l'atelier

L’atelier is a real place: an empty room in a basement that I turned into a small makerspace because it breaks my heart to see good equipment sitting unused.

When I joined the team, we had just moved into new offices, and a lot of interesting equipment was still sitting in boxes.

I had learned to use these machines during my Master’s in the same research unit, but by then the professor who had introduced us to them had retired. It felt like a shame to see them tucked away, so giving them a proper home felt like a small way of giving them a second life.

We had also just moved into a villa (I kid you not). I wanted the workshop to contribute to that environment—not just be functiona.

So I started putting together a space where everything could live in one place. Somewhere people could walk in, discover what we had, and maybe even be tempted to try something new. At the very least, they should be able to find the stuff we already owned.

I organized the room, documented the equipment, labelled just about everything, and put together quick reference sheets with QR codes linking to manuals, tutorials and other useful resources. As a little homage to the geeks who came before me, I also created a shelf to display past projects.

It also gave me an excuse to design a logo, laser cut it, and animate it. What can I say? I like a good side quest.

In the atelier you’ll find:

• a 3D printer
• a digital embroidery machine
• a vinyl cutter
• 2 eye trackers
• 3 HP Sprout
• a gaming corner
• a t-shirt press
• a binder maker
• some very well labelled drawers