This is an overview of our student projects of 2025. This year we partnered with The Society 5.0 Festival, City of Things and the research groups Visual Methodologies Collective, and Fashion Research & Technology.

BENEATH THE SURFACE

In this immersive installation, you’re invited to explore three speculative domestic spaces, each revealing how this new wave of smart technology (Artificial Intelligence) might subtly reshape our everyday lives. In the bedroom, emotional care blurs with surveillance. In the dressing room, convenience challenges self-expression. And in the elderly’s living room, safety comes at the price of invisible monitoring.

These imagined environments are not meant to offer solutions, they ask questions. As artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in our everyday environments, are we gaining real autonomy or becoming more dependent? What freedoms are we trading for emotional ease, aesthetic guidance, or a safer life?

This installation invites reflection on the values, assumptions, and invisible infrastructures behind the ever-growing hybrid reality our lives are becoming.

Are we still designing our environment or are they quietly redesigning us? What parts of ourselves are we outsourcing to technology and will we recognise what’s missing when it’s gone?

STUDENTS: Aleksandra Wolska, Luísa Malundo, Melissa Jacobi, Yonne Oskam CLIENT: Society 5.0 Festival COACH: Ista Boszhard

AVIAN SHROUD

The Avian Shroud is a wearable refusal. Inspired by birds — symbols of freedom and flight — it shields the face through movement and disruption.

Built with soft robotics, the piece shifts and reacts when it senses infrared from surveillance devices — mimicking a living instinct to evade.

STUDENTS:Storm Nijhuis, Natalia Maślanka, Daniël Put
CLIENT: Fashion Research & Technology
COACH: Charley Muhren

THE JACKET FOR SURVIVAL

THE YEAR IS 2079. EARTH HAS CHANGED. The aliens didn’t bring war — they brought presence. Their arrival warped nature, rewrote cities, and redefined survival. These beings don’t hear or see like us. They sense rhythm, temperature, pressure, movement. They don’t speak. They perceive.

Earth is now divided into zones of silence and motion. We hide in stillness, adapt to the strange. If they detect you, they don’t chase. They surround. They observe. They erase. To survive, we learned from animals: bluC, warn, intimidate. And so we built the armor — a soft robotic second skin that thinks, shifts, and protects.

Disguise Mode: It lays flat, mimicking alien textures — ridged, organic, pulsing — hiding your human form. Dominance Mode: When threatened, the armor inflates dramatically. Spines rise, shoulders flare. A display of sudden, unnatural strength meant to startle — not fight. This is no longer evolution. This is adaptation — in real time.

STUDENTS: Jens Simonatti, Friso Domhof, David Döbner, Elif Yildirim
CLIENT: Fashion Research & Technology
COACH: Ista Boszhard

SKY BLADE ONI MASK

Sky Blade Oni Mask (c. 2437, Planet Raijin) Authentic ceremonial combat mask, polymer alloy and TPU components.

Worn by the peacekeeping order known as the Sky Blades, this mask was designed to intimidate both enemy and environment. The exposed silver teeth and mechanical fangs symbolized dominance over fear, serving as a psychological weapon against Raijin’s sentient storms. Activated before entering a micro-hurricane, the mouthpiece mimicked predatory threat displays found in ancient Earth fauna — a final warning to both humans and the planet itself.

The Sky Blades believed survival depended not on overpowering Raijin, but commanding respect from it. This mask balanced elegance, ritual, and utility — a striking fusion of tradition and soft robotic innovation.

STUDENTS: Stijn Groot, Elijah Delgado, Iris Terepocki, Calvin Sprengers
CLIENT: Fashion Research & Technology
COACH: Ista Boszhard

THROUGH THEIR EYES

Interspecies design is a way of designing spaces for multiple species to live in.
Our current world is divided into ‘human’ and ‘animal’ spaces. For this project we were tasked with making an experience where people think about a world where all species are considered equally, and apply this thinking to the roof of NEMO.

Our part is an experience where people can see through the perspective of different animals.
These displays have been placed on the roof of NEMO so people will be able to move themselves into the perspectives of these 4 different species, and experience a new view on the world.

Among these species are:

• The bee (who sees the world in rainbows instead of colors)
• The bat (who looks with his ears)
• The seagull (who smells what you can’t even see)
• The Snail (who carry their homes and our futures on their backs)

STUDENTS: Tristan van Dansik, Eva Hammerer, Ziggy van de Weetering, Noah Boontjes
CLIENT: Visual Methodologies
COACH: Charley Muhren

DESIGN ANIMALS

How can children playfully learn about the needs of urban animals? Our interactive installation invites children to co-create a shared environment for humans and animals through drawing.

The journey starts by picking an animal, like a bee or a bat. Each animal comes with a matching template and a short story that inspires the child to draw something the animal might need—like a flower for a bee. They then attach both the animal and their drawing to a large illustrated Nemo roof terrace using magnets.

Throughout the day, the background transforms into a colorful, collective world filled with creative ideas and care for animals. The activity encourages imagination, empathy, and collaboration between children and their parents. This project was developed in collaboration with NEMO Science Museum and was tested on-site with real visitors.

STUDENTS: Ruben Beck, Zahra Taha, Max de Ruijter, Maryam Qadri
CLIENT: Visual Methodologies
COACH: Charley Muhren

BENCHBOT

BenchBot is a smart AI-powered bench designed to bring visitors in Amsterdam together in an accessible and interactive way. Whether you’re seeking rest, refreshment, or a moment of connection, BenchBot offers a unique experience where technology, nature, and people meet. The bench immediately draws attention with its playful design, colorful lighting, comfortable seating, and the touch of nature integrated into it. It feels inviting, familiar, and pleasantly surprising.

At the heart of BenchBot is its artificial intelligence. Through light, sound, and questions, the AI invites users to interact. As you sit down, you hear a question left by a previous visitor. Then, you receive a new question to answer—a message for the next guest. This thoughtful mechanism sparks curiosity, encourages reflection, and often leads to a conversation with the person sitting across from you.

BenchBot transforms a simple moment of rest into a shared experience, showing how technology can naturally bring people closer together.

STUDENTS: Ahmadriza Sewruttan, Sem Van Wijk, Irem Erdem, Maxwell Pels
CLIENT: Cities of Things
COACH: Ista Boszhard