january-2012

Who: JUAN MONTERO
VALDES, UK (MA)
What: Hacking household
appliances
“We have so many highly-engineered machines
in our homes that we use in a monotonous
way. You could get much more out of them
by making them work together. To get people
thinking about this, I made and printed my own
money using only household appliances. I used a
blender and pressure cooker to make paper from
old jeans and sheets. Then I made red ink in a
coffeemaker from food in my kitchen and hooked
it up to my printer. But there are so many other
things you could do, like use the rotary motion of
your washing machine to make thread from lint
collected in your dryer. You just need the right
attitude.” See studioneedsmust.com.
40 Holland Herald
Who: JOOST GEHEM,
THE NETHERLANDS (BA)
What: New furniture from
old interiors
“I use unwanted interiors as a
raw material: the things that
are left over after a divorce
or when someone moves
to a retirement home, or
dies. Instead of condemning
everything to the rubbish
tip, I put it in a shredder, mix
it with epoxy and, using an
old East-German paper press
I converted, I mould it into a
different product – like these
stools. It’s a way of giving
them a new life. Sometimes
people want to hold on to
things that have a personal
value to them, but they don’t
have the space. In this way,
they still have a keepsake. I
like the idea of turning what
might be a negative event
into something positive.”
See joostgehemdesign.com.
“Unlike regular sneakers that
are glued and stitched, these
shoes have been designed to
be disassembled. That means
that when one of the parts
wears out, you can repair it
yourself. I chose traditional
repair techniques like felting,
patching and darning to
reinforce the parts of the
shoe that are easily damaged.
Each design comes with its
own special repair kit. You
can choose the technique
that appeals to you most. My
aim isn’t only to make the
shoes last longer, but also
to get the tools for fixing
things back in the house. Our
grandmothers used to have
all the right gear at home. If
you had a hole in your sock,
you’d repair it. Now you just
throw it away, because often
you don’t even have the right
materials. Once you have the
tools, you can also use them
to fix other things.”
See eumo.it.
Who: EUGENIA MORPURGO,
ITALY (MA)
What: Fix-themyourself
shoes