Join the stage is the platform for dialogue between past - present and future of VDMA Eindhoven In the coming years, the whole area will be re-developed into a new part of the city, where people will live, work and recreate.

Together, NulZes and Bygg are designing the temporary stage of this big development, using the momentum in between, lost in transition, to accompany and question the impact on the local scale of an urban transformation. We want to involve residents and visitors in this process of area development. How does a city come about? How is a place created where people feel welcome? How do you create a resilient neighborhood where residents take responsibility? Which can withstand unexpected developments?

Our temporary intervention in this inner courtyard introduces some elements of the final development such as the forest, but also creates a platform: a stage to give voices to local initiative in dialogue with the new plan. In this little forest we have placed a bar, The Vertical Gallery, 2 cabins in the wood, a cabin for the forest watcher including the top part by a digital Duck Hunt game and a light installation in the whole area. 

We believe, feeling connected to a place is a key element for any development. (That is the reason, we as Eindhoven residents and neighbors are participating in this project). Personal and collective memories that color the place. We want to take visitors to the stories of this rich past; about the match factory, where the name Lichtstad comes from, about the Garage, where Piet van der Meulen (the VDM of VDMA) ran the largest car garage in the Netherlands. But also about more recent history: where Feelgood Markets were organized, where Dave Hakkens and an army of creatives have collected plastic and transformed it into new material, where temporary interventions such as exhibitions and parties kept the place alive. Stories that formed the raw material for the plan that has been developed in recent years: Join the Stage

The stories of the present; we will have to make it together. It is an open invitation to the city, to you, to them, to join in and take the stage. Wouldn't it be nice if we could hear unheard voices? Wallflowers and birds of paradise, feel free!