Laurens Kolks is a teacher at St. Joost School of Art & Design and a PhD researcher at Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (EUR). He is a designer and sociologist, receiving a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from Design Academy Eindhoven (1999) and a master’s degree in Sociology from Erasmus University Rotterdam (2018, cum laude).
He considers himself a topophil, where topophilia is understood as the love of places and their particularities. Therefore, his design work consists primarily of unique, site-specific designs and installations with a temporary or permanent character. The scale of these designs ranges from furniture and set designs to complete interiors and buildings.
His research investigates how various design practices – through the design of objects, environments, systems and services – partake in the entanglement of the social and the material to articulate public issues. Regarding the involvement of design practices with public and moral issues, his research intends to gain insight into how various design approaches contribute to the engagement of publics with collective concerns.