Study profile

The Master Industrial Design is a two-year full-time master’s programme that sets out to educate designers who want to redesign industry. Students research and develop projects in which they question and redesign the conventions of the industrial system towards a more diverse, just and sustainable future.

We believe in the discursive and transformative potential of design. Through design research designers can pose questions, search for answers, envision futures, and prototype scenarios. Research is therefore at the center of the Master Industrial Design programme. Aesthetically distinctive and outspoken products and projects are developed based on research that defines the position of the designer in the professional field.

Collaborative projects with partners in and outside the design field form the basis of our programme, allowing students to get involved and connected to urgent and relevant themes and discourses in the design field and the world at large. Through making, sharing, reading, prototyping, listening and writing students shape their own projects and professional position and practice.

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Specifications

Degree

Master of Arts

Duration

Full-time 2 years

Study load

120 ECTS

Start date

September

Costs

Tuition fees & Living costs

Department Head

Shadman Shahid and Jonas Althaus (ad interim)

Application deadlines

Check the admission requirements

Language

English-taught programme
(English level required)

Programme / CROHO

M Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design / 49114

Why choose the Master Industrial Design?

The programme supports students in positioning themselves within the broader landscape of industrial design, identifying their own fascinations and values and reflecting on the impact of their work on material cultures, infrastructures and systems of production.
Industrial design is approached beyond conventional boundaries of consumer goods, aesthetics and usability. Attention is given to the cultural, material, ideological, industrial, ecological, and socio-political infrastructures that shape design practice.
Design is treated as both a material practice and a field of inquiry in which making, critical reflection, world-building, imagination and intervening are closely intertwined.
Research and experimentation are central to the department’s approach, with a particular emphasis on Research through Design: using methods of design in the pursuit of knowledge and new perspectives.

Online Q&A with Master Industrial Design (MID)

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Master Industrial Design podcast: design journey

Episode #9: Alumnus Morris Bouwman has a conversation with Stefan about his graduation project »Watching the [Grass] Grow«. He shares his experience during the graduation year and how his initial fascination and research evolved into the outcome presented at the graduation show.

Episode #8: Rosa te Velde, the graduation class of 2023 and Stefan talk about the recent symposium the students had and how this influenced their perspective on working with others, researching and reflecting on their own projects.

Episode #6: Krijn Christiaansen talks about his work with Cathelijne Montens in their studio KCCM, teaching and studying industrial design at an art academy, and walking as a research method.

Episode #5: Having a critical view on design and what you are doing is a core aspect of studying at the Master Industrial Design. Maaike Roozenburg talks about how her views on design have shifted throughout her career and what she aims to do at the department at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague.

In episode #4 Stefan sits down with Yassine Slihine, a core tutor for design research, to talk about the Master Industrial Design's motto »Redesigning the Industry« and the impact of designers.

Episode #3 features Dries Verbruggen of Unfold Design Studio. Together with partner Claire Warnier he investigates craft and industrial production and explores the promising realm that lies in between.

Special thanks to Dries Verbruggen and sound technician Rein Wijnja of River Studio.

What bio-based, sustainable alternatives can be found for synthetic textiles? The past semester the enthusiastic first year students of the Master Industrial Design at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague sought to answer this question under the guidance of designer and teacher Lenneke Langenhuisen of design duo Buro Belén.

Buro Belén call themselves 'materializers'. But what do 'materializers' do? We interviewed Lenneke about Beléns design practice and the challenges of working with natural materials and making industry more sustainable.

Special thanks to Lenneke Langenhuijsen and sound technician Rein Wijnja of Riverstudio.

In this first Dutch spoken episode of design journey , KABK alumna Lilian van Daal (1988) talks about how she takes inspiration from nature when designing new products. She actively seeks collaborations with both scientists and industrial partners. But what she loves to do most is put ants under her microscope.

Lilian is among the new generation of designers and creators who were supported in 2018 by a Talent Development grant and is featured in the Talent Platform by the Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie during the Dutch Design week 2018.