Daan Roosegaarde
Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde is a creative thinker and maker of social designs which explore the relation between people, technology, and space.
Roosegaarde has been driven by nature's gifts like light emitting fireflies and jellyfish since an early age. His fascination for nature and technology is reflected in his iconic works such as SMOG FREE PROJECT (the largest outdoor air purifier which turns smog into jewellery) and VAN GOGH PATH (bicycle path which glows at night).
Roosegaarde studied Fine Arts and graduated from The Berlage Institute in Rotterdam with a Master in architecture. He founded Studio Roosegaarde in 2007, where he works with his team of designers and engineers towards a better future.
Roosegaarde has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the London Design Innovation Medal, the INDEX Design Award, DFA Gold and Grand Award Hong Kong, LIT 2017 Lighting Designer of the Year Award, Platinum A'Design Award 2017, D&AD Awards 2017, Core77 Design Awards 2017, Dutch Artist of the Year 2016, the World Technology Award, two Dutch Design Awards, the Charlotte Köhler Award, and China's Most Successful Design Award. He exhibited at the Design Museum London, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tate Modern, Tokyo National Museum, Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris, Victoria & Albert Museum, and various public spaces across the globe.
Through lectures across the world Daan frequently shares his visionary ideas and projects.
Daan Roosegaarde has been selected by Forbes and Good 100 as a creative change maker and a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. He is currently a visiting professor at Tongji University in Shanghai.
3 words to describe Nature?
Experience
Knowledge
Surrender
3 things Nature taught you?
The Art of Communication
Beauty is evolution
Harmony - everything has a purpose
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Night diving in Bali
Watching Northern Lights in Norway
In some bizarre way, looking at snowflakes under a microscope!
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Curious and hungry for knowledge. The ocean is a pool of knowledge we understand so little
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Humble and fascinated. All these trees that communicate with each other! All this information stored and shared. The forest exemplifies beauty and communication into one.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
Puzzled and mystified. What can we do with the hidden energy. There is so much power, so much potential.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Aware of our relationship with the universe. A sense of movement that is beyond us.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Excited! This explosion of energy, this release of pure power.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Cold. Brings me back to these long cold Dutch nights when were working on developing sail prototypes, how to harvest the energy from the wind.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
I was ocean, but recently, after being in Dubai, I have become a desert person.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
8 on a personal level. But our society should be a 10, in a way that our creative and engineering should be based on the way nature does it, like Biomimicry. Nature has so much to teach us. We have so much to learn from it.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I was night diving in Indonesia when suddenly all these creatures started to produce light. We work so hard at creating light, spending so much energy and material so that we can illuminate our lives. And here were these simple organisms emitting so much light in a way that was natural and effortless. It was so humbling! We have so much to learn from Nature.
