Bullet This Is No School

Learning is working best when kids are into subjects of study that match their interests. It also works well when projects are realistic.

Also there has to be place for the making. It should be possible to make prototypes, do experiments, program shows and produce goods to express yourself.

This Is No School is the world on a stamp. A meeting square, workshops, labs, a theater, a fram, sporting facilities, restaurants, shops and a hotel.

Bullet 80's T's

T-shirts for YouTube channel 2kB of Fun
2018


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Bullet Retro Space 4.0

Fourth incarnation of the Retro Space arcade cabinet in aluminium
2017


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Bullet Pixel Art

Pixel art illustration for the book 2kB of Fun
2017


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Bullet 2kB of Fun

Never has a consumer electronic product seen such an extravagant variety in case design as early handheld games from 1976-1985. Never have computer games been so beautifully reduced to their essence as these handhelds offered. Never did 2Kb of memory offer so much fun.

1983 was the best year with top titles like Amidar, Astro Thunder 7, Burger Time, Dig Dug, Ms. Pac-Man, Q*bert, Super-Cobra and Zaxxon.

Martijn Koch, architect from the Netherlands bought 180 of the best handheld games, photographed them, took them apart, analysed their tech, and put all the material together in this stunning book, a catalog like you never saw before.

Bullet DIY Arcade Cabinet

Een plat pakket doe-het-zelf versie van Retro Space
2013


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Bullet STRP Festival 2011

Photo report of the STRP Festival 2011 by Mick Visser
2011


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Bullet Katakana Converter

Tool to convert Rōmaji, Katakana and ASCII/UTF-8
2011


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Bullet STRP Festival 2010

Photo report of the STRP Festival 2010 by Mick Visser
2010


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Bullet British Landlord

Luxury villas at the Berlaer site in Helmond
2010


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Bullet M+ M- ???

Redesignme.com is a website where designers are challenged to create new designs for certain products.

Garton Jones used redesignme.com to search for a redesign of the Ativa 10 Digit Desk Calculator.

I'm always puzzled by the fact most calculators still function like the early 1970 designs. A time when chip logic was very expensive, and the amount of components was kept to a minimum. Today's standard micro controller is way more powerful. So my primary goal was to create a new set of basic functionality.

Which means I had to redesign the layout of the buttons first. The design itself continues proved ingredients like injection mould plastic, the perfect shape of PTT's Zurich telephone and modern white OLED matrix displays.

My own challenge was to make the design in one hour on a Friday afternoon.

The result: a top 3 note among 109 redesigns. "Your redesign was part of my top 3. Very well done! Yours sincerely, Charlie Garton-Jones"

Bullet Creative Factory

Interior photographs of creative companies in a former Philips factory
2010


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Bullet Future Space

26 arcade cabinets for Dutch Game Garden
2010


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Bullet Lost in Navigation

Tokyo is a breathtaking city. Most metropolises have 1 urban railway network. Easy. Tokyo, the biggest metropolis on Earth, is a lot more complex.
The city has 2 official subway companies, the national railway operates several lines that can be considered metro lines as well, and there are tens of private operated railways that serve may areas just outside the central part of the city. Another problem is that many transfer stations use different station names on each line connected.

Creating a understandable subway map for this city is extremely complex. Should it be schematic, or geographic realistic? When is it easier to have a short walk than to switch lines?

This metro map for Tokyo only shows the most important lines for visitors of the city. That is already 25 lines! All distances are realistic, and the connections to Airports and Shinkansen trains are clearly visible. The parks that give a good orientation in the grey urban mass of Tokyo are visible. Icons show the most important landmarks. Matching the million neon lights the map is drawn in a night situation with the lines as glowing neon tubes.

The map is printed on 100x75 cm photo paper in a limited run, an can be ordered. Send an e-mail or call if you are interested to order.

Bullet XXL

A new factory for Kingspan insulation panels at Medel near Tiel
2009


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Bullet Trophy for Men

Result from a weekend workshop at WiSPER in Leuven: A trophy for real men, made from construction beams. The trophy is welded using MIG and metal arc welding (MAW) techniques.

Bullet Pac Man LACK Hack

One of the most popular IKEA products is the LACK coffee table. It is so cheap, it must be hollow.

I opened the tables, I built in a retro TV computer game by Jakks and added real arcade controls to this game. This way the TV game has a longer life and the Ikea LACK is no longer the boring classic every household owns.

Thanks to Lara Verlaat for Playin Pac-Man.

Bullet Want some Beers?

ZZEF asked me to photograph 2 projects designed by Johan van den Berkmortel for the architecture portfolio of ZZEF.

One project is a beer cafe at the monk brewery Koningshoeve and the other is the Bavaria House in Helmond.

Bullet Monk Bond

8 Apartments for senior citizens in Heteren
2008


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Bullet Black Box

A new business building for 2 entrepreneurs in Kesteren
2008


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Bullet Low Bandwith

When the design of Retro Space was finished, we needed a matching website.
Because of the presumption that Retro Space could become a hit on the internet, we tried to make the website as small as possible. We did not want the website to crash on bandwidth problems.

Matching the style of the retro games, the website is designed in pixel art. All elements except some product shots are GIF images in 4 colours. It's just like the early years of internet when bandwidth was scarce.


Bullet Retro Space

Modern arcade cabinet for home use
2008


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Bullet Welcome to Andenne

Entry Europan 9 Martijn Koch and Wendy van Rosmalen
2007


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Bullet I never promised you a rosegarden

An abandoned commercial plot in the centre of Heteren had to be filled with 19 apartments. Contractor Kuijpers had moved to the city limits and the housing corporation "Woningstichting Heteren" had 4 outdated senior-citizen houses on the adjacent plot at the Rozenpad street. The combined plot connects a traditional village street with a seventies extension to Heteren. The housing coorporation asked me to design the modernist block fitting the seventies area.

I designed this appartment block as employer of Bouwkundig ontwerp- en adviesburo van Zeist BV

Bullet Little Mermaid

When we visited Copenhagen, I was surprised by the complex metro map for the very small network. It should be possible to draw a map easier to understand and graphically more appealing to visitors.

I designed a new metro map that shows the relation with the city. It combines all trains with different schedules on similar routes to bring back overview.

Autonomous work

Bullet BBQ XL

Veranda extension to house in Beek en Donk
2006


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Bullet Cinderella

While doing a creative portfolio course at the CKE in Eindhoven I worked on a new interpretation of the story of Cinderella.

Thanks to model Christine Nabuurs, to Jeroen Roxs for the workshop location, and to John Körmeling for using his veranda.

Bullet Wanda Wanders

The avatar Wanda Wanders was born in a chatconversation with Margot Scheltens. Wanda wanders around the World and shares her sharp opinion on various topics.

I created the website both technically and graphically. Many of the articles are written by me too.

Wanda Wanders is a registered Benelux trademark.

http://

Bullet Unknown Modernism

Anonymous modernist housing near Faro
2005


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Bullet Ghost World

Detroit is a weird city. The city disappears slowly and turns back to nature. Not caused by war or disaster, it vanishes because of economic irrelevance. De automotive industry moved towards the Mexican border. Jobs are gone. The city renders useless. The General Motors headquarters still shine as a major highlight downtown. Perhaps as an icon for the glorious past.

These photographs are taken during a trip of the USA and Canada in the autumn of 2005.

Bullet Fake Wanders

The lamp is a joke. I had no space to place the Big Shadow Lamp by Marcel Wanders. I also liked the idea of the Fake Lamp by Sophie Krier, but not its shape. I mixed them and created the Fake Wanders. Definitely not for sale.

Bullet Ants Nest

Tower blocks in Hong Kong
2004


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Bullet Miniature City

Brandevoort is one of the big suburban extensions according to the governmental document Vinex. Under supervision of Rob Krier, the city of Helmond tried to mimic the classic Dutch canal city for its big extension. Modern legislation on parking and the fact that a family in a suburban plan like this needs 2 cars to reach all daily facilities, resulted in weird interiors for the urban blocks. The gardens are petite, and most space is used for the cars.

Bullet Blue Envelope

The Dutch Tax Administration feels like a family business. The atmosphere is open and relaxed. The organization is responsible for the total financial administration of The Netherlands Ltd. Dutch citizens expect professional civil servants. The office at the Quintax location in Apeldoorn expresses the two faces of the Dutch Tax Administration. The building looks severe and mimics the impregnability of Fort Knox. But internal, the building is totally transparent. Walls are exceptions, and voids open the floors to improve contact between employees.

At JHK Architects, I was responsible for the concept of the building. I also worked out most of the technical details.