Room of Thought | Studio Claudy Jongstra

Room of Thought

 The City of Eindhoven presents itself as breeding place for innovations in the field of technology and design. The Strijp S area, where the Philips plants used to be, is the location for crossbreeding of science, design and business life. The Natlab is situated in Strijp S and is surrounded by raw concrete and metallic traditional transport pipes.

Pauline Terreehorst, managing director of Plaza Futura established in the Natlab wanted to merge two worlds when designing the Thought Chamber. The Natlab presents inter alia technological innovation in the media, but also innovation in the stories told there. By doing so, the current Natlab adds an element to technology which production often lacks; a soft force. By making nature a key element of the thought chamber and through a design which is the result of ‘wild thinking’, and by being surrounded by soft forces, a place is created where hard results can also be achieved.

The research which used to be carried out for Philips in the Natlab was the starting-point for Claudy Jongstra to create a work which has as key elements search, quality, testing, process, movement and result. She uses the color green for this in many shades, because it symbolizes growth and development for her. This color came about by using special dye plants from her own botanical garden, in this case the combination of orange dahlia and indigo. The research into this color green resulted into the Veronese green currently used in the wall coverings, on a base of ivory white. The name of the Venetian painter Paolo Veronese is typically linked to this color, because he often used it in his work. By this Claudy Jongstra also makes a link to the Renaissance (wo)man who wanted to evolve in as many fields as possible. Claudy Jongstra sees her design as an inspiration for (wo)men who are presently in the Natlab and want to use the Thought Chamber for developing a vision for the present times.

The views of Terreehorst and the realization by Jongstra make this chamber into a refined encapsulation inside the web of technology and design.