Loes Glandorff



While I was looking at websites about reuse in design and architecture, I was inspired by how waste was transformed in all these marvellous designs. But the more I saw, the more I wondered what these designs might have replaced. What was wrong with the previous space, structure object? Did it lose its function? Was it broken? Couldn't that be fixed? This is how I became interested in repair. Instead of viewing the 'old' as a disposable object, it could gain an extra layer by visibly repairing it. I would also like to expand the notion of repair because it is usually limited to fixing broken objects. I would like to repair spaces, structures and objects alike when they are not only broken, but have lost their function, meaning or fit with their users. This means that the spaces, structures and objects change in the process, giving the old and the new a chance to produce a dialogue with each other. This is what I call transformative repair.

In my project I would like to explore how people could slowly transform their living space through repair and how this influences their bond with their living space. I see repair as a form of empowerment a shift in the power balance between user and designer. Because when you repair something you alter it according to your own skills experience and wishes.
To enhance the practice of transformative repair and to explore the role a designer in this, I would like to establish an open source network between people. In this network techniques, experiences, resources and ideas can be exchanged on basis of equality. I will try to do this by cooperating with three groups of people. I hope that elderly, asylum seekers and students could create an interesting exchange because of their different experiences and origins. Interviews, workshops and meetings will result in transformative repairs in the living spaces of these groups and in an open-ended catalogue with collected instructions, toolkit and experiences.

To contextualise transformative repair I am currently reading on Hacktivism as described by Otto von Busch. His way of approaching fashion is very inspiring and helps me to vocalize my ambitions for interior design. Postproduction by Nicolas Bourriaud can perhaps help me to relate transformative repair to a broader practice in art. With this research I hope to develop and spread the practice of repair and expand the vocabulary of interior design.