Demotech, design for self reliance

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Back to See it!

Look around in our former workshop in Dieren

The land around a farmhouse and a cow shed has filled up with a new suburb. The farmhouse was rebuild into a comfortable resort for a group of people. But all renovation plans for the cow shed next to the farmhouse ran stuck. So no children's farm, nor a service centre for this quarter. Filthy, with roof tiles broken, the local youth started to demolish the barn and the municipality decided to pull it down.
This was 1983 and Demotech was in need of a new workshop. After a fierce struggle with the municipality Demotech was allowed to move in.
Over the twenty years of our use of this place it turned into a -for our purpose- well equipped workshop. Come in and see for yourself!
Then, in 2004, the municipally decided to put an end to our use of the barn. In 2005 a community of 'social squatters' invited Demotech to move its research facility to the Landbouwbelang in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The Landbouwbelang' is a huge factory building with ample space. Here Demotech reconstructed all her work, test and storage facilities.

Come in, please!
The Rope Pump
Our kitchen, center of 'life' communication
Demotech office, center of experience
Demotech office, video to share experience
Our Bathroom, ideas from Ghana, tested here
Getting the message across at a string
Our main workshop, the best place for realistic design
Our metal workshop for welding, cutting, and grinding,
Water well, experiments with pumps and boreholes
Hydraulic Ram Pump, metal versus concrete
How to prepare concrete r>
Upstairs, our photo studio with wheel studies
Also upstairs, our storage space for bamboo and display material
Our garden, space for larger experiments
Green experiment with gray water
Green experiment with gray water
Transportation, the truck, the trailer and the car