31.01.2018
concept
Supermaker
Public laboratory for curious people
As an incubator of a new to be built Design Center, Platform21 has developed Supermaker. Supermaker is a laboratory centred around the revaluation of making, the pleasure of making, and the spectacle of making. Here, co-creation projects, workshops and worklabs as well as exhibitions, lectures and debates can take place. Like Platform21, Supermaker will be programmed thematically and will focus on activities in which everyday topics will be addressed in a mobilizing, inspiring way to help us understand our changing world and make it a better place. Curiosity will be rewarded, and a critical attitude will be welcome.
Supermaker’s programming will be developed with a variety of partners. They will strengthen specific parts of Supermaker with their expertise and relationships. A partner strategy based on a shared vision and mentality. Several businesses and cultural and knowledge institutions have already expressed their wish to join Supermaker as partners when it would start.
Architect Lars Spuybroek of NOX has already designed us a pavilion, Supermaker_Dock. It encompasses 800 square metres of space, 600 of which will be occupied by the central construction. The design is based on the legendary architect Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, a concept in which the building’s use is inseparable from its construction.
This 'Building=Making' principle is also applied in the Supermaker_Dock. In our design centre, the design and production ('making') process will be as important as its result, and this making process will never come to a standstill. The latter will also be true of the building.
Supermaker_Dock, design by NOX/Lars Spuybroek
Supermaker_Dock, design by NOX/Lars Spuybroek
The central glasshouse is surrounded by expressive ‘pods’ that have wheels and can be moved with a small tractor. Their use can be adapted through connecting them to each other or connecting them to the central building element in a different way. Thus, a studio can be transformed into an exhibition space, a kitchen into a shop, and so on. Furthermore, new pods can be added. We consider this to be the perfect translation of co-creation and growth into the language of architecture.
If Supermaker_Dock will ever be built or if Supermaker as a concept will ever be adopted by a cultural or commercial institution is something the future will tell.
