Studio Makkink & Bey

Studio Makkink & Bey is led by architect Rianne Makkink and designer Jurgen Bey. Supported by a design team, they have been operating their design practice since 2002. Studio Makkink & Bey investigates the various domains of applied art while studying the tension between the private and public domain. Taking a critical stance towards the designing of public space, architecture, interiors, exhibitions and products is pivotal. The studio is located in an old industrial building enabling the entire production to come about on site. The design team operates as one entity and includes experts of various disciplines ranging from fashion, design and architecture. The cross-wiring between the different areas of expertise prompts new insights and perspectives, which are used within each stage of the design process. Stories, study and research are in constant movement throughout the design process, to be converted into solutions for a perpetually changing environment. The goal of our studio is to entice a new design culture by showing new alternatives through critical design. Analytical design is a fundament for a new culture in a city, public building or house. Initially, all existing forces are reviewed to be defined again and reshuffled into a fitting design narrative. Experiment, doubt and a hodgepodge way of thinking are crucial to disclose hidden values and stories. This new potential unlocks all the possible qualities to constitute new cultural bearers. The design process itself is elevated as a final product. The product continually adjusts itself to its current situation to be slotted into its designed context. All available expertise is used, such as a caring member of the community or a skilled craftsman. The result is a pertinent answer to the questions that lay hidden within every project. One single product can progress into a project of a larger scale, motivating its own setting. In reverse, a project on the scale of architecture or urban planning can equally spawn a series of products which become the bearers of that context. This movement of zooming in and zooming out marks the interaction between the domain of architecture and urban design and the domain of products. Urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture are indissolubly bound to product design. ‘Did the invention of the elevator give rise to the skyscraper or did the high-rise buildings dictate its existence?’