From the land of wooden shoes, windmills and Heineken beer an increasing number of designers are drawn to the flourishing creative industry in Shanghai. Designed to help these creative entrepreneurs break into the Chinese market, the Dutch Design Workspace opened its doors at a renovated factory in September 2010.

Together with the Dutch Design Fashion Architecture (DutchDFA), DDWS director Giel Groothuis initiated the creation of a platform for Dutch designers to promote their brands in China. Supported by the Dutch government, individual designers and companies now enjoy the DDWS incubator program’s benefits, like fully equipped office space, networking and matchmaking facilities and a supporting team assisting with practical issues and legal matters. Boo Hoeboe, Design Director of Du Bois Ording Design, is only four weeks into the program, but has found the support useful.

“DDWS has helped connect me to other creative bureaus, market research agencies, trend watchers and so on to find the answers to all my questions,” Hoeboe says. “You get access to so many people, and you’re given a starting point, which is a lot easier than going through the Yellow Pages yourself.”

Other difficulties that start-ups often come across are cultural differences in doing business, investment and copyright matters. Lax copyright laws and a culture of reproduction make it difficult to protect designs. DDWS helps members of the program deal with these issues at a lower cost than can be achieved on an individual basis.

What’s more, the incubator program provides participants the benefit of a shared and already established image of the joint force. Working together with creative minds with high expertise from all corners of the design industry is beneficial for all participants. Team members are carefully selected to create an inspiring environment and stimulate collaboration between all designers.

“The group of people that are brought together here are incredibly valuable to each other,” says Ties Carlier, director of the innovative bicycle company Van Moof. The different corporations at DDWS are complementary instead of competitive. There’s no fear of exchanging knowledge, because in the end, they’re all on the same team.

“The ‘dream team’ consists of three groups: the creative companies from the Netherlands with a clear-cut plan to position themselves in China, individual designers and embedded entrepreneurs coming from different nationalities,” Groothuis explains. All desks in the French Concession office space are currently occupied by web designers, architects, graphic designers and product developing companies like Van Moof, but people often come and go, opening up space for newcomers every month.

Not content to just serve as an office space, DDWS also wants to cash in on Shanghai’s trend of ‘design performances’. Marcin Gajewski, a graphic designer and film producer who has been renting his space at for a few months, showcased architectonic short films at the Mini Film Festival in April. Now he’s planning to organise another Mini in October, this time at DDWS.

Web: www.dutchdesignworkspace.com