Bron van Doen

The Bron van Doen Social Labs (BvD Social Labs) are based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and focus on developing self initiated social projects as well as facilitating co-design processes for diverse clients such as the municipality of Eindhoven or the Dutch Design Foundation. Concentrating rather on the process of co-creation than the outcome of design the main effort of the BvD Social Labs is to better facilitate collaborations between diverse groups of people. Their work is based on a five step process: Ideation, Focus, Pilot development, Pilot execution and Professionel development. The aim of this process is to develop concepts that address the core challenges presented by the participants and to ensure these concepts are firmly established upon the realities of the participants.

One of the most important projects so far is the „Uit de Buurtfabriek“ (http://bronvandoen.nl/en/projects/uit-de-buurtfabriek/), a social furniture making workspace connecting unemployed people on a reintegration trajectory, active pensioners, skilled volunteers as well as people with barriers to employment for various reasons. Supported by the local government and local reintegration organization the main aim of „Uit de Buurtfabriek“ is to empower people within a productive environment with various responsibilities until they ultimately move on towards their next step of reintegration such as specialized job training, employment or self-employment.

Find more information about the BvD Social Labs on their homepage (http://bronvandoen.nl/en/)