Ask any Dutch person what Eindhoven is famous for, and there is a good chance you will hear the terms “city of light’” and “technology capital” in their answers. But… an important part of Eindhoven’s Urban Skin that is less well-known is the bustling student life. There are no less than 35.5 thousand students in the inner city every week, of which 17.5 thousand have also found somewhere to live. It’s quite remarkable that 15% of Eindhoven residents are students but the city itself is not known as a student city. Student society SSRE wants to change this with this project in collaboration with Team IGNITE!

We approached all local students to put Eindhoven in the spotlight. Walk through the city during GLOW and you can’t miss all the facades displaying a beating heart. Each heart indicates the location of a student house. The presence of these hearts in such large numbers hopefully gives an impression of how important the students are to the city and how important Eindhoven is to them. All these beating hearts come together in one artwork in the headquarters of the SSRE student society. Enjoy the cosy atmosphere and meet the enthusiastic students who have created this project. They are happy to answer your questions and have a chat!

Many ‘prototype’ hearts were made. The biggest challenge was to find suitable batteries that would last the whole duration of GLOW. It was also tricky to make an attractive matching pattern of light using only electrical components. Both problems were solved by switching to a programmable microcomputer, that uses a clock-controlled programme to make the hearts shine, all GLOW long! For all other problems the students encountered during the project, there were always professionals they could turn to for help.