Andries Heidema, the mayor of Deventer officially re-opens KunstGoud on March 6, 13:00 hrs. The new KunstGoud interior is designed by Kasper Spormann and me.

The previous website of Havenkwartier Deventer was primarily aimed at art and culture in the area and the creative businesses based there. Now that the development of the Havenkwartier area is getting up to steam, there was a need for more.

On www.havenkwartierdeventer.com you’ll find (in addition to plenty of art & culture) more information about living and working in Havenkwartier Deventer. You can also reach the ‘Culture’ section of this new website through the old domain www.havenkwartier.org.

We now say goodbye to the previous corporate identity of Havenkwartier Deventer, designed by Bart Folmer and also to the previous website, developed by me. The new corporate identity is co-created by: Bestwerk, Studio Wonder and Studio Bart Folmer. The new website was built by Dicode. I have only been instrumental in the development of the new website and in the decision-making process of the corporate identity.

This means I am no longer in charge of the technical aspects of the Havenkwartier website, but I am however still in charge of (half of the) content. I am now officially editor for the Culture and Recreation sections of the new website. The other editor is the municipality of Deventer. I also have (a very limited amount of) time to spend on communication and marketing for these sections.

Oh well. Interesting developments.

I updated my website to include information about my activities as certified Kunstenaarcoach. There’s now a new section in the columns on the right which refers to a dedicated page with more information (only in Dutch for now) and has a feed of posts in my Kunstenaarcoach category.

It’s very likely that I’ll report about my recent coaching sessions with Energiekracht soon in a joint press release with Hans Kostense, owner of Energiekracht.

Whoop! There it is. NEW 6.0. Get it here. Or here.

N.E.W. (Nieuwe Electronische Waar) is a platform for producers of electronic music from the East of The Netherlands. N.E.W. is a collaboration betweenproductiehuis ON, Burgerweeshuis and Doornroosje.

After a year of producing, uploading and voting, a professional jury (including me) selected 11 tracks to be featured on the  NEW 6.0 release. After being invited by the N.E.W. platform, esc.rec. stepped in as a free download distribution partner for this release in a support-your-local-scene kinda way.

The NEW 6.0 release won’t be part of the official esc.rec. catalogue, but is distributed by esc.rec. as a N.E.W. product. This is mainly because esc.rec. hasn’t got complete control over the content and aesthetics of a N.E.W. release, which just so happens to be the only benchmark for esc.rec. releases.

Now that I’ve tasted some of this N.E.W. collaboration, I can’t help but feeling somewhat discontent (weird isn’t it?). Not because of the tracks mind you! There are some real perls here. But I’m sure going to try to up my game a bit to see how esc.rec. can contribute more productively in shaping up for the upcoming NEW 7.0 release. My appetite for improvement has now been whet… be ready for it.

It was only 3 years back that I designed and produced the interior for KunstGoud, the goldsmith studio/jewelry shop of Jeannette Knigge in Deventer. Some time ago she suddenly got the opportunity to expand, thus tripling(!) the total amount of workspace. To achieve this, there were some walls that needed knocking down. Some extensive reconstruction was necessary too, because the extra space (located behind the original one) was in real bad shape.

A new interior design was also needed to make the newly created space function as a whole again. This time I worked together with interior architect Kasper Spormann on the design, a very pleasant collaboration!

In our new design we pursued an equal mix between the tightness of a jewelry shop, the roughness of a workshop and a pleasurable environment to design custom jewelry with clients and give courses to students. The majority of extra space created in this expansion is utilised for more workbenches. KunstGoud now has room for more students (a grand total of 10) to attend her thriving goldsmith courses and workshops.

Because the budget was tight, we salvaged and re-used anything we could from the original interior. Another challenging aspect was the long, long shape of the extended space. We needed an attention-grabber in the back to draw customers all the way in…

This is a view from the entrance. We constructed walls around the workbenches to avoid clutter and unify the interior. Makes it look tight. This first segment mainly functions as the shop/studio with displays, cash register and Jeannette’s own workbench (with spraypainted KunstGoud logo). This workbench (and Jeannette) is the first thing you see when you enter.

These are the display cabinets I had already designed and produced for the previous interior. They have proven to be considered a beautiful eyecatcher and a functional display, so there was no question we had to re-use them in the new design.

Walking into the second segment we now find an abundance of walled workbenches. All of which were custom made by Jeannette and me. The floor doesn’t look great, but there was no budget for a new floor and these tiles function quite well as a workfloor. The straight path between the workbenches directs the customer’s attention to the (day)light and colour accents in the back.

We decided on orange as the only signal colour in the KunstGoud interior (mainly based on the availablity of suitable second hand orange chairs). The orange patch (on the floor and toilet wall/door) defines the area and lures customers further inside.

Kasper Spormann designed this large round table and lamp. The tabletop is custom made by Dewever & Zwart. The lamp is custom made by Kasper and me. It is a good place to e.g. speak/design with clients or have lunch with workshop students. The patio/garden outside is going to be addressed later on, which is definitely worth it.

Looking back to the entrance and shop windows. And Jeannette of course…
Please visit KunstGoud and see for yourself. Here‘s the address.