dutch design week, 17-25 oktober 2026 eindhoven

4TU Design United Dialogues 4: Health & Wellbeing

Let’s not be paralyzed by ecological crises and threats to democracy, but ACT with optimism.

Hosted by Design United

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Accessibility

Free wifi available
Toilets available
Fully wheelchair accessible
Wheelchair friendly toilet available

Opening hours

09:30
-
12:30
Tijdens ons vijfdaagse design onderzoeksprogramma Less Hope, More Action! gaan we in gesprek over designonderzoeksprojecten van 4TU die inspelen op de maatschappelijke uitdagingen van vandaag. De sessies zijn Engelstalig.

Health & Wellbeing

Our health and wellbeing are dynamic, shaped by our bodies, relationships, technologies, and environments. This year’s track presents eleven projects that reveal how design acts across boundaries: from daily rehabilitation to digital connections, from food rituals to material cycles, from designer wellbeing to community bonding. In an era where most people interact increasingly with technology and screens dominate our attention, these projects call for concrete action to align design with our biology, resilience, and care.

Dialogue Session

The Health & Wellbeing Dialogue Session invites participants to explore health not as a fixed state but as a dynamic condition shaped by daily life, technologies, and environments. The involved projects provide provocations: from integrating rehabilitation into routines to supporting designers’ wellbeing, sustaining circular materials, bonding communities, and creating warmer digital connections.

The session unfolds in two parts: Challenges & Boundaries maps tensions and scopes novel areas in health design; Futures engages participants in speculative scenarios that are then translated into concrete action points. Together, we ask: how can design act now to align our products, technologies, and spaces with human and ecological wellbeing?

Programme

9.30 Walk in

9:45 – Introduction of narrative, icebreaker and project pitches

10:00 – Part 1: Challenges & Boundaries
Experience of projects: Freehabilitation, POMPA, Octoping, From Empathy to Vulnerability, Let's Bond,
Exploring challenges and boundaries based on provocations
Wrap-up mapping and discussion

11:00 – Break

11:15 – Part 2: Futures and Action
Speculative exercises on utopian futures
Collective reflection & next steps towards action

12.30 Wrap up and lunch

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Octoping
Octoping
Petr Dobias
From Empathy to Vulnerability
From Empathy to Vulnerability
Roberta Antognini and others
Experience Garden
Experience Garden
Teodora Citia
Wave of Care
Wave of Care
Pitshaya Chonato

programme.hosted_by.about Design United

Design United, the 4TU.Centre for Design Research, operates at the intersection of scientific research, emerging technologies, and the shifting needs and dreams of our future societies.

Colofon

Theme Team Health & Wellbeing Maarten Houben (TU/e), Eda Karaosmanoglu (TUD), Siyuan Huang (UT), Zhuochao Peng (TUD), Govert Flint (TUD)

Partners

Sponsored by 4TU Design United Dialogues 4: Health & Wellbeing
Sponsored by 4TU Design United Dialogues 4: Health & Wellbeing
Sponsored by 4TU Design United Dialogues 4: Health & Wellbeing
Sponsored by 4TU Design United Dialogues 4: Health & Wellbeing
Sponsored by 4TU Design United Dialogues 4: Health & Wellbeing