Introduction

00:00:07

My name is Ineke Hans. I am a Dutch designer. We’re currently here in my studio in Arnhem. We design, furniture is the main focus, but also products, and I like to work more and more on exhibitions because of content.

00:00:25

Being here and being in furniture design for such a long time, I also started to ask all kinds of questions about the profession. And I saw that things changed, which is not always bad, but I wanted to know more about it. All these things had a lot of effect on furniture. For instance, spaces are getting smaller and more expensive. This means that we have less space and less money for furniture. The whole world of contract and domestic, which was always a very divided area for furniture has kind of moved into each other.

00:00:53

You see, for instance, that we have a generation, people like you who was not so interested in possession anymore, not only because they're not totally interested, but also because they can't afford it.

01:00

Every week in the world there is a fair, and if I ask everyone, how often do you buy a table? It doesn't match up with the amount of stuff we produce.

00:01:16

So there's all kinds of things piling up. And I wanted to do something with that and I wanted to look into that. And so I decided to set up salons there and I organized in total 12 salons through London. And every time we talked about a very specific topic with about 25 people around the table who were all part of the furniture world. So not designers, but also manufacturers, retailers.

00:01:41

I wrote everything down. And I made some conclusions. And from that I wrote a pamphlet of things what could happen for furniture, but what is also the change in position of the designer in this. And that was basically the also behind Was ist Los?, what's going on, what is going on in design and what does that, what kind of effect does that have on the position of the designer?

Dealing with the Digital

00:01:56

Dealing with the digital has to do with how we have to live 24 hours with being online and things like that. But also very much to do with the different ways we work nowadays. Because of being online, I can be in Arnhem and have a studio in London. I could not have done that 25 years ago. It means also that our mobility has changed.

00:02:21

It also means that we can produce less and one of the things so that we can produce differently. It means that you can produce where you want, what you want and when you need it. You're not producing shitloads of furniture.

Instant Desk

00:02:39

When I worked with Opendesk, I did a couple of projects, and I started to work also with them on a desk for an office. This became Instant Desk. And it was really very much based on how are these offices working nowadays: they need to be flexible because we have less space in these offices.

00:02:58

I wanted to make a very tiny desk that you could fold, that you could instantly set up and also use in a practical way and move around quickly. So that is why that desk has a kind of handle. And it's designed in such a way that exactly two desks go from one standard sheet of plywood with as little material left as possible. And I was extremely proud of that because I used the whole sheet to the millimeter.

Furniture for Fogo Island Inn

00:03:35

When I did a couple of years ago, these projects on Fogo island where I had to work with people from the islands. People have been living there for ages, but now people are leaving. And it's the kind of faith that many rural areas in the western world and everywhere in the world have. People are leaving because there's nothing to do.

00:03:58

They have set up a fantastic new pro program, lead by a woman who is originally from the island to set up kind of social projects which brought back, business to the island, but also made the community become proud of themselves again. And I had to work for that island on a furniture design furniture for them that was made by the men and women of the islands.

00:04:25

I spoke to one of the women who was married to one of the guys who was on board and made furniture for the inn that I worked on. And she said, I have a different husband on my sofa. Five years ago he was drinking a bit too much. He was very depressed because all his family, his friends, his kids, they left and he wanted to stay because he grew up on this island. And now since been involved in these projects and in making the furniture and building the inn and building the small houses, he suddenly has an aim in life and people come back to the island. And that made me realize that, you know, that is for, for me that was much more rewarding than just designing furniture for catalogs.

00:05:09

What is very nice about this is that now these Fogo island furnitures, they are also coming out. They have nutrition labels with it, which says exactly how much money goes to the people who make it. Where does your money go? And these kinds of things, I think, are very interesting for me, very rewarding, but also for the people who are working on things.

00:05:29

And that kind of meaning is very, it has become very important for me, also to work on projects that at least have kind of outlook at that there will be some meaning to projects.