Profile: Bas van Abel

Company name:
Waag Society.

Company founding date:
1994.

Place of business:
Amsterdam.

Names of founders:
Marleen Stikker and Caroline Nevejan (until 2000).

Biography:
Bas van Abel is a Creative Director at Waag Society, where he runs the Atelier Sensitive and Fablab.
With a background in interaction design and a personal interest in prototyping technologies and electronics, Bas has worked on numerous Waag projects, both as a designer and as a technical engineer. As head of Atelier Sensitive, the current focus of his work is on the design of tangible interactive experiences.

Atelier Sensitive forms part of a long Dutch design tradition: It is aimed at designing sensitive environments and objects to enable intelligent interaction with and between users. In this process, sensual perception is the central issue. Atelier Sensitive has its own prototyping facilities that are also open to the public under the Fablab programme.

Prototyping is an essential part of Waag Society’s design-based research: Bas has developed several workshop formats based on prototyping techniques, ranging from design education to innovation processes.

About the company:
Waag Society is a platform for creative technology and social innovation. Artists, designers and hardware and software developers collaborate in the Waag Society laboratory to conduct research on, among other things, serious games, intelligent materials, real-time collaboration and biological organisms. The research yields innovative projects, such as location-bound games, intelligent teddy bears and biological displays.

Waag Society Fablab enables designers and architects to elaborate concepts into prototypes. The Mediagilde is Waag Society’s incubator that offers facilities for creative start-ups in the Pakhuis de Zwijger building. In addition, Waag Society also organises debates and events that are broadcast on the KillerTV channel. Waag Society is a co-initiator of PICNIC and the ICT Innovation Platform, Creative Industry.

Current project:
Several, including the Sense Kitchens; creative “jam sessions” in which we make our prototyping lab available to a group of manufacturers to experiment in digital manufacturing based on specific themes. The themes vary from molecular cooking to creating interactive jewellery.

Source of inspiration:
The manufacturing process.

My big idea:
An idea is always worth something if you try it out.

Favourite tools:
A laser cutter, because it enables you to easily create complex constructions. The machine also clearly illustrates the possibilities of digital manufacturing, by means of which we are able to share designs at global level and manufacture them at local level.

Favourite website:
www.instructables.com

Hobby:
Cooking.

Best advice I ever received:
“Take it easy.”

Biggest blunder:
Getting ‘electrified’ (varying from 230 Volts to 2000 Volts) in experiments; it makes a poor professional impression with your trainees and it hurts like mad.

Tips for professional colleagues:
Sometimes you have to act first and ponder later. Some of the best ideas start with the making and even before you really know exactly where you want to go.

As an ambassador of Amsterdam, I would...
Find out a bit more about Amsterdam first.

Company website:
www.waag.org

Company email address:

Web 2.0:
www.linkedin.com/in/basvanabel

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