Thomas Van Houtum Email and Phone Number

Designer of multidisciplinary products. Sustainability is keyWhen I was a child, I was always very curious about how objects and machines worked. I loved taking things apart, exploring how they functioned, and putting them back together in new and interesting ways to see what I could create. I enjoyed inventing new things and considered myself a bit of an inventor.I always push myself to see how close I can get to achieving the maximum potential of an idea and what I can practically create. It's all about exploring the limits of what is possible to imagine, design, and manufacture. This is both a technical and a narrative challenge. The technical side involves figuring out the techniques needed to bring a new combination of existing elements to life, while the narrative aspect is about creating a new story around this emerging combination.I aim to go beyond just presenting a finished product and instead make my work an invitation for others to participate. I want the user to become a co-designer, perhaps through a playful twist or a subtle nod, bridging the gap between us. I encourage them to deconstruct and reshape the design according to their own desires and insights, so that we can create new worlds together. Design, to me, is not just a static end product; it's an ongoing activity – a verb, not just a noun. Design is existence; it breathes life into a combination of other designs, stirs desires, is used, fades, and may even invoke feelings of nostalgia. And then, it becomes a source for a new beginning through recycling or a new design/existence.