COLLECTIE VEENHUIZEN

ONGOING PROJECT

Collectie Veenhuizen is a social design collection of products and services inspired by the prison village of Veenhuizen. Veenhuizen is a former pauper colony, founded in the Province of Drenthe in 1818. The designs that are further developed for Collectie Veenhuizen are products, systems, services and experiences based on stories specific to Veenhuizen. 

The projects within the collection have a connection to the history and current events of Veenhuizen. They are linked to the interaction between residents-inmates, prison staff-entrepreneurs-visitors, and the life stories found in books and reports.

They are also unique stories about the landscape, the raw materials from the farms and gardens, the sites, the museum and the monuments.

Initiated by KETTER&Co, Collectie Veenhuizen stems from the collaboration between the Province of Drenthe, Municipality of Noordenveld, Penitentiary Institution Veenhuizen and Design Academy Eindhoven. 

For more information about Collectie Veenhuizen, visit: www.collectieveenhuizen.nl

LAS_TIG

The Las_Tig bike is part of Collectie Veenhuizen, a project by KETTER&Co. The bike (designed by studio Unitt) is TIG-welded, coated and assembled by prisoners in PI Veenhuizen. Through the master-apprentice program, which KETTER&Co developed together with PI Veenhuizen, prisoners can acquire TIG-welding, metal working, coating and assembling skills. In this way, they become part of the production process of the Las_Tig bike and are able to obtain welding diplomas and certificates. In turn, these newly acquired skills can help ex-detainees, a difficult group to place on the labor market, with finding a job upon their return in society. Las_Tig is not just a bike. It is a bike that tells a story; a method that creates new opportunities and provides perspectives for life after detention.

PEAT HOUSES

PEAT HOUSES are made by prisoners in the prison workshop of the penitentiary institution Esserheem in Veenhuizen. The candle is finished with a layer of peat, which contains humid acid from peat soils, giving the Peat Houses the appearance of a block of peat.

TURVER

Despite the large-scale peat industry, the water in Veenhuizen’s ditches contains enough peat to color it gold brown. Thomas Trum processed the water into an ink with which one can draw, write, streak, delete, mess around, color, and … tally.

THE PAUPERHOTEL

The Pauperhotel is a temporary hotel in the guest rooms, stables, tents, gazebos or pipo wagens in the gardens of the residents of Veenhuizen. About twenty 2-person rooms spread throughout the village. The residents welcome the guests of the PAUPERHOTEL and can tell them more about the historic and current Veenhuizen.

OUTKAST

Penitentiary institution Esserheem in Veenhuizen has a number of particularly well-equipped workshops where prisoners work daily. During a visit to the workshops of Esserheem, Goof van Beek and Laurentius de Ruiter noticed there was quite some excess time; the time after a production which is too short for starting a new production. The two designers developed a modular cabinet system consisting of parts that can be easily made during this excess time.

DRENTSE DRAB

Drentse Drab is a mask for hand, foot and face. Its main ingredient is humid acid. Humid acid occurs in the thousands of years old water deep below the peat soil in Drenthe and is filtered from the water in the northern provinces as drinking water must be clear in The Netherlands. Yet humid acid contains many beneficial elements. The clay mask from Drentse Drab, which is made from ancient humid acid and green clay has a cleansing effect, promotes the repairing capacity of the skin and is very relaxing.

IN THE MEDIA

NOS

NPO RADIO 1

BBC

NRC

VOLKSKRANT

TROUW