Cooper Hewitt says...
Handmade Industrials is a design firm based in The Hague, The Netherlands, and was founded by Dutch designers Rutger de Regt (b. 1979) and Marlies van Putten (b. 1990) in 2013. They met while studying at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, and share an interest in experimental design through a process-based approach. Their collaboration started when de Regt invited van Putten to join him in designing a piece for a charity auction. This lead to the founding of Handmade Industrials.
De Regt and van Putten approach design as a process of hands-on experimentation with new substances, allowing the materials and production techniques to influence the results. The designers use industrial materials in non-industrial contexts, to create conceptual objects—from furniture, to lighting, to vessels—that underscore a contrast between industrial mass production and handcrafting. New projects are initiated through discoveries during experiments. The result is an organic design process that reflects the character of the chosen material. While de Regt and van Putten adapt existing serial production processes or invent new ones to explore materials and form, they endeavor to create unique objects, each with its own identity, that prompt the user to be more conscious of, and to value, the materials we use in our daily lives.
