The Culture Lab

I am onto day 3 of the internship with Tejo Remy and Rene Veenhuizen. When I arrived at the studio I was very reassured to see a room full of treasurers. A collection of old glassware for lighting projects, bags full of old blankets, a sea of prototypes floating in every spare space.

The sight of the single stitch industrial sewing machine was also pretty exciting.

Anyway, the studio is based out in a very industrial part of Utrecht. The studio has an outlook onto a DHL depot, and the street with lined with lots more factories. It is pretty much on par with the serenity of Midland. Not the type of place you feel like venturing out for lunch in. Anyway, luckily where the studio is housed is a ‘Culture Lab’, basically a whole heap of creative’s have leased this building. Which means lunch often consists of conversa

tion with different architects, painters, set designers or engineers. This makes for a good social working environment.

Over the last couple of days I have been working on an ‘Accidental mat’. The piece recycles old blankets, and turns it into a very organic floor mat. It is nice to see the full working method of making the piece. It is also great to see what was probably conceived as a one off piece be developed into a marketable small production run product. The investment that Tejo, Rene + Tanja have put into developing the first rug has paid off through the development of the piece into a product. It is also reassuring to know that I am not the only designer who invests crazy amounts of labour into her work, the Accidental mats take approximately a week to make.