A RAW IDEA by Thomas More

During Antwerp Design Week, ID&A Mechelen presents “A RAW IDEA the young designer as a tool” in the iconic Boerentoren. 

The exhibition starts from a simple proposition: the young designer is not merely a future professional, but an instrument to question the present and activate change.  In a building that is itself in transition, design is presented as something still in motion not polished statements, but work that tests, questions and challenges. 

Young designers show realized projects alongside models, material experiments and traces of thought. Result and process appear side by side. Doubt remains visible. Choices are not smoothed over.  Here, the young designer functions as a tool: a way to look differently at today and tomorrow, and a means to set things in motion. Rather than waiting for perfect solutions to complex societal challenges, design becomes a way to begin to question, to test and to act. 

Working from a perspective of social engagement and design research, students and graduates respond to the realities of today and tomorrow. The exhibition shifts the focus from object or space to the position of the designer. 

Design is presented not only as a finished outcome, but as a sequence of deliberate and concrete choices. It is precisely in these choices that a designer’s stance becomes visible. 

“A RAW IDEA” reveals what a new generation of designers stands for and invites visitors to look, think and question along with them.