not as a fixed commodity but as a temporary moment within ongoing processes of growth, extraction, decay, and regeneration.
riekje-paruschke.com / [email protected] / +4916098482240
WithIn the Spray Gun, Linnis Van Kampen
WithIn the Spray Gun is a material study centered around the spray gun as a craft tool. The spray gun is usually understood as an industrial tool, designed for efficiency, repetition and control. In this project, I use it to explore a more sensitive relationship with ceramic glaze.
Through experiments with pressure, distance, movement, layering and stencils, I investigate how small changes influence the surface and lead to different material responses. The resulting tiles are not simply finished outcomes, but traces of testing, adjustment and discovery.
The project questions the separation between craft and industry. Rather than rejecting industrial techniques, WithIn the Spray Gun explores how an industrial tool can become part of a contemporary craft practice. I use the term ‘neo-craft’ to describe this approach: a practice that embraces contemporary and industrial tools not only to make something, but also as a way of understanding and learning from material.
