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At The Owl’s Nest it is not only about the things we make or repair, but above all about what is inside them: knowledge, experience and craftsmanship. A soldering iron, plane or glass cutter is, on its own, just a tool. Only after someone has worked with it for years does something like “feel” for the craft develop: you hear from the hum what is wrong, you feel from a shaving whether the blade is set correctly, you see from a solder joint whether it is sound. You cannot capture that kind of knowledge completely in a manual; you have to do it together, see it, hear it and practise it.
A lot of that experience now lives in people who have been working with technology for a long time. In volunteers who were active here into old age, in board members who have been in this kind of workshop for decades, in people who used to work in industry, health care or the creative sector and now bring their tools and stories with them. But they will not be here forever. Health changes, lives take different turns, and at some point they can no longer keep doing this themselves. Sharing knowledge is about making sure that what they know does not disappear when they step back.
We live in a time when everything moves faster. Contracts are more flexible, people change jobs more often and the world is full of screens competing for attention. That makes it harder to really dive into something. A skill with your hands needs almost the opposite: time, repetition, patience and a place where you do not have to leave again after ten minutes because the next activity is starting.
As a foundation we are strongly influenced by the Free and Open Source (FOS) movement. In that world, knowledge is not something you protect as property, but something you share so that others can build on it. We regularly hear the question: “But then you are giving your knowledge or IP away to people who might compete with you?” We see it differently. If you lock knowledge up, you keep a small cake that you do not have to share with many people; with one slice for yourself. If you share knowledge, you bake a much bigger cake together, one that many more people can have a piece of; and in the end everyone gains more from that than from guarding one small slice.
That goes beyond publishing software or schematics. It is about someone else being able to repeat a repair, improve a design, or help others in turn. If knowledge stays only with a few specialists, technology becomes something distant from everyday life and power ends up in the hands of a small group. By passing knowledge on, you create more progress, more equality and more say over your own equipment and your own life. At The Owl’s Nest we try to put that FOS philosophy into practice: in how we repair, in how we explain what we are doing and in how we encourage people to pass on their own knowledge to others.
We notice that many people – young and older – find it quite daunting to try something new. The threshold is high: “What if I do it wrong?”, “I probably will not understand it”, “I am not handy enough”. For us, sharing knowledge starts with lowering that threshold. Not by pretending that things are simpler than they are, but by taking the time to work together. First watching, then doing it together, and then doing more and more yourself.
The Owl’s Nest is not a museum where you only look, and not a course factory with tightly ticked-off modules. We want to be a workshop where you can spend time. Where you can come back, where it is not a problem if something fails three times, and where you gradually notice that your hands and head start to understand things better together. A place for people who make, not just people who visit.
Sharing knowledge is never one-way traffic. It is always about people who know something and people who want to learn something; and often you are both at the same time. Broadly speaking, we think of:
Sharing knowledge does not happen here only at a table with theory, but right in the middle of the work. In repairs to clocks, amplifiers, game consoles, coffee machines and other devices. In projects like the coffee corner or Bozuki, where design, technology and collaboration come together. In workshops where you try out a new technique in a few hours. And in the small moments in between, at the soldering station, the saw or the drawing table.
We do that, for example, by:
For people who want to stay longer and really become part of the daily practice, we have Working and learning at The Owl’s Nest. There we describe how you can participate in the workshop as a participant, volunteer, intern or mentor.
If you get the feeling: “I would like to be part of this”, there are roughly two directions:
Are you still unsure whether The Owl’s Nest is the right place to learn, to share, or both? Then send us a message via Make an appointment. A short conversation often says more than a long text, and we are happy to think along with you about what fits you and the workshop.