Design Commissions
Jochem van der Spek designed the web covers for the research projects Water & Urban Development and Nature & Spatial Design (2014).
AAARO Research projects
Jochem van der Spek calls the web covers he designed for the Het Nieuwe Instituut website "Living drawings". He explains: "A drawing like this contains several fixed elements within a set of rules, creating an endless variety of pathways. You can see it as a kind of ant colony. In this case, it's waterway and dyke builders who make their way through a landscape. As they proceed, they meet and avoid each other: the dyke builder builds around the water, and the water will follow or cut off the dyke." Gradually, these builders shape the landscape. Whenever someone visits the page, the process restarts, generating a new drawing from new positions, creating different solutions for interpreting the landscape.
The rules assigned are strict but provide infinite possibilities. "Exacting rules and abundant diversity aren't always mutually exclusive," says Van der Spek. "Dutch people have an extraordinary relationship with the landscape. We long for nature, but are constantly trying to bend it to our will. Rules also bind landscape design. However, the rules of humans and nature need not contradict each other. In essence, strict rules also govern nature."
When Studio Moniker's Luna Maurer approached him for the assignment from Het Nieuwe Instituut, Van der Spek was still working as an artist. He has now developed a digital platform that makes it easy to produce 3D printed objects yourself. "My work is always about achieving the greatest possible diversity using the simplest rules," he says. "I did this first in the art world, and now I do it in the 3D printing sector. Developing products that can be 3D printed is a complicated process. Our company's search engine allows you to search an infinite number of 3D objects easily. Users indicate their preferences and receive a number of variations. We based the system on the fact that people choose well. When people see several examples of a vase, they quickly know their preference."
The Water & Urban Development and Nature & Spatial Design research projects were conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Infrastructure & the Environment as part of the Action Agenda for Architecture and Spatial Design (in Dutch: AAARO). For both projects, Het Nieuwe Instituut addressed the new ways in which the design world deals with nature.
Jochem van der Spek
Jochem van der Spek has inherited his parents' traits: his father is a physicist; his mother, an artist. Perhaps not surprisingly, the interplay of art and technology is a common thread in his work. Van der Spek is an artist, graphic programming teacher, game designer and computer programmer. His work is in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Teylers Museum in Haarlem and various private collections. Since 2015 he has been co-founder and R&D director of the companies Borges.xyz and AM-FLow.com, which aim to make 3D printing accessible to everyone.