The Dutch design collaborative Studio Makkink & Bey led by designer-architect Rianne Makkink (b. 1964) and designer Jurgen Bey (b. 1965) is based in Rotterdam. Supported by a diverse design team, they have been running their design office since 2002. The studio's many projects range from interior design, product design, public space projects, architecture, exhibition and shop-window design to research and applied-arts projects — many of which are award-winning.
To Studio Makkink & Bey, urban planning, architecture and landscape architecture are inextricably connected to product design. With more than 400 projects in their portfolio — created for museums, galleries, public and private commissions — their design vision is one in which the form of a design follows its context.
Since 2014 they have been highly involved in 'the WaterSchool', a self-initiated project by Studio Makkink & Bey. This speculative project is designed and organised around water — an element that is as an essential topic, material, social, economic and political phenomenon. It proposes the subsequent rethinking of the economic and infrastructural model of education.
WaterSchool is displayed in working exhibitions around the globe, while concurrently building a curriculum for the related subjects to be taught (education) and constructing the specific spaces (architecture).
Both designers are significantly involved in education, aiming to pass on their design strategy and focus on expanding the role of the designer-architect to the most strategic function possible. In their opinion connecting existing elements inside the context of a project is like stringing beads.
Project(s) in Asia:
Shop Window, Hermès Japan
Cheese Maker, India
Working Theater: Collage City 3D at Bi-City Biennale, Shenzhen, China
Land[E]scape exhibition in OCT Gallery, Shenzhen, China
Waterschool, Taiwan
XiongAn – Waterschool Exhibition, China
XiongAn Lousa Neighborhood Centre, China
Unfolding Landscape, Shenzhen, China
Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness, Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai, China
Shining Beauty, Korea