Jurgen Bey co-founded Studio Makkink & Bey along with designer-architect Rianne Makkink in 2002, in September 2010 he was appointed as director of the Sandberg Institute, a masters program of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Studio Makkink & Bey investigates the various domains of applied art while studying the tension between the private and public domain. Taking a critical stance towards the designing of public space, architecture, interiors, exhibitions and products is pivotal. The design team operates as one entity and includes experts of various disciplines, ranging from fashion, design and architecture. The cross-wiring between the different areas of expertise prompts new insights and perspectives, which are used within each stage of the design process. Stories, study and research are in constant movement throughout the design process, to be converted into solutions for a perpetually changing environment. The goal of our studio is to entice a new design culture by showing new alternatives through critical design. Analytical design is a fundament for a new culture in a city, public building or house. One single product can progress into a project of a larger scale, motivating its own setting. In reverse, a project on the scale of architecture or urban planning can equally spawn a series of products which become the bearers of that context. This movement of zooming in and zooming out marks the interaction between the domain of architecture and urban design and the domain of products. Urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture are indissolubly bound to product design.
