Rob van Gijzel, major of the city Eindhoven, home to Design Academy Eindhoven, showed his interest in design with his visit to the Graduation. One of the projects he visited was Wolwaeren. This project by Roland Pieter Smit was highlighted during the Social Design Talent Awards this Dutch Design Week.
With Wolwaeren, a series of seven blankets made by people with a mental or physical impairment,
Roland Pieter Smit designed looms that, among other things, reflect the psychological and physical possibilities of the operators. For example, autistic people can work with very thin yarn, while those with Downs Syndrome prefer to work with thicker yarn. The yarn is made from wool from the island of Texel, once lucrative but now almost worthless. And by offering sheep farmers an honest price, Smit reestablishes some of the value of the wool. Wolwaeren reintroduces the age-old tradition of woollen blankets to the Netherlands and aims to processes the material as close to the source as possible.