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The project now known as The Owl’s Nest builds on a practical way of working and physical implementations that developed from the late 1990s around technology, repair, knowledge sharing, practical learning and cooperation. People worked together on real technical and creative questions, could see how something worked and passed on knowledge in ways that helped others continue more independently.
From that practice developed the shareable work model on which the current project is built. The model and its first physical implementations are therefore older than the name The Owl’s Nest. That name was introduced much later to give the already existing project a clearer public identity of its own.
The development did not follow a single plan defined in advance. The way of working grew from people who brought knowledge and experience, practical and technical questions, cooperation with organisations and the circumstances in which the work was carried out. Over time, the shareable work model therefore gained different concrete implementations, while the underlying combination of technology, social involvement, learning by doing and sharing knowledge remained recognisable.
In the late 1990s, workshops, laboratories, simulator projects, an aircraft collection, offices and shared social spaces came together around the Aerospace Engineering department of Hogeschool Haarlem. The workshop, the Sipke Wynia student association and the aircraft collection were located by a side entrance at the rear of the building, close to the bar and directly on a route used by more than only students and staff.
Along that side of the building ran a path beside the railway line between Zandvoort and Haarlem. Students, staff, lecturers, visitors and people from the surrounding neighbourhood used it as a practical shortcut between the station, the school, nearby streets and the surrounding area. The technical work was therefore not only located along an internal route through the school, but also at a place where people who were on their way somewhere else could naturally pass by. Through the side entrance they entered the area around the workshop, the bar, the aircraft collection and the technical projects.
Laura worked there on software, hardware, test systems and measurement, control and systems engineering. An early project was the complete rebuilding of a digital student testing system with small terminals, keyboards, displays, custom interfaces and software on the lecturer’s computer. Simulator work, custom electronics and reusable software developed alongside it.
People could see terminals, cockpit sections, cables, drawings, instruments and unfinished solutions. They stopped, asked questions and sometimes became involved. The openness of the environment helped turn technical work into a social and educational activity. Someone could begin by watching, work alongside another person, try a step themselves and gradually build enough understanding to continue more independently.
Important characteristics of the work model that would later be described more explicitly developed in this environment: visible practical work, low-threshold contact, learning by taking part, room for questions, knowledge exchange between people with different backgrounds and the use of real technical questions as a reason to work together.
Piet de Wit had worked for many years as an engineer at Hoogovens. He was part of teams that designed control systems and technical installations and then followed whether those designs were fabricated, installed and commissioned correctly. He also worked in Africa for an extended project through Hoogovens, where technical systems had to be built, installed and brought into operation. His experience therefore covered the full path from design and calculation to fabrication, installation, adjustment and everyday use.
After Piet reached retirement age, he missed both technology and the daily contact with people around complex work. Because he knew that a cockpit was present at Hogeschool Haarlem, he asked whether he could use it to build a simulator. This brought him into the open technical environment in which the practical way of working continued to develop.
Piet became an important link in the move from an open environment around existing workshops and projects to a physical space of its own for this way of working. There were unused rooms beside the simulator room. After several discussions between Piet, the head of department and the school management, part of that space could be used for the project.
The room received its own lock cylinders, separate from the key system used across a large part of the school. Access to this room could therefore be managed independently without the same keys also giving access to classrooms, laboratories, staff rooms and other parts of the building.
Before the room could be used, it had to be fitted out. Lighting was installed, plasterboard partition walls were moved and the layout was adjusted so that the entrance door ended up in a practical position. At the same time, space was created for a board room for the Sipke Wynia student association.
Extending the lighting and wall sockets was particularly technically difficult because electrical circuits were shared with several classrooms and parts of the installation had to remain in use and live while the work was being carried out.
Materials and equipment also came from different sources. Zandvliet Tapijt & Wonen in Generaal Cronjéstraat donated carpet for the room. Hogeschool Haarlem provided, among other things, tables, tools, two computers, a digital Hameg oscilloscope, an HP spectrum analyser, an HP frequency generator, an HP laboratory power supply, a Weller WECP-20 soldering station and a drill press.
This gave the way of working a more clearly independent physical environment for the first time. The room was more than a place to put equipment: it made it possible for technical work, explanation, learning, meeting people and experimenting together to have a more continuous place alongside the existing simulator and school environment.
The first physical implementation of what would later be described as the shareable work model therefore already existed before the formal establishment of the foundation and well before the introduction of the name The Owl’s Nest.
After the room had been fitted out, it was kept open every day by a team of students and volunteers, including Piet de Wit, Laura, Robert, Martin, Vincent and Cedric. It was therefore not a room that was opened only for a planned project or by appointment. People could walk in, see what others were working on, ask a question, work on something themselves or gradually become involved in an existing project.
Students from different parts of Hogeschool Haarlem came by every day. They included students from Electrical Engineering, including computer science and electronics, Naval Architecture, Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, as well as students from the neighbouring HEAO. People from the neighbourhood, friends, family members and acquaintances also came in. People with different educational backgrounds, ages and experiences therefore met in the same space.
The work being done was equally varied. Students used the space for assignments and technical projects from their courses when they preferred to work there rather than at home or in an open practical laboratory. People also worked on their own self-devised projects out of personal interest or as a hobby, and on repairs and practical technical problems they brought with them. Examples included a self-built portable computer made from an attaché case, motherboard, flat-panel display and power supply, self-built loudspeakers, computer upgrades and modifications, and household appliances that were investigated and repaired. Projects did not have to come from the same technical discipline to exist alongside one another in the same environment.
Larger and less usual projects also came in. One example was the restoration of a large transport bicycle for the Bakfietsband. It was a mobile stage construction roughly the size of a small car, with a large load platform on which instruments, equipment and musicians could be carried, and a long steel steering bar. It therefore differed considerably from the compact cargo bicycle that the Dutch word bakfiets usually refers to today.
That variety was characteristic of the space. An assignment from a course, a personal interest or hobby project, a repair, a music installation or a practical problem from the neighbourhood could all provide a reason to use tools, investigate something and exchange knowledge with others. People therefore did not come only for what the space itself organised; they also brought their own questions, projects and experience, continually changing what there was to learn and do at any given time.
Piet brought Hüseyin and Robert into the workshop. He encouraged Hüseyin not to let his education lose direction among separate activities and projects and helped those involved give their practical work a more lasting form.
His attention went beyond the technology itself. He emphasised the importance of continuity: space, tools, documentation and knowledge should not become entirely dependent on one other institution, its changing priorities or one individual. Control over designs, documentation, copyright, possible patents and other results also played a role. Technical knowledge needed to remain available to the people who wanted to continue working with it.
Piet’s involvement was not limited to technology and organisation either. A characteristic feature was the plastic shopping bag he almost always carried, filled with documentation, notes, newspaper clippings, flyers and contact details. During a conversation he could take out something that helped another person move forward: information to read, an organisation to contact, an example relevant to a decision or material useful for a practical or technical question.
He thought alongside people and remained involved in what was happening in their lives beyond the technical work. In doing so, he helped shape an environment in which people worked on projects together while also sharing knowledge, experiences and attention.
Laura and Piet discovered that they shared exactly the same birthday. Rather than continuing to celebrate separately in private, they celebrated together in the workshop, with cake and Limburg flan for those present. Moments like these showed that shared technical work could remain central while personal events, interests, loss, support and celebration also had a place.
The commitment to sharing knowledge existed before the work gained a formal organisational structure. The characteristics of the shareable work model that would later be described more explicitly were visible in software, hardware, practical explanation, repair, documentation and cooperation. The aim was not only to achieve a usable end result. People also needed to be able to understand what was happening, build experience themselves and pass knowledge on to others in turn.
Practical knowledge was regarded as more than written instructions. It can be heard in the sound of a machine or amplifier, felt in the adjustment of a hand plane and seen in the quality of a solder joint. Some of it can be recorded in text, drawings, photographs or diagrams; another part becomes most useful when someone with experience demonstrates it, explains it and practises it together with another person.
The physical environment therefore became a place where knowledge could move between generations and between people with different technical, educational and personal backgrounds. Technology was both the subject of the work and a reason for conversation, cooperation and mutual learning.
This approach was also carried into other projects and collaborations. Work around Stichting Cosmicus and Stichting Witte Tulp, for example, combined practical technology, learning, guidance and knowledge sharing in different ways. The shareable work model remained recognisable as a way in which people could learn and contribute together around concrete work.
The practical way of working did not remain limited to the first room in Overveen. A later implementation developed at Koningsteinstraat in Haarlem. This location already existed during the formalisation process around the foundation in 2002.
The early locations in Overveen and at Koningsteinstraat were supported by different people involved in the work. From the beginning, this showed that the way of working did not have to depend on a single operator or one fixed place.
From 2002, the foundation itself implemented the shareable work model at Tugelastraat, now The Owl’s Nest – Tugelastraat. This implementation still exists and is therefore the longest-established current implementation operated by ASK-Solutions.
The shareable work model and its first physical implementations therefore already existed before the foundation itself could act as an operator of the work model. The development at Tugelastraat added a long-term implementation from 2002 onward, supported by the foundation itself.
The Cosmicus A340 simulator combined children’s education, social work, flight simulation, electronics, software, hardware and practical learning. Before parts of the project moved to Amsterdam, simulator components were worked on at, among other places, the location at Tugelastraat and the location at Koningsteinstraat.
Electronics were built there, sections of the cockpit were prepared and assembled, and software was tested and debugged. The locations therefore provided concrete space for carrying out a separate technical and educational project within the same broader practical way of working.
The location at Tugelastraat continued to develop as a technical and digital implementation. Electronics, software and technical systems were developed and tested there, equipment was repaired with and for people, and projects were discussed, prepared and carried out. To this day, the location supports electronics, digital work, precision repair, software work, 3D printing, fine woodworking, small and precise metalworking, technical discussion, learning and project coordination. Since 2008 it has also had a small metal lathe, used among other things for repairs and for making or modifying small parts.
The physical implementations changed as access to space, machinery and public activity changed. From the early environment in Overveen and the locations that followed, the work developed further into long-term and temporary implementations with different technical and social possibilities.
A small technical location can focus on electronics, precision repair, software, digital work and calm guidance. A larger implementation can provide space for larger workbenches, woodworking and metalworking, machinery or other forms of practical work. The concrete possibilities therefore differ by operator and location.
Those differences do not change the shared model. The project The Owl’s Nest is built around a shareable work model that can be implemented in different circumstances, with an operator shaping the concrete local implementation.
ASK-Solutions currently implements the model at locations including Tugelastraat, Paul Krugerstraat and Spaarndamseweg. Each location implements the work model in its own way and has its own combination of space, equipment, activities and possibilities for participation.
In 2015, the premises at Paul Krugerstraat were purchased by one of the people involved in the work, who is now also a member of the board. Ownership remained with this person and the premises were made available for the foundation’s practical work. The purchase took place on 27 August of that year and gave the existing workshop practice more room for machinery, workbenches, repair, making and other technical activities.
The expansion built on the much older workshop practice and existing implementations. The new space made other kinds of work possible than at a smaller technical location such as Tugelastraat and thereby expanded the practical possibilities within the same shareable model.
The additional space also made it possible to move larger machines and tools that until then had been at Tugelastraat. A drum sander, a wood lathe and other larger tools, among other things, found a more suitable place at Paul Krugerstraat. This freed space at Tugelastraat for further expansion of the finer technical and digital work, including the installation of multiple 3D printers.
The purchase also became the direct trigger for events later known as The Italian Situation. Information was already being gathered before the purchase had been completed, after it became known that a preliminary purchase agreement existed and financing was being arranged.
The experiences that followed made it increasingly clear why separate projects, implementations, responsibilities and public names needed to be recognisably distinguishable from one another.
For a long time, the practical workshop line was simply presented under IRADIS and other existing public designations. For deliverable projects, a name of their own was naturally necessary: software, hardware, protocols and other separate results had to be developed, used and delivered as recognisable projects. Such projects therefore had their own names from an early stage.
For the long-running practical project around learning, repair, making, cooperation and knowledge sharing, such a separate name was less necessary for a long time. In practice, the physical implementation and the people involved made clear which work was being referred to.
After The Italian Situation, it became clearer that this implementation-oriented project also needed a recognisable public name of its own. This made it possible to refer to the project independently without equating it with a legal entity, an operator or one concrete location.
In 2022, the existing project was given the name The Owl’s Nest. The name gave a recognisable public identity to the project that had grown around the shareable work model. The introduction of the name therefore marks a change in public recognisability; the work model and the first physical implementations are much older.
At the beginning of 2019, Howard, the owl that later appears in different forms, was designed as a broader mascot for the work and the projects. Howard therefore does not belong exclusively to The Owl’s Nest.
The base form is used for ASK-Solutions, while different projects can use their own recognisable variants. With Nocterra, for example, Howard appears with an N; for The Owl’s Nest, a variant is used in which Howard holds a hammer.
After The Owl’s Nest received its own project name, this variant helped make the project visually recognisable as well, while keeping its relationship with the broader origins and other projects visible.
The history of knowledge sharing also led to a question that a physical space alone could not solve: how can a work model be shared and adapted locally while protecting the ability to use it, continue it and share it again?
Earlier experience with free software, free hardware and Creative Commons showed what different forms of copyright-based copyleft can protect. Depending on the licence chosen, reciprocity can apply to source code, texts, drawings, diagrams, source files, production information and other copyright-protected documentation. Adaptations can therefore, under certain conditions, have to remain available wholly or partly under the same licence.
Copyright has a clear boundary here. It protects the concrete and creative form in which something is recorded, but not automatically the underlying knowledge, ideas, philosophical concepts, procedures, ways of working or their practical implementation. A description of a work model can therefore be shared under copyleft while the described way of working itself is implemented, changed or ended by another party without copying the original documentation.
That distinction matters for a practical and social work model. An educational institution can, for example, move or restructure a course, give a building a different purpose, and a manufacturer can decide to restrict documentation, parts or access to suppliers. Copyleft on texts, drawings or source files does not by itself prevent such forms of enclosure.
The protective thinking behind the Howard Public Licence developed together with the longer history of the work model and with questions around shared knowledge, independence, continuity and the possibility of applying and continuing a way of working locally without a later party being able to close it off unilaterally. The HPL is the current expression of that development. It seeks to connect the conditions around knowledge freedom, local adaptation, public benefit, responsibility and continued access more explicitly to the shared model. In doing so, the HPL also addresses circumstances that lie outside the direct reach of copyright-based copyleft.
The recorded licence text makes the protection structure transferable and applicable, but the protection does not consist only of a document. It also requires a party that manages and safeguards the HPL and the principles recorded in it.
Within the project The Owl’s Nest, the IRADIS Foundation fulfils that protective role for the shareable work model and its different implementations. The foundation manages the HPL and the principles recorded in it, while different operators can implement the work model at different locations.
That separation is important. An operator can shape, further develop and adapt a concrete implementation locally within the applicable conditions. Management of the HPL remains separate from that role and prevents one individual operator from later closing off the shared basis unilaterally or taking away other operators’ right to continue implementing the model.
The structure therefore protects more than only implementations supported by ASK-Solutions itself. Other operators can also implement the shareable work model under the HPL without their continuing right to do so becoming dependent on another operator or location.
Other organisations and natural persons can also apply the HPL to a project or shareable work model of their own. For such an application, it must be clear which natural person or legal entity bears responsibility for continuity, application of the conditions and safeguarding the protection within that context.
Applying the HPL means using the existing protection model and the principles recorded in it. That application does not give a responsible person, organisation, user or operator authority to modify, expand, shorten, simplify or rephrase the HPL wholly or partly, give it a different meaning, create their own variant of it, or present a protection model derived from it as the HPL. The text and other copyright-protected parts of the HPL are themselves protected as well. Creating or distributing an adaptation or other derivative work in which protected wording, structure or other protected elements of the HPL are reproduced may therefore also be subject to copyright. Statutory exceptions such as quotation, parody or, in legal systems that recognise it, fair use do not provide a general or unconditional right to create an adapted or derivative HPL.
The HPL therefore concerns not only keeping documentation and source files available, but making it possible in the long term for knowledge and ways of working actually to be studied, applied locally, adapted, passed on and continued.
Names, buildings, tools and public websites changed. The central practice remained recognisable: people work on real technical and creative questions, knowledge is explained rather than hidden, experience is passed on through doing, and personal attention can exist alongside demanding practical work.
Within the physical implementations of the work model, making, repair, learning and cooperation can take place alongside one another. People can come in with a practical problem, curiosity, existing knowledge or very little technical experience and build contact and understanding through the concrete work.
The project The Owl’s Nest today builds on that same long line. The project name is relatively new; the underlying way of working, the shareable model and the first physical implementations go back to the period before the formal foundation.
Experience with software, hardware, repair, the demoscene and systems programming, early internet culture and discussions about freedom and shared knowledge form part of the background from which the later practical way of working develops.
The open technical environment around Aerospace Engineering at Hogeschool Haarlem brings workshop activities, simulator projects, technical education, visitors and people who would remain involved in the work for many years into contact with one another. Important characteristics of the later shareable work model develop in this environment.
After retirement, Piet de Wit becomes involved in the simulator environment. In part through his discussions with the head of department and school management, a space of its own is made available beside the existing simulator and workshop environment. After alterations and fitting out, the practical way of working gains its first more clearly independent physical implementation there.
The practical way of working develops further around technology, knowledge sharing, learning and cooperation. In addition to the first implementation in Overveen, a location later develops at Koningsteinstraat.
The shareable work model and physical implementations of it already exist. From the establishment of the legal entity in 2002, the foundation itself implements the work model at Tugelastraat, now The Owl’s Nest – Tugelastraat. This implementation still exists and is therefore the longest-established current implementation operated by ASK-Solutions.
Technical projects, electronics, repair, learning, guidance and community-oriented activities are carried out from different practical environments. The location at Tugelastraat continues to develop as a long-term technical and digital implementation.
More fabrication and workshop capabilities are built up for prototyping, repair, custom parts and practical technical learning.
3D printing becomes a stable part of practical workflows for prototyping, repair and reproducing parts.
On 27 August 2015, the premises at Paul Krugerstraat are purchased by a person involved in the work, who is now also a member of the board, and made available for the foundation’s practical work. The existing workshop practice thereby gains more room for machinery, workbenches, repair, making and other technical activities. Larger equipment can be moved from Tugelastraat, freeing space there for further expansion including 3D printing. The purchase also becomes the direct trigger for the events later known as The Italian Situation.
The events surrounding The Italian Situation make it clearer that implementations, projects, responsibilities and public names need to be recognisably distinguishable from one another. The long-established practical project consequently develops a later need for a separate public project name.
At the beginning of 2019, Howard is designed as a broader mascot for the work and the different projects. Recognisable variants are developed later, including Howard with a hammer for The Owl’s Nest.
The long-established practical project around the shareable work model is given the public name The Owl’s Nest. The name makes the project recognisable alongside the organisation, operators and individual locations. The work model and the first physical implementations on which the project builds are much older.
In February 2024, the domain the-owls-nest.nl is registered. This gives the project its own public website where the shareable work model, its history, current implementations, locations, capabilities and ways to participate can be described together.
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