Community workshop – The Owl’s Nest

History

The Owl’s Nest grew from a workshop practice that has developed since the late 1990s around technology, repair, knowledge sharing, practical learning and cooperation. From the first workshop in Overveen came new projects, locations and forms of guidance, while the central approach remained recognisable: people work together on real technical and creative questions and pass on knowledge in ways that help others continue more independently.

The development did not follow a single plan defined in advance. New possibilities grew from the people who became involved, the knowledge they brought and the circumstances in which the work took place. Locations, projects and organisational forms therefore changed over the years, while technology, social involvement and the free sharing of knowledge remained connected.

Haarlem-Overveen: an open technical environment

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 and the Sipke Wynia student association were close to a side entrance, the bar and routes used by students, lecturers, technical staff, visitors and people from the surrounding neighbourhood. Technical work was therefore visible in a way that was unusual for an educational environment.

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 space 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.

Piet de Wit: technology, people and continuity

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. His partner, children, grandchildren, neighbours and friends remained important to him, while those relationships could not replace the technical and collegial environment in which he had spent much of his working life. 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 workshop environment in which the later foundation began to take shape.

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 projects a lasting form. He encouraged them to formalise their cooperation through an independent organisation rather than making the work entirely dependent on an existing institution.

He therefore encouraged the group to create its own formal basis, apply for grants independently and think carefully about control over documentation, copyright, designs, possible patents and other results. Technology needed organisational and legal continuity alongside physical space. This became important to the later development of the IRADIS Foundation, ASK-Solutions, the workshops and the search for ways to keep knowledge available without another party later closing it off.

Piet’s involvement was not limited to technology and organisation. A characteristic feature was the plastic shopping bag he always carried, filled with documentation, notes, newspaper clippings, flyers and contact details. During a conversation he could always 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, remained interested in what was happening in their lives beyond the workshop and offered support during difficult periods. In doing so, he helped shape an environment in which people not only worked on projects together, but also shared 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 such as these made visible what connected people within the workshop. Shared technical work remained central, while personal events, interests, loss, support and celebration also had a place. This contributed to the kind of environment the workshops continued to shape.

Sharing knowledge before the foundation

The commitment to sharing knowledge existed before the first contact with the civil-law notary. It was already used internally as a working model and communicated externally through software, hardware, practical explanation, repair, documentation and cooperation. The aim was not merely to publish a finished result. People also needed to retain the freedom to understand, adapt, repair, pass on and continue it.

Practical knowledge was regarded as more than written instructions. It could 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 this can be documented, while another part needs to be demonstrated, practised and discussed alongside someone with experience. The workshop therefore became a place where knowledge could move between generations and between people with different technical, educational and personal backgrounds.

This approach was later carried into projects with Stichting Cosmicus and Stichting Witte Tulp. It can be seen in technical projects, computer learning environments, guidance, software and hardware development and attempts to keep project knowledge usable for the people and communities involved.

Formalising an independent foundation

As the work grew, Piet and others encouraged the group to give it an independent legal form rather than allow it to disappear into a school, company or temporary project structure. The intended mission combined shared knowledge, cooperation, free software, free hardware, practical education, social responsibility and technical work in the public interest.

That mission proved difficult to express in the legal language available at the time. Knowledge sharing was regarded as too abstract, while software, hardware, designs and services were treated mainly as concrete products or activities. The group also explored ideas resembling a licence for knowledge, inventions and practical cooperation. Copyright could protect software and documentation, but knowledge, methods, physical designs, production information and patent-related questions did not fit into one simple mechanism.

The concrete Cosmicus A340 simulator project helped make the broader purpose legally recognisable. Stichting IRADIS obtained legal personality in 2002 and became a formal basis from which projects, grant applications, software, hardware, education and community work could continue. The first statutes described the simulator-related activities more clearly than the broader philosophy that had led to the foundation, but the practical work remained wider.

Cosmicus A340 and The Owl’s Nest – Tugelastraat

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 prepared at The Owl’s Nest – Tugelastraat and, in part, The Owl’s Nest – Koningsteinstraat. Electronics were built, sections of the cockpit were assembled and software was tested and debugged. Both locations were therefore part of the technical project itself.

In the years that followed, very large parts of BackPage, Synergos and later Nocterra were developed, tested, discussed and put into use at The Owl’s Nest – Tugelastraat. Game consoles, radios, laptops, tablets and other equipment were repaired there with and for people. The location supported electronics, digital work, precision repair, software development, technical discussion, learning and project coordination.

The location at Tugelastraat has been part of the same continuous workshop practice since the early 2000s. Electronics, software and technical systems were and continue to be developed and tested there, equipment was and is repaired with and for people, and projects were and are discussed, shaped and carried out. The Owl’s Nest – Tugelastraat is therefore the longest-established of the current locations.

Workshops through changing locations

The physical workshop environments changed as access to space, machinery and public activity changed. The workshop practice developed further from Haarlem-Overveen, through a later location in the Rozenprieel, to the current locations at Tugelastraat, Paul Krugerstraat and Spaarndamseweg. Some locations offered large halls and heavy equipment; others supported detailed technical work, digital development, repair, learning or calm, small-scale participation.

Each location provided space for different kinds of work, projects and participation. New workshops expanded the existing possibilities, while the technical, social and educational lines between the locations remained recognisable.

A clearer public identity

Over the years, workshop activities, free-software development, digital self-reliance, technical work, and organisational and management tasks were often presented publicly under the same name. The events surrounding The Italian Situation showed that activities, locations, people and responsibilities needed to be distinguished more clearly, while their shared principles and historical connection remained recognisable.

The Owl’s Nest gives the workshop activities their own public identity. The name connects physical workshops, technical and digital locations, repair with and for people, practical education, shared equipment and carefully coordinated participation. Describing it as a shared model helps distinguish the common principles from the particular implementation at one address.

The same development can be seen in the Howard Public Licence. Earlier experiments with free software, open hardware and Creative Commons showed what different forms of copyright-based copyleft can protect. Depending on the licence chosen, reciprocity may apply broadly to derivative works, only to particular parts or with additional restrictions. Source code, texts, drawings, diagrams, source files, production information and documentation can therefore be shared under conditions that keep adaptations wholly or partly available under the same licence.

At the same time, there is an important boundary. Copyright protects the concrete and creative form in which something is recorded, but not the underlying knowledge, ideas, philosophical concepts, procedures, working methods or implementation as such. A book, design document or manual may be protected by copyright, while the practice it describes can be adopted, changed, restricted or ended altogether by others. An educational institution can move or restructure a programme, give a building a different purpose, and a manufacturer or shareholder can decide to restrict documentation, parts or access to suppliers. Copyleft on the original texts, drawings or source files does not automatically prevent such forms of enclosure.

That reciprocity nevertheless remains tied to material covered by copyright or comparable rights. It protects the concrete form in which knowledge is recorded, not the knowledge, concept, method or implementation itself. A description of a workshop model can be shared under copyleft, while an organisation can still adopt, restrict, implement differently or discontinue the described practice without copying the original documentation.

The HPL was developed from this broader question. It seeks not only to keep source files, designs and documentation available, but also to establish more clearly the principles of knowledge freedom, local adaptation, public benefit, responsibility and continued access. It therefore also addresses what lies beyond the direct reach of copyright-based copyleft: the conditions under which knowledge can actually be used, passed on, adapted and continued locally.

The HPL therefore goes beyond making documentation available under copyleft. The recorded text makes the protection model transferable and adaptable, but does not by itself constitute the full protection. That protection arises because a legal entity takes responsibility for the knowledge, the working method, continuity and the conditions under which others may use them.

For The Owl’s Nest and the projects connected to it, the foundation fulfils that protective role. Projects, knowledge and local working forms can be developed and continued under its responsibility. Other operators can work within this protection or establish their own HPL implementation, in which another legal entity assumes the same responsibility.

The copylefted text makes it possible to study, adopt and adapt the model locally. The actual protection lies in the combination of those recorded conditions with an organisation that safeguards, applies and defends them. The HPL therefore concerns not only documents and source files, but the lasting practical availability of knowledge and working methods.

What continued

Names, buildings, tools and public websites changed. The central practice remained: 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. The workshop is a place to make and repair, and also a place where people can become connected through shared work, conversation, responsibility and mutual support.

Key dates and milestones