Ir. Dommelen, S. van

Sjoerd van Dommelen is lecturer at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

Academic Background

My dad taught me to ideate and build stuff when I was a kid (we build a recumbent bike one time, for example). He imagined me to enter a school where I would learn a craft. Life took a turn and it was my mother eventually who got the upper hand and figured that IDE TU Delft would fit me. It was (unfortunately) not until my graduation project, on donor registering, that I was truly confronted with the complexity of people's perception of design (intentions) and people's behaviour towards all that surrounds them in every day life. It made me acquire the skill to imagine and identify with 'users' in detail and to design and achieve things in context of natural (undesirable) behaviour. This is probably the skill I now know myself best by. And I still am a kid that builds stuff. 

After graduation in 2008 I got fed up with my first job in construction innovation pretty quickly, but it did sprout a long appreciation of the application of natural light (and other things natural) in our built environment and interior. My view inside the construction industry also exampled, again, how strong the influence of people's perception is on the progress of things, or even on their own health. From 2009 on I spend about 6 years combining consulting and designing with teaching, the latter which got the upper hand by 2015. Since then my work at IDE has been my primary activity. 

Education

• 2005 - 2008
  Master SPD Industrial Design Engineering (TU Delft)
• 2000 – 2005 
  Bachelor Industrial Design Engineering (TU Delft)

Experience

Check out LinkedIn.

Lectures and/or coaches students on

See stuff instead of merely looking at it, and pierce through obvious observations and ideas.

Secondary employment

Occasional self-employed designer and maker in interior, furniture and print.