Power
Nienke Hoogvliet: Designer of the new world
With her studio, Nienke Hoogvliet focuses on developing sustainable materials and products that can contribute to a more holistic world. Design as a tool for new perspectives! MASTERS visited Nienke, who is seen as one of the most important designers of the new, green generation of Dutch designers, in her studio in The Hague. “It almost always starts with a frustration or fascination. Huh, how is this possible?”
How did your fascination with design arise?
“I have my mother's hands and my father's head. My mother was always making; I really grew up among the pieces of fabric and started using the sewing machine at a fairly young age. I wanted to create and decided to go to art school. There I learned better and better how you can tell a story with art or design and also change something in the world. I get that from my father: he is very idealistic and not at all materialistic.”
What was his ideal in the past?
“As director of a housing cooperative, he has always been very involved in social projects. How can you bring together the various layers in society? How can you do things for the environment? I got things like that from him.”
What was your very first creation?
“Quite quickly at the Willem de Kooning Academy I made a kind of body parts out of fabric, using a different technique for each body part. I had completely beaded one leg, and for the other I had burned fabric and sewn it on in strips. I thought it was so crazy to do! Even then I knew that I wanted to have my own design studio later.”
After you graduated in 2013, you immediately started your own studio. To what extent does Tim Jongerius play a role in this?
“Tim is my boyfriend, with whom I have been together since I was sixteen. He has a background in architecture. We have done a number of projects together and will continue to do so. But Studio Nienke Hoogvliet is further apart from that.”
You want to convey stories with your design: how do they arise?
“It almost always starts with a frustration or fascination. That could be something in society, the environment, I read something, experience something... Hey, how is this possible? How does this work? Do I agree? Then I start doing research, for example by reading or interviewing people. And from there I start thinking about how I can shape this story to share it with the world. So the shaping itself only comes at a later stage.”
There's plenty to be annoyed about in the world. What are you most busy at the moment?
“I am now very concerned with value and values. How does a product gain both financial and emotional value? And how do people make that distinction? Because very often people quickly find something too expensive, even though they don't know what it took to make it. And if they did know, wouldn't they think 'oh, but I'm willing to pay for that'?”
Are you saying that it is better to spend more money on something that is sustainable?
"Yes. For some, organic meat will be very important, for someone else it may be about the working conditions under which something is made or the CO2 emissions associated with it. The moment you know how something came about, you can judge whether it also matches your values as a person. That probably also means that you will have more money for it and that it will last longer. If you are very proud of a product you buy, you may be more likely to have it repaired than to take it to the thrift store.”
What came out when you started working on that story about value and values?
“I did this project entirely together with Tim. The more we looked into it, the more complicated it became. It is so personal, we as designers cannot make a statement about that. We cannot say 'these are the right values or this is the right value'. That is why we have chosen to create an interactive installation, called Value // Values, and present it at the Dutch Design Week in October 2021. We presented two rugs, both made of wool, one made in the Netherlands, the other in Armenia. We followed the entire production processes, from sheep to carpet. First we asked visitors what they thought the rugs would cost if you bought them in a store in the Netherlands, without knowing anything about the making process. On the back of the rugs a receipt was visible that specified everything: where the sheep lived, what they were fed, how old they were, how much was needed to make this wool... Everything. And also the costs involved.
We then asked people to assess how important they thought certain values were, such as animal welfare, working conditions, aesthetics... Ultimately, we asked them for a final assessment. After being informed of the entire making process, did they still think the rugs were worth the same or had their opinion changed? 4.500 people participated. Many were ashamed of how far off the mark they were. The Dutch carpet should cost ten thousand euros, the Armenian one around five to six thousand.
You heard comments like 'I'm sorry that I'm going to IKEA to buy a rug for a few hundred euros'. It was confrontational for many people. I am now processing all the responses, which will also result in a book. We also made an overview of what the entire project cost: in hours, what we received in subsidies, what we put into it ourselves... Then you see that such a project is actually not financially feasible at all.”
How much did the project cost?
“150.000 euros, from A to Z. We received a 22.500 euro subsidy and with that we just managed to cover all costs: the production of the rugs, photography, that kind of thing. We just put in hours and earned nothing from it. So the project cost us money. That's not sustainable, in the sense that I can't do a project like that every year. I therefore want to move towards a transparent revenue model for my studio, in which I can show people that commercial projects may be more expensive because I also want to continue making my own work.”
To what extent does such a story actually help create a better world?
“I work according to a system with three impact levels. The first level is to share my story through a prototype – a unique piece that will hopefully end up in a museum collection – and thereby create awareness among those who see it; the second level is to create a limited edition to prove it can be scaled; the third level is mass production or at least implementation in industry. An example is natural textile paint made from seaweed: I started with this in my studio, on a small scale. Now it's moving from phase two to three, so it can actually be used in that industry. To this end, the start-up Zeefier was created, of which I am co-founder, and which focuses on the further development of this paint. There is currently collaboration with scientists and industry, and there is the idea of actually building a factory.”
How do you get it: seaweed paint?
“I once bought a sea algae yarn from a Belgian yarn supplier. That's what I made Sea Me from: a carpet of sea algae yarn, hand-knotted in an old fishing net. Seaweed yarn was already on the market, I just wanted to create more awareness for it. But I was flooded with requests from companies that also wanted to work with this yarn. I approached the supplier and proposed to work together. But after ten years of hard work, that company lost faith in the material and withdrew from it.
I decided to tackle it independently, but I wanted to investigate how to make optimal use of that seaweed. In addition to the component from which the yarn is made, it may have contained components for other uses, such as the dye. It turned out that many different colors could be made from different species: brown, orange, green, pink, purple, yellow, red... Then I knew: this should not remain small, this should enter the industry. The textile industry is the most polluting industry in the world after the oil industry.
I was surprised that no one thought about the fact that buying a shirt in the store could be bad for both your own health and our environment. It simply contains carcinogens. Is it worth it to you to look nice? And how can an industry be okay with that? The big advantage of seaweed is that it is a very sustainable raw material: it grows quickly and needs CO2 as a nutrient. Textile paint, on the other hand, is made from harmful chemicals and, unlike seaweed paint, is hardly degradable.”
Can you still shop for clothes normally with all the knowledge you have?
"No. I only buy second-hand and only natural, so nothing with synthetic substances in it.”
You live in The Hague: does an idea for Sea Me arise while you are walking on the beach?
"Indeed. I was walking on the beach and saw all that plastic lying there – that was before the time there was talk about plastic soup. I thought: if there is so much plastic on the beach, which is also cleaned regularly, how much is floating in the sea? I wanted to draw attention to this, but in a positive way: by showing how much potential the sea also has when it comes to new sustainable materials and why we should also handle the sea with care. I tried to bring those two contrasts – pollution and solution – together in that one rug.
By the way, I think that the whole sustainability discussion is often too short-sighted. There are now companies that advertise themselves as sustainable because, for example, they make textiles from plastic from the sea. But what they don't realize is that if you put those textiles in the washing machine, so many microplastics are released into the sea via the waste water that the problem is not actually solved at all. Many people do not realize that you have to look at many different aspects of a problem to actually find a solution. It's about being as comprehensive as possible. If you come up with a solution, it should not cause another problem somewhere else.”
Another new sustainable application from your hand is Mourn: an urn that prevents groundwater pollution.
“I have worked with the Dutch Water Boards for a number of years. They are working to develop as many materials as possible from the water purification process. One of these is PHA, a bio-plastic. The bacteria that eat that wastewater produce a fatty acid that has properties similar to plastic, but is completely degradable. They gave me the assignment to make something from that material that shows how beautiful and functional that degradability can be. That's quite a challenge, because as a designer you naturally want the product you design to last a long time. Because the body always returns to nature, I started investigating the sustainability of burial and cremation. This is how Mourn emerged, an urn made by mixing ash and bio-plastic. As long as that urn is inside, nothing will change. As soon as you place it outside, the PHA will slowly break down, releasing the ash. Because plants and organisms have time to process the ash in this way, you prevent soil and groundwater pollution. Because normally when ash is scattered, it runs into the earth along with the rain and ends up in the groundwater.”
What phase is the urn currently in?
“He was almost in phase two, but it is too much to start a start-up in addition to a studio and Zeefier. So I put that on pause for a while. I have many plans and ambitions, but only two hands.”
Yet another assignment from the Dutch Water Boards resulted in the Water Treasures project. Tell.
“Every year, 180.000 tons of toilet paper are flushed down Dutch toilets. That equals 180.000 trees. The Water Boards use highly sophisticated treatment plants to filter the cellulose fibers of toilet paper from the waste water, which they then hygienize without the use of chemicals. Then you actually have very usable paper pulp again, although it cannot be made into toilet paper again - the fiber has become too short for that. By reusing the pulp, fewer trees need to be cut down.
What the Water Boards encountered: many companies did not dare to work with that material, because the idea of reusing used toilet paper is not very fresh. That's why they asked me to make something with it, so that people would see its beauty and value. I used this pulp to make tables, bowls and lamps – an entire living room setting – to create a positive association with the material. The material could also be used as a drip inhibitor in asphalt. Normally there are pebbles in asphalt and paper is added to them to ensure that they do not sink to the bottom, but rather remain floating on the asphalt. For example, there is already a cycle path in Friesland that has been made with this pulp.”
Your studio has been around for almost ten years. What will the next ten years look like?
“It's taken me the past ten years to find myself, to really know who I want to be as a designer and what stories I want to tell. I want to further develop this over the next ten years and then I hope that there will be enough financial resources to continue doing my own projects. And thereby stimulate people. I want to show consumers and industry that things can be done differently. The more they become aware of it, the more pressure there is towards the government. My design must lead to new perspectives and ultimately a better world.”
MASTERS MAGAZINE
In the summer edition of MASTERS an interview with Sven Kramer, a driving impression of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport and a study into the Effect of Max. But above all, it features people who bring light to the darkness. Such as Henk Jan Beltman, who took over Tony's Chocolonely because with a company you can make the world a more beautiful place. Chef Emile van der Staak, who has the ambition to change our food culture and therefore cooks with plants and vegetables that he obtains from the food forest. Designer Nienke Hoogvliet, who has introduced natural seaweed paint as an alternative to harmful textile paint. And Anna Nooshin, who criticizes the current social media culture of pretty pictures. In her documentary she also shares the less beautiful aspects of her life. All people who ask questions, hold up mirrors, take steps. Steps towards a healthier world and more understanding society.
