Interview with Saskia van Stein

When Design Academy Eindhoven first interviewed Saskia van Stein in 2020, the world had just entered lockdown. The Critical Inquiry Lab was still in its infancy, taking shape around the question of what it means to educate designers for a world whose political, ecological and technological realities are becoming increasingly unstable.

“If we think about the post-discipline and the expanding field of design, what would the attitude one would need be? What actually constitutes the essence of this discipline? What is it needed for?” Van Stein said across Zoom. While the rest of us were still learning how to unmute ourselves, she was already thinking several years ahead. She spoke about productive doubt, uncertainty and criticality not simply as intellectual positions, but as ways of building communities of inquiry. These were the principles she proposed to prepare students not simply for the world as it is, but for the worlds to come.

Over the six years that followed, those ideas became a programme. Drawing on her career spanning architecture, design and cultural institutions—from the Netherlands Architecture Institute (now Het Nieuwe Instituut) to Bureau Europa to, more recently, the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam—Van Stein helped shape the Critical Inquiry Lab into a master’s centred on artistic research, transdisciplinary collaboration and design as a cultural practice. Alongside students, tutors and, from 2023, co-head Patricia Reed, the programme responsively evolved through experimentation, partnerships and continual reflection on its own methods.

Returning to the conversation, a year after Van Stein stepped down from the Critical Inquiry Lab, she reflects on six years of building the programme, what she learned from students and colleagues, and how education reshaped her own understanding of leadership, collaboration and the role of design in times of systemic change.

Nadine Botha: When spoke in 2020, you described becoming a student alongside your students. What have you learnt over these six years?

Saskia van Stein: My first lesson came from COVID. The unprecedented global lockdown questioned proximity and distance, even the air we share. Handling the anxieties immediately activated a sense of leadership. Beyond moving the curriculum online, we found ourselves creating an entire environment of care. There were students who were lonely, parents who were worried, and so many uncertainties. We wrote letters, organised evening gatherings, watched films together. I realised that learning is always relational. Leadership is about creating a space where people feel safe enough to voice concerns, ask questions and learn together.

The other thing that stayed with me was working with young people at such a formative stage of their lives. I became fascinated by what they resist, what triggers them and how education can make those moments productive. One of the most meaningful developments in the programme was the Discomfort Dialogues, which emerged from students feeling resistance to an external partner. Rather than treating resistance as something to overcome or from which to build a wall, I suggested that the students use it as a starting point. Watching our students move from static resistance towards productive friction was inspiring. That resilience gave me a great deal of hope.

At the same time, I came to appreciate the importance of lived experience. Early on I wondered what I really had to offer as I was adamant not to reproduce ‘myself’ or my education. Over time I realised that simply being older, taking responsibility and sharing experience matters. Students arrive with an extraordinary moral sensitivity, but many are also deeply disillusioned about the state of the world. Walking alongside them through that has been one of the most rewarding—and emotionally demanding—aspects of education. One of the things I started was active feedback sessions after each trimester to see if curriculum was  being experienced as intended. It was confrontational but really shaped the programme in a good way.

Looking back, I’m also struck by how quickly we forgot many of the lessons of that period. In 2020 I was still relatively hopeful about where the world was heading. Today I see the systemic breakdown of ecological and geopolitical systems unfolding much faster than I imagined. That has changed my perspective on education. Increasingly, I believe we need to shift our attention from what we teach to how we teach.

NB: This understanding must have also shaped the curriculum itself. Looking back, what were the most important decisions you made?

SvS: In the beginning I wanted to expose students to everything, moving through different scales of design from the body to the planetary. Every trimester brought new frameworks, new collaborations, new references. I thought I had to show them everything that’s out there;the width and depth of several cultural ecologies. I also wanted to checkbox everything—feminism, check; decolonial theory, check—and that extremely ambitious layering might have been distracting rather than inspirational. Over time we realised that less could actually achieve more. Rather than offering fifty stars on the horizon, it became more meaningful to begin from one precise point and allow students to branch out from there. The curriculum became calmer, more focused and more rigorous.

What remained constant was the desire to give students multiple ways of working. We moved between individual and collective practice, between embodied research and larger systemic questions. I wasn’t interested in producing one type of designer. I wanted students to discover how they themselves work best: are they collaborators, organisers, researchers, writers, filmmakers, or a combination of all the above? Education should create the conditions for people to understand their own way of contributing.

Equally important was mediation. Criticality doesn’t end with developing a position; it also requires knowing how to communicate that position, how to build relationships around it and how to move ideas into the world.

NB: You also assembled a remarkably diverse group of tutors and collaborators.

SvS: That was very intentional. I wanted students to understand design as part of a much broader cultural conversation. Some tutors came from design, others from biology, social sciences or performance. Each brought a different perspective while contributing to a shared pedagogical direction.

We also invested in continuity. Having a stable core team meant tutors could recognise long-term patterns in a student’s development. They could point back to work made a year earlier and ask how ideas were evolving rather than treating every project in isolation.

I also tried to demystify professional practice. When invited practitioners visited, we always encouraged them to speak not only about successful projects but also about the process, failures, doubts and the messy realities of making work. That felt far more valuable than reinforcing the myth of the flawless designer.

NB: You were very generous with sharing your extensive network with students, facilitating many partnerships beyond the academy. The collaboration with the Design Museum DenBosch around Victor Papanek was one of the most memorable.

SvS: I never believed education should remain within four walls. Students are eager to engage with the world beyond the academy, so I thought: let me bring my network into the programme. I would literally phone people and ask if they’d be willing to collaborate.

The Papanek project became a good example. The brief was deceptively straightforward: take a fresh look at this hugely influential designer and ask what critical questions his legacy still raises today. The museum was genuinely overwhelmed by how seriously the students approached it. Rather than simply responding to Papanek as an individual, they questioned the institution, its modes of representation, gender, ethnography and the assumptions underpinning the exhibition itself. The project expanded into podcasts, lectures, films and editorial work.

I sometimes joke that the museum got a little more than it bargained for. The students pointed out that the exhibition still positioned Papanek as a singular heroic figure who loosely appropriates indigenous artefacts. Asking what it means to continue presenting design history through individual authorship rather than through the wider political and institutional conditions that shaped it. That level of criticality was exactly what the programme hoped to cultivate.

What moved me most, however, wasn’t only the quality of the work. It was the generosity students showed each other. Someone who excelled academically would recognise another student’s strengths in a completely different area. That sense of solidarity was remarkable.

Ultimately, these collaborations weren’t simply about producing projects. They were about giving students the confidence to enter unfamiliar institutions, ask difficult questions and realise they already had something meaningful to contribute. Young designers often enter professional practice at the very bottom of the hierarchy. I wanted them to understand that they could already participate in larger conversations—and perhaps even change them.

NB: During these years Patricia Reed joined you as co-head. How did that partnership shape the programme?

SvS: When I became director of the IABR, I couldn’t keep up with the pace of the commitment to students. Bringing Patricia’s academic rigor into conversation with my eclectic transdisciplinarity really deepened the programme. We come from different backgrounds and sometimes approached questions differently, but those differences sharpened the curriculum. Our shared commitment to preparing students for an uncertain future remained constant.

One of my favourite moments each year came after the examinations, when students gathered to critically discuss each other’s work and methods. Those conversations demonstrated that they had become articulate critics of their own practice and generous interlocutors for others. Seeing that peer culture develop has been incredibly rewarding.

NB: When you became director of the IABR, how did the Critical Inquiry Lab shape the way you lead an institution? It also seems an important example of a design career beyond professional practice.

SvS: Absolutely. The myth is that many students see the graduation show as the goal. The problem is that that reinforces design as something to be displayed and the designer as a singular author. We need to broaden our understanding of where design can make a difference. I fundamentally believe we need designers in positions where they can shape institutions, inform policy, connect silos and imagine collective futures. There’s so much fear within institutions and societal structures. We need people who can navigate that with an open heart, good communication skills and leadership.

At the IABR, we do a lot of research into the spatial ramifications of the large societal questions—water, energy, climate, migration and governance. It took me a while to understand where design sits meaningfully within these complex systems. On the one hand, there is design by research—analysing and contextualising facts and questions—but we also need people who can orchestrate the political, legislative and human conditions around those ideas, keeping different actors engaged without losing sight of where change is possible. The sweet spot is where design begins to influence policy.

My four-year programme at IABR is called ‘Systems of Support’. It’s an attempt to understand how cultural production can critique systems while also creating the conditions for them to change. The ‘biennale’ isn’t the goal; it’s a vehicle for starting the conversation on productive ecosystems and imagining different futures. In many ways, it brings me back to the same questions we explored in the Critical Inquiry Lab: authorship, hierarchy, different forms of knowledge, and how change becomes something shared rather than individual.

NB: Leaving a programme you’ve poured so much into over six years can’t have been an easy decision. Why did you decide to step away?

SvS: Quite simply, I realised I could no longer do justice to both roles. Over the past few years I’ve built strong regional and European relationships for the IABR and re-embedding the institution as an instrument of policy. The next phase is to strengthen its international role, and that requires my full attention.

Leaving has been far more emotional than I anticipated—just a year out and I’m truly missing being an educator. When I started I underestimated how psychologically demanding education is, but also how enriching it is. Being surrounded by brilliant young people, witnessing their curiosity, humour and unexpected ways of thinking—that has been an enormous privilege.

Education constantly reminded me that every generation asks different questions. Having the opportunity to think alongside students, rather than simply teaching them, will undoubtedly remain one of the most meaningful experiences of my career.