A designers' dilemma: The story of Stuff

This short film was made in 2007, and is still very relevant today. Even more relevant, i would say, with our collective cellphone addicition (the Iphone came out somewhere around the time this movie was made)(feels ancient, right?).

What to do as a designer?
Should we stop creating stuff altogether or is it our responsibility to keep designing, but do it smarter and make a difference?
Is that even possible?
Can we make a difference by adding more stuff?

More about this and more video's can be found on thestoryofstuff.org.
Feel free to share your thoughts.

Get ready to start your greenery / Spring is coming

photograph by House of Thol

Last year we discovered Waterworks can help you create a pretty thriving balcony-garden.
This photograph was taken during the summer, but in order to get the lush greenery at this level when the warmer weather sets in, it's almost time to get into action and start your seeds.

Don't worry, you still have time to prepare, most seeds can be sown inside from March onwards.
I made a Pinterest board with some gardening-calendars i found online, check it out here.

While we're on the topic of balcony-gardening and herbs, an important side note about supermarket-herbs: After years and years of stubbornly trying and being 100% sure they were watered right, i'm pretty certain the living herb-plants sold in (Dutch) supermarkets are just not made to last. They're grown to harvest and be discarded. Not even a Waterworks-set will help you there.

Better to grow your own kitchen-herbs from seed: You notice the parsley in the photograph? That plant still lives, we were able to keep it green(-ish) all winter by moving it indoors into our cramped kitchen during the (few) colds spells of the past months.

proud and a bit self-conscious | Fonds Kwadraat presents House of Thol

from our Instagram

A while ago the lovely guys from Koekepeer visited our studio and made this killer video portrait for Fonds Kwadraat:

Video by Koekepeer | commissioned by Fonds Kwadraat

We're happy and proud but also kind of self conscious about it (which will probably wear off over time).
Thank you Fonds Kwadraat and Studio Koekepeer!

This video is part of a series of portraits from artists who received an interest-free Fonds Kwadraat loan, the series is aptly named 'Fonds Kwadraat Exposeert". Click here for more video's from the series (even more will be added over the next weeks)

Interested of seeing more from Koekepeer? Visit the Koekepeer website, or check out their page on Facebook.

ps. - we'll look into the possibility of adding subtitles to the film later.

Happy Confetti Plant wishing you a great 2016

Happy New Year everybody!

I know, it's halfway through the week already so this might come a bit late, but that's for a good reason:
We're kicking off 2016 with a fresh calendar that's completely full with both new and ongoing projects, interesting collaborations and exciting adventures. We love what we do, and right now we could use more hours in a day to do it...

Coming up, for example: We'll be in Köln during the Furniture Fair IMM later this month, where we hope to showcase a renewed version of our 'In the Clouds' tableware. 

Expect more about the exhibition soon.

Also, this is the last month the exhibition Ceramix is running in the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, so if you have the chance, make this month a bit less blue by visiting the city in the south and its museum (don't forget the gift shop).

Did you receive the newsletter we sent out earlier this week? 

Missed it? No worries. Click here to read it online (or here for the Dutch version).

We're all for making this the best year yet! Are you in?

A few snapshots of Designkwartier

We visited Designkwartier in Den Haag yesterday. Here are a few snapshots of the Plant Power pop-up shop (via Instagram).

Since the weather wasn't all that we ended up spending a lot of time taking shelter in a restaurant and didn't see nearly all the things we wanted to see.
On the up-side: the Pasta Kantine (where pretty much everyone ended up, judging by the full house) was a great place to have lunch. They're in Rotterdam too, check out their website.

Meanwhile in the House of Thol household...

Lately we've been a bit pre-occupied with things that have everything to do with House of Thol, yet nothing with product- or interior design (although...).

Please meet Ebbe, born April 14th 2015:

All is going very well with both Ebbe and Jana, and we're expecting House of Thol business will be as usual pretty soon.