Hasta La Ideas

Dutch Design Week 2013: Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Dave Hakkens has made his own machines for recycling plastic to make new products locally and plans to share the designs so others around the world can do the same.

The Precious Plastic machines by Dave Hakkens include a plastic shredder, extruder, injection moulder and rotation moulder, which are all based on industrial machines but modified to be less complex and more flexible.

“Of all the plastic thrown away, I’ve heard that we recycle just ten percent and I wondered why we recycle so little,” Hakkens told Dezeen at the Design Academy Eindhoven graduation show opening on Saturday.

One of the issues turned out to be a lack of demand for recycled material from factories, so he visited a range of firms making plastic products to ask why they weren’t using recycled plastic. He found that difficulties with sorting plastics for recycling make the resultant material less reliable than brand new plastic.

“I went to all these companies and I realised that the machines they use to build plastic products are really expensive, very precise and efficient, and [the manufacturers] don’t want to use recycled plastic because it’s not as pure so it could damage the machinery or slow down production,” he explained.

“I wanted to make my own tools so that I could use recycled plastic locally,” Hakkens continued. First he modified a shredder and collected unwanted plastic from his friends, family and neighbours. This allowed him to grind empty bottles and containers into small plastic chips in a mixture of colours.

He then built three machines for melting the plastic and manufacturing new products with it, using a combination of new custom-made components and reclaimed parts like an old oven that he found at a scrapyard.

Having perfected the systems so they could handle inconsistencies in the recycled plastic, he designed a small range of products to make and sell.

At the academy show there’s an injection-moulded spinning top, a lamp made by extruding a ribbon of plastic and wrapping it round a mould, and a rotation-moulded waste paper bin, but Hakkens stresses that the processes could be adapted to make a wide variety of different products.

“In the end you have this set of machines that can start this local recycling and production centre,” he said, explaining that while mass-manufacturers are put off recycled plastic as a material because they need optimum efficiency and accuracy, a local craftsperson making batches of products could afford to work more slowly and make allowances for material inconsistencies.

In addition to setting up his own workshop in Eindhoven, Hakkens intends to publish the blueprints online so that people around the world can create their own local recycling and manufacturing centres, and adapt his designs for their own production needs.

“The idea is that you can make whatever moulds you want for it – so I made this, but I prefer that everybody can just use them and make whatever they want and start setting up their production,” he said. “People can just make [the machines] on the other side of the world, and maybe send some feedback and say ‘maybe you can do this better.'”

He also suggested that local residents who collect plastic waste and bring it to the workshop could be paid a small fee according to the weight of raw material they donate, and predicted that his system could be put to use making filament for 3D printers.

Hakkens is also showing a mobile phone made of detachable blocks at the graduation show as part of Dutch Design Week, which continues until 27 October.

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Dave Hakkens appeared first on Dezeen.

Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Dave Hakkens’ concept for a mobile phone made of detachable blocks has gone viral, attracting over 16 million views on YouTube and garnering almost a million supporters online (+ movie + interview).

“I put the video online and in the first 24 hours I had like one million views on YouTube,” Hakkens told Dezeen. “I got a lot of responses to it.”

Dutch designer Hakkens, who graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven this summer, presented his Phonebloks concept at the academy’s graduation show in Eindhoven today at the start of Dutch Design Week.

Phonebloks is a concept for a phone made of swappable components that fit together like Lego, with each component containing a different function. This means that components can be replaced or upgraded without having to throw away the phone.

“Usually a phone is integrated into one solid block and if one part gets broken you have to throw away the entire phone,” said Hakkens. “But this has different components, so if  your battery is broken you can replace the the battery or if you need a better camera you only upgrade the camera component. So you don’t throw away the entire phone; you keep the good stuff.”

Last month Hakkens uploaded a video explaining the concept to YouTube, where it went viral and has now been watched over 16 million times.

He then put the idea on “crowdspeaking” site Thunderclap, where instead of donating money, supporters donate their social reach. He now has over 900,000 supporters on the site, and when the campaign closes on 29 October a message about Phonebloks will automatically be sent to each supporters’ social media contacts, giving Hakkens a total audience of over 360 million people.

Hakkens said: “That’s the whole point of this idea; to generate lots of buzz so companies see there’s a huge market and realise they really need to make a phone like this.”

The Phonebloks concept features electronic blocks that snap onto a base board, which links all the components. Two small screws lock everything together. Users can choose components from their favourite brands or make their own modules.

“You can customise your phone, replacing the storage block with a larger battery if you store everything in the cloud, or replace advanced components you don’t need with basic blocks like a bigger speaker,” says the video explaining the concept.

Hakkens hopes Phonebloks will lead to fewer phones being thrown away, thereby reducing waste. “Electronic devices are not designed to last,” the video says. “This makes electronic waste one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world and our phone is one of the biggest causes.”

Here’s the interview conducted at Design Academy Eindhoven today:

Marcus Fairs: What is Phonebloks?

Dave Hakkens: Phonebloks is a phone made to upgrade and repair; it’s a phone worth keeping. Usually we throw it away after a couple of years. But this one is made to last.

Marcus Fairs: How is it made to last?

Dave Hakkens: Usually a phone is integrated into one solid block, and if one part gets broken you have to throw away the entire phone. But this has different components, so if for instance only your battery is broken you can replace the the battery, or if it’s slow after a couple of years you can change just the speed component. If you need a better camera you only upgrade the camera component. So in this way you don’t throw away the entire phone; you keep the good stuff.

Marcus Fairs: Tell us how it went viral.

Dave Hakkens: The idea with this whole project is I’m just one guy at the Design Academy; I can’t make this phone by myself. I can go to a lot of companies and pitch, ask them if they’d like to make my phone, but I thought I’d do it the other way around; so I gathered a lot of people who told companies they really wanted this phone. So I put this video online and in the first 24 hours I had like one million views on YouTube. I also gathered supporters so currently I have 900,000 supporters, and they all just wanted this phone. So now I have all this attention and I get a lot of nice emails from companies who want to work on this.

Marcus Fairs: How did you spread the message?

Dave Hakkens: You have this site called Thunderclap. On Thunderclap instead of crowdfunding you crowdspeak people; people don’t donate money but instead they donate their friends and family. You say you’re interested in a project and want to support it, so you donate your friends – their Facebook followers and Twitter followers – and on the 29 October automatically a message is sent out by those people saying “We want phone blocks”. That spreads to all their friends and families. So currently I have like 900,000 supporters but on 29 October we will reach 300 million people. So that’s the whole point of this idea; to generate lots of buzz so companies see there’s a huge market and realise they really need to make a phone like this.

Marcus Fairs: What is the next step?

Dave Hakkens: My idea succeeded from day one; I got a lot of responses to it. I’ve got a lot of people interested in developing it: engineers, technicians and companies. So right now I’m thinking what would be a logical next step. Crowdsource it on the internet? Work together with a company? That’s what I’m thinking about now; how to realise the phone the best way.

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by Dave Hakkens appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Design Academy Eindhoven is looking for a creative director following a period of turmoil that has seen the resignation of the heads of the three masters courses, their subsequent return to the school and the departure of school’s chair.

The school has been without a creative head since September 2009, when fashion designer Alexander van Slobbe quit just nine months after being appointed as successor to trend forecaster Li Edelkoort.

Edelkoort, who was chair of the school but also set its creative direction, stepped down in 2008 after ten years at the school. Edelkoort stepped into the row about the school’s direction this summer, publishing a letter criticising the leadership of Annemieke Eggenkamp, who succeeded Edelkoort as chair.

“I have had to watch how the school and the system have been dismantled, all things that made the Design Academy the design academy were closed or changed one by one, mercilessly and ruthlessly,” Edelkoort wrote.

This July the three heads of the masters courses resigned in unison, claiming management decisions at the school were “compromising the quality of education”. At the time Jan Boelen, head of the social design masters course, said: “the Design Academy [is] in great need of an artistic director”.

The three later returned after extracting concessions from the school but continued to press for the appointment of a creative director.

In August, chair Annemieke Eggenkamp announced she would be standing down.

The academy today posted a recruitment advert for a creative director who would be “accountable for the vision, strategy and artistical direction of the Design Academy Eindhoven”.

See the job ad on Dezeen Jobs | See all our stories about Design Academy Eindhoven

Image is from Radio Nederland Wereldomroep.

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Slideshow feature: Dezeen editor Rose Etherington selects her top ten projects from the Design Academy Eindhoven graduate show at Dutch Design Week, including a system for decontaminating polluted land using plants and a method for turning debris from demolished buildings into new construction materials. We’ll be running more detailed stories about individual projects in the show over the coming days.

The Academy was in the news earlier this summer when all three heads of the Masters courses resigned over a dispute about educational reform, then returned to their posts after claiming victory a few days later.

The show continues at deWitteDame, Design Academy Eindhoven, Emmasingel 14, 5611 AZ Eindhoven as part of Dutch Design Week, which runs until 28 October.

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Dezeen Wire: three senior Design Academy Eindhoven teachers have agreed to return to their posts after claiming victory in their dispute with the school.

Jan Boelen, Joost Grootens and Louise Schouwenberg, the heads of Social Design, Information Design and Contextual Design respectively, resigned two weeks ago but will now return to the school in the new academic year.

“What we did not imagine when we resigned has finally happened under the pressure of students, teachers, colleagues, experts from the design field, the media, and former directors: the school has given in to all our demands for autonomy and freedom,” Schouwenberg told Dezeen.

She added: “Naturally we still have demands, such as seeking an artistic director focused on content.”

The three heads resigned following a row over the autonomy of the masters courses.

Related: Read the resignation letter from Design Academy Eindhoven masters heads | See all our stories about Design Academy Eindhoven

The teachers and the Design Academy Eindhoven released the following statement:

Design Academy Eindhoven puts interest of students first and reaches agreement with departed heads of the Master Programmes

On 5 July 2012, the three heads of the DAE Master Programmes, Jan Boelen (Social Design), Joost Grootens (Information Design) and Louise Schouwenberg (Contextual Design) resigned from their positions at Design Academy Eindhoven, out of discontent with the educational reform plans under development. Educational and organisational aspects were expected to prevail over the artistic autonomy and the content for which department heads and mentors are responsible. Moreover, according to the three heads, the plans would not be in accordance with the special character unique to a Master Programme of Design.

As the students, the tutors and the Board of the DAE all want to retain the three heads for their educational institute, they have been actively seeking a solution to break this impasse since their resignation. On Thursday 19 July an agreement was reached concerning the key points of contention.

Starting in the new academic year, Boelen, Grootens and Schouwenberg will return as Heads of Master Programmes under the conditions that were applicable to the Master Programmes within DAE to date. In the course of the year they will hold regular meetings about the future of the Master Programmes with Igor van Hooff, member of the Executive Board, and Dr T. Wagemakers, currently member of the Board of Trustees of DAE, who will join the Executive Board as interim director and be in charge of the Educational Reform portfolio. With the interest of its students always foremost, Design Academy Eindhoven will continue to develop its unique educational model.

All parties involved look forward to a positive extension of their collaboration, operating in full confidence that DAE will continue to be the artistic haven it always has been.

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demands” of departed masters heads appeared first on Dezeen.