Employees from Werkplein Ability. Photo: Janna Bathoorn.
In July, we organised two sessions with our partner Werkplein Ability for the Local Making Place project. This serves to exchange experience and knowledge with regard to the materials and techniques we use within the project and to make a start with the Local Making Place project. Partner Ability provides the opportunity to scale up production. Director Ernst Ottens (centre in photo) clearly sees the importance of circularity and will explore this internally with the R&D department. You can read the report of the second session on bamboo here.
Volken de Vlas presents the designs of Volop. Photo: Janna Bathoorn.
Straw and clay
The first session was organised with a group of designers who are interested in using Ability’s workshop to scale up the production of their designs. They are interested in different production techniques for the processing of straw and clay; for example, a press that can be used to make sheet material or to produce moulds.
Inspiring each other
The LMP designers Volken de Vlas, Gerard de Hoop, Simone Larabi, Paul Bloemers and Wiebren Veenstra presented their material research and products and the techniques they used.
Employees from Werkplein Ability. Photo: Janna Bathoorn.
Ability employees subsequently showed products that they make in the workshop. The presentations immediately gave rise to discussions about the possibilities of producing the products at Ability and tips were exchanged. The designers and employees clearly inspired each other.
Next step
We are going to organise a second session to see what is required to take the next step. This is different in each design process, of course. We will discuss which machines and production possibilities we can use, and which machines are desirable in the future.
In the short term, the workshop will be looking for space for experiments to develop the current products into a prototype. Designers indicate that there is a desire to work together on the products and to become more professional.