Joost Van der Made
Railway Interiors International ANNUAL SHOWCASE 2019
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YOUTHFUL VISION
NS fosters innovation by encouraging
students to imagine creative solutions
that enhance the passenger experience.
“We had a couple of students in
Eindhoven come up with a solution to
inform people if there are empty seats
on the upper level, before they go
up,” says Joost Van der Made. “They
developed a light guide and a haptic
handrail. You will feel a pulse in a
different direction – either upward
or downward, as a blocking gesture.
This is very subtle feedback, and good
for people with a visual impairment.
It’s extremely efficient. When people
touch a handrail and feel a pulse
coming down, they subconsciously stop
and move on. This is just one example.”
T he head of concept design and
innovation at the Netherlands’ national
operator, NS, sees himself more as a
problem-solver than a designer. “I love working
with design, drawing, but design is not my core
passion, rather it is about solving the puzzle,”
says Joost Van der Made.
He calls his approach ‘deliberate design’,
and it is about addressing problems,
transforming the user experience and making
things a bit more fun. Recently, Van der Made
applied this approach to the design of the new
NS Train of the Future concept.
“It started with a challenge,” he recalls. “The
management team asked us to acquire new
high-capacity trains and there are often tradeoffs
between high capacity and design. We
are not going to do this. With these trade-offs,
like creating smaller seats, you will increase
capacity but decrease customer satisfaction.”
Flexible office inspiration
The designers instead took inspiration from
modern offices to create a more open, homely
space. “Static rooms with modular furnishings
are much more versatile and playful,” says
Van der Made. “Home and work are becoming
hybrid spaces. You move around more, there
are fewer desks. We had the modern flexible
office in mind when developing this design.”
This is why NS selected Mecanoo, an
architecture firm, and Gispen, an interior design