Blown To Life in the National Glass Museum of Leerdam

From June 23rd to September 26th 2010:
'The Bell Garden' a gardening concept for the exhibition Blown To Life in the National Glass Museum of Leerdam.

Arnout Visser and the Glass Museum in Leerdam invited Studio Makkink & Bey for a glass workshop and to do a project with this material, using existing glass objects to revive both the material and the glass workshop in Kenya.
In the workshop 'Blow To Life' in Leerdam, Kenyan glass blowers from Kitengala Hot Glass. Studio Makkink & Bey came up with a project showcasing both ancient European gardening techniques and the Kenyan glass blowing practice of using old bottles.
Starting from the 19th century, the French developed a technique called cloche farming. Cloche farming could be considered the ancestor of the glass house, where the glass protects the shoots of young plants. The bell-jar cloches can be fitted inside a garden cabinet made of crate segments you can take out to sit on and start your gardening comfortably. The plants used in the exhibition in Leerdam are vegetables and herbs oftentimes used in Kenyan recipes.

For more information, please click here.

Exhibition Bloedkoralen van de Oosterschelde - Oosterschelde Coralline embankment

To brace the dikes of the Southern Dutch province of Zeeland, the Zeeweringen project office, the provinces' office for Water Management and other institutions involved in water management, have initiated a cultural project to re-shape the cladding of the Oosterschelde dikes.

Studio Makkink & Bey were asked to propose design strategies to harness and fortify the dikes, marrying functionality with a refined exterior into an elegant trimming. We came up with four different ways to strengthen the dikes and add a cultural purpose to the embankment at the same time. Each proposal opens the dikes up for the general public to solicit an automatic maintenance of the dike, a process that is assisted by local clubs who are involved to help guard and take care of the area.
Our studio is suggesting mobile shower units and eateries for sport fans and bird watchers, who can revive themselves after a days' out by the sea. Their club is responsible for the quality of the refreshment booths and provision of fresh, local food. Traditional jewelry is pressed into the asphalt in a pattern and a sports field grid is painted in white lines on the asphalt, further down the dike.
The second proposal is a concrete landscape for nature enthusiasts, who can peek through tunnels and walk between concrete trees rising up from the bottom of the sea when the tide has withdrawn. The same trees form a sea forrest for divers during the tide is high.
Thirdly, concrete caissons and their molds provide a possible bungalow park when fitted to this end. The bungalow park grows according to demand and the mound is likely to pile up quicker than the rising of the sea level, thus automaticly sustaining the dike.
Lastly, we've proposed to clad the dike with a layer of Elastocoast with zones of different structures, textures and patterns. Mimicking nature, this ornate cladding makes up a manufactured accretion on top of the dike and in the water.

GastGastgeber - RUHR 2010

For RUHR.2010, European Capital of Culture, Studio Makkink & Bey was asked by Bureau Venhuizen to design guestrooms and to act as a curator in the GastGastgeber project. The event opens on Saturday the 1st of May in the water tower of Oberhausen Central station and will run until the 31st of October 2010.

Studio Makkink & Bey has designed the interior of eight rooms of the temporary hotel in the former water tower. The interiors of these rooms have been furnished with a wooden construction and a flip-up bed, to give the rooms a double function of private bedroom as well as a public workroom. An artist will be chosen for each room to permanently exhibit their work, a guest artist will then be invited to respond by making a new piece during his/her stay at the hotel.

The RUHR area is this year's European Capital of Culture. The GastGastgeber project, a joint effort of Dutch and German cultural institutions, is planning a number of interventions on several locations. The Dutch are guests in the Ruhr area, but will also act as hosts - hence the name Gast(guest)Gastgeber(host).

To make reservations please send an e-mail to: gast@gastgastgeber.org
Information is available from Monday until Thursday. You can rent a room in Oberhausen for €60,- p.p. a night.

The rooms are open for public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays between 2 pm. and 5 pm. The entrance is free a reservation is not needed to visit the water tower.
Address:
Wasserturm Oberhausen (via main hall)
Willy-Brandt-Platz 1
46045 Oberhausen
For more information go to:
http://nlinruhr.bureauvenhuizen.com/
http://www.nl-ruhr.de/

Exhibition by Studio Makkink & Bey for Nissan in the Lloyd Hotel

Februari 10th until Sunday the 14th: our exhibition for the launch of the Nissan cube in the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam.

The context of the Nissan Cube, future car culture, and refined public spaces is presented in three scenarios. On three platforms in the hotel, each displaying one scenario, visitors can peek into our view on refining the public realm. We've chosen to show works which signify new and past culture, revealing the story in between about the way products and culture evolve through reciprocal response.

Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy Oostelijke Handelskade 34 Amsterdam

Happy Families exhibition at Kunsthal Kade

The Happy Families exhibition shows the entire story of Studio Makkink & Bey and our design philosophy, which is largely based on personal relationships, connections with like-minded people and collaborative arrangements. It is more than simply a display of finished work, but shows how the Studio’s design practice has developed over time.

28 November 2009 - 14 February 2010 in Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort, the Netherlands

Studio Makkink & Bey Prooff Lab - exhibition at Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam and results Rotterdam Design Prize 2009

Studio Makkink & Bey undertook a study into mobility and work for PROOFF LAB, a platform for the development of new workscapes, in collaboration with SV, manufacturers of office furniture. This resulted not only in new furniture concepts but also in a vision of versatile work environments, a ‘progressive office’. The working environment becomes a meeting place for the exchange of ideas and experience, rather than serving pure profit motives. We expand it to form a campus, a knowledge environment composed of communal indoor and outdoor spaces where working and living become one. Feeling our way between the scales of product design and architecture, we asked ourselves ‘What if a piece of furniture were itself a space?’, allowing a choice of physical working position, whether lounging, leaning or sitting. The same question that earlier gave rise to the Ear Chair, a seat wide enough and high enough to prevent distraction by shielding the user from outside sights and sounds. An individual space within the public area. Another product, the recently developed Work Lamp, emits bright white light and looks like a cross between a functional workshop lamp and a piece of street lighting. The lamp can hang either indoors or out and has its own built-in ceiling. Our thinking about work and mobility began, not with the car, but with a piece of furniture: the office chair. The resulting Slow Car is intended as an alternative to office seating rather than motor vehicles. It’s the best office chair around, not the slowest car, promoting concentration with its limited sight lines.