Where do you get the inner tubes from?

Often people ask us where we get the old inner tubes from. Well, first of all we live in Amsterdam, we have a lot of bicycles and therefore we have a lot of old inner tubes. Collecting them is more of a challenge. Since a few month Debbie from Social Workshop Pantar in Amsterdam comes ones a week and then she tours on an old-school 'bakfiets' along the bicycle repair men who support the project.

We did a little survey under the repair shops, asking how many tubes they throw away per day; between 3 and 15 was the answer, depending if they are into fixing or just put a new tube. Old tubes don't get recycled in a large way so most of them end up in the incinerator. We believe that in Holland 10 000 tubes get burned per day. We worked out that last year we turned the amount of one day into bags. Something should happen...

Quantz and G.tecz

Last week i had the fantastic opportunity to experiment with QUANTZ, an ultra high performance concrete by innovative german company G.tecz. These guys are great and they can optimize concrete in a way that you can really make anything from it, for example a coffee cup or a garden chair. Within architecture the can also optimize concrete so one needs a lot less of the material for a building as you would need from conventional concrete. On the photos are first examples of the 'QUANTZ' collection, soon more...

New York International Gift Fair

For the first time Krejci by Doreen Westphal was presented at NYIGF by the Wabnitz Collection and  was very well received by the visitors of the fair.

Two of our bags got selected for the special sustainability section at the entrance of the hall and people liked them so much that someone even managed to steel one of them despite 24 security watch.

2008

Two more days and we start a new year, good to take a moment to look back on 2008. The essence of what this year meant for me is probably best described with the words of a german environmental scientist who's name i unfortunately do not know anymore, but what she said was about this:

'Now that we have this huge economical crises we also have for the first time a realistic chance to reach the targets set by the protocol of Kyoto. '

I wish all of us stunning and great ideas and a lot of energy to create and built a whole new system for our future!

New Studio at Westerdok Amsterdam

KREJCI moved to a new studio, it is right in the center of Amsterdam yet we have the water of the Westerdok right in front of us. Now in the winter we smell the wood fires of our neighbours, the people who live on the boats opposite from us at the dock. In the summer we hope to enjoy the sun on the quay. At the moment it is still a bit of chaos but building works a moving fast!

Dutch Design Week 2008

For the first time Krejci took part in Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. On the picture you see our stand with some new items, a bicycle bag, picture frame and a floor cloth from inner tubes.

Further we introduced the idea of a double exit sink which is a sink with a second exit. This gives the opportunity to decide if water could be collected and used again or if it is definitely spoiled.

Tokyo Designers Week 2008

In November 2008 KREJCI took part in 'Created in Holland' a collective exhibition of Dutch designers during Tokyo Designers Week.

Watch this little movie to get an impression: