Maassilo, the 1910 brick and concrete grain silo, seen across the grey water of Maashaven in Rotterdam-Zuid
Format Buy a ticket

Two days, one stage, twelve talks on how design gets made, in a grain silo on the Maas.

Buy your ticket · €390 See the twelve speakers

Fri 14 – Sat 15 May 2027

400 seats · single track · no livestream

Maassilo, Maashaven, Rotterdam-Zuid

Format

Format is the thing a designer decides before anything else: the size of the sheet, the type of file, the structure underneath. For two days in May, 400 of us sit in one hall of the Maassilo, a 1910 grain silo on the Maashaven, and watch twelve working designers show how their work actually gets made. One stage, no parallel tracks, no livestream.

Rows of black folding chairs in the concrete hall of the Maassilo

Metro to Maashaven station, then two minutes on foot. Doors at 09:00 on both days.

Friday 14 May

  1. Ines VandekerckhoveType designGhentFri“Grids that lie”
  2. Jesper HolmEditorial designCopenhagenFri“Ninety pages, one argument”
  3. Amara OkaforWayfindingLondonFri“Signs nobody reads twice”
  4. Daan de WitBrand identityRotterdamFri“The logo came last”
  5. Lucía FerrerInterface designBarcelonaFri“Eleven buttons too many”
  6. Tomasz WronaPrint productionWrocławFri“Trim, bleed, regret”

Saturday 15 May

  1. Marit SolbergMotion designOsloSat“Three frames is enough”
  2. Koen BastiaansArchitecture graphicsEindhovenSat“Drawing what concrete does”
  3. Selin AydınPackagingIstanbulSat“A box has a front”
  4. Pieter MaesDesign systemsAntwerpSat“Rules we broke on purpose”
  5. Noor HaddadIllustrationAmsterdamSat“Bad drawings, good clients”
  6. Hanne BrouwerCreative directionRotterdamSat“Saying no in Helvetica”

  1. Doors open at 09:00.

    Coffee, lanyard badge and the two-day programme sheet at the door of Maassilo.

  2. Then three talks.

    Three morning talks, one stage, every seat facing it. Nobody is in another room.

  3. Lunch, then three more.

    Lunch is included. The afternoon runs three talks, six speakers a day in all.

  4. Drinks on the water.

    Each evening, Friday and Saturday, on the Maashaven quay. Metro to Maashaven, two minutes' walk.

Maashaven harbour water with a moored barge and cranes, the Erasmusbrug hazy beyond

Both days, €390
one ticket.

Lunch and drinks on both days are included. 400 seats in Maassilo and not one more, no livestream.

Buy your ticket · €390
Brick and concrete wall of the Maassilo with a tall industrial window

Practical answers

How do I get to Maassilo?

Take the metro to Maashaven station. Maassilo is a two-minute walk from the exit, on the quay in Rotterdam-Zuid.

Can I get a refund or change the name?

Name changes are free until 30 April 2027, just write to us. Refunds are possible up to that date; after it, you can pass your ticket on to someone else.

What language are the talks in?

All twelve talks are in English, on one stage, with no parallel tracks.

Is Maassilo accessible?

The hall and the stage are reachable step-free by lift. Tell us what you need when you buy and we will set a seat aside.

Will the talks be recorded?

No livestream, no overflow room and no recordings. If you want to see a talk, you have to be in one of the 400 seats.

Trimmed to 400 seats.

A silo fills once. Buy your ticket for 14–15 May and be in the room.

Buy your ticket · €390