About

About me

Hi! I am Will van Twuijver, a designer, researcher and cheese maker. My work focuses on the intersection of agroecology, climate adaptation, and grassroots-initiatives.

Focusing on this intersection allows me to explore alternative forms of organising based on solidarity principles, return to a human-scale and increase capabilities to work with natural processes. I have several years of involvement in grassroots initiatives that explore such alternatives, including projects that involve Community Supported Agriculture, food preservation collectives and home-brewing.

In 2012 I graduated with a bachelor’s in interior architecture at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, followed by a master’s in Collaborative & Industrial Design at the Aalto University, Finland in 2019. To further deepen my understanding of sustainability and design, I completed multiple courses on related topics. Such as a minor study on Sustainability, a certified permaculture design course, a two-year course in biodynamic agriculture and cheese making. Currently, I work as a part-time farmer and cheese maker, design researcher and am active as board member of Toekomstboeren.

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Macgyver Project 3

  • General information
  • Year
    2012
  • Project
    Bachelor Thesis
  • University
    Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam
  • Status
    Completed

The Macgyver Furniture is part of my graduation project from the Willem de Kooning Academy in 2012. Which is a research on ‘liquid’ design: design that adapts to new contexts, and resulted in a set of furniture only using prefabricated elements, that can be re-assembled after the use is no longer desired, allowing them to return to their original function.

This concept was based on two observation: at first, the extraction of resources from the earth is environmentally costly, therefor once resources are extracted and processed to semi-products they should remain within their constitutions for as long as possible, for re-molding or recycling materials is another energy costly undertaking. The second observation is that the cultural lifespan of products is often shorter than the material lifespan. In other words: products are out of fashion before they are worn out. Resulting in many products being thrown out while still being perfectly usable.

As a result, the Macgyver Furniture are made from the assemblage of pre-fab elements I found at hardware store in the area of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. These elements are connected only using connectors that can be unscrewed, such as bolts and nuts. In addition, I created several instruction manuals that allow anyone to recreate and improve these products.

Side table

Instruction

Chair

Instruction

Cupboard

Instruction