The VTL actively supports and encourages the use of reclaimed and found materials for new projects. Why just share and reuse tools when you can do so with materials as well? When the team of CityStudio students behind The Stoop approached us with their project, we knew it’d be a perfect example to show our readers. Take it away, Charlotte, Otilia, and Romney!
Tell us about your project and the progress you’ve made so far, as well as what inspired you to work on it.
We got together as a group because we all wanted to divert wood waste through sustainable design and peer-to-peer material engagement. We launched this project trying to tackle one of the city’s Greenest City 2020 Action Plan goals: the 2015 Wood Waste Ban. We wanted to use what we saw as an abundant and readily available material to create a design object which would change the way people perceive ‘waste’.
Reclaimed wood from Strathcona renovation
With the wood we got from a deconstruction site in Strathcona, we were able to design and build a six-foot long bench. We called it The Stoop. This bench travels around Vancouver and lives temporarily in coffee shops, restaurants and other social spaces where a dialogue about the issue of wood waste can begin. We saw an opportunity to reinvigorate the character and history of this wood through contemporary design. Along the way met an entire community of people dedicated to working with reclaimed wood material. We got in touch with people who were doing working on DIY personal home projects, as well as designers creating one-of-a-kind, high end furniture pieces. We were met with support from communities who were interested in the appeal of having such an piece and employees at City Hall who are also working on the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, trying to implement an upcycling/sorting system for wood waste in Vancouver.
Finished product!
Where have you traveled to generate dialogue on wood waste and reclaiming materials? Which businesses will you be holding discussions at in the future? Anything you’d like to share from what’s happened so far?
Initially we were interested in placing it outdoors and having it change locations every couple of months. However, due to City Hall regulations and financial issues we had to have it indoors. We got in touch with small businesses, in particular coffee shops. We hoped that, by placing The Stoop in high traffic, social spaces, it would become a point of interest and conversation. Eventually, the Gluten Free Epicurean was interested in hosting it at their store. During the design process, we were in constant contact with people from the sustainability group at City Hall, where we were working to come up with ways in which we can expand this project beyond The Stoop bench. We also looked into how other cities were addressing wood waste divergence. In New York there was a design competition,12×12 in which 12 contemporary furniture designers were asked to use reclaimed lumber from 12 demolished buildings in New York City. Also in New York a group of designers were taking discarded moving crates and making Adirondack chairs and ‘chair bombing’ the city. These projects were really appealing to us and we saw a perfect niche for them to be adapted to Vancouver. Since December when our CityStudio course concluded, we’ve been getting together to debrief and organize all of our ideas, as well we’ve been looking into potential grants in order to expand a move forward with ongoing creative wood waste projects.
How can Vancouver Tool Library members and supporters help you with your project?
We are looking into the many avenues of possibility for the future of this project. We are extremely happy to speak with anyone who is passionate about wood waste diversion on how we can support each other through creative collaboration. We would also love to hear stories from VTL members who are already doing these types of projects and learn more about their challenges and outcomes. It would be great to maintain a dialogue with everyone at the VTL so that our project can be influenced and enriched by the creative minds of our community in order to make the value of this waste material visible. We can be contacted via e-mail: thestoopvan[at]gmail[dot]com.
In what sort of direction do you see this project and dialogue headed?
In an ideal world we see reclaimed materials being used widely in Vancouver and seldom ending up in the landfill. We hope to see a wood waste hub being conceived in the coming years, where wood can be taken, processed, categorized and made available for re-use. This system would give a new value to the wood. It would make the process more efficient because the large scale processing and categorization would give way for many avenues of wood waste re-use, such as biofuel, framing for houses, and furniture. As for where we stand at the moment, our goal and vision is to develop an active and interdisciplinary community of people who can all work together to give form to their ideas of how wood waste can be best used in Vancouver.
Team Wood Waste hanging out on The Stoop
This workshop is now full. Keep an eye on our Events page for the April and May workshops.
Unfamiliar with the Vancouver Tool Library inventory and the functions of the tools? Want to learn to use those tools in a fun and safe environment? See the principles of physics at work in our Intro to Tools Workshop (and never question the real world applicability of high school classes again).
After this workshop, participants will leave with the confidence to name and use basic tools necessary for everyday projects AND a planter box to take home. Spring is just around the corner – get your garden started! Besides the push for urban gardening, our goal is for you to feel comfortable working with a variety of different tools in your own home. Facilitator Steve Fairbairn will go over safety with power tools, designing and planning your project, and the execution of your plan.
When: Saturday, March 23rd, 2013, from 11:00am-2:00pm
Where: The Tool Library, 3448 Commercial Street
Cost: $20 for VTL Members | $25 for Non-Members
What to Bring: All materials will be provided. The workshop will take place outside so wear comfortable, tighter-fitting clothing that is weather appropriate. Avoid dangly accessories for safety reasons.
Questions? Email lauren [at] vancouvertoollibrary [dot] com
Advance registration is required! Please pre-pay and sign up through the PayPal button below or come into the shop to register. Refunds are available up to 48 hours before the workshop begins.
Workshop Registrants: Please include your email address in the PayPal form! This is how we’ll contact you with any workshop updates and to confirm your registration. Note that VTL Members will be required to present their member cards at the workshop.
Hit the slopes knowing that your gear is in great shape after our Snowboard & Ski Tune-Up Workshop. You’ll be making sharper turns and slaloms for the rest of the season and you’ll be set for next.
Photo courtesy of www.concierge.com
After this workshop, participants will leave with the confidence to use our waxing and tuning tool set at their own home. The workshop will focus mainly on downhill skis and snowboards; most of the information being taught will be transferable to cross-country skis. Facilitator Sean Hillis will go through basic waxing and edge tuning/maintenance techniques, then your new skills will be put to work through lots of practice!
When: Sunday, March 10th, 2013, from 11:00am-1:30pm
Where: The Tool Library, 3448 Commercial Street
Cost: $15 for VTL Members | $20 for Non-Members
What to Bring: You are welcome to bring your skis or snowboard. All other materials will be provided. The workshop will take place outside so wear comfortable, tighter-fitting clothing that is weather appropriate.
Questions? Email lauren [at] vancouvertoollibrary [dot] com
Advance registration is required! Please pre-pay and sign up through the PayPal button below or come into the shop to register. Refunds are available up to 48 hours before the workshop begins.
Workshop Registrants: Please include your email address in the PayPal form! This is how we’ll contact you with any workshop updates and to confirm your registration. Note that VTL Members will be required to present their member cards at the workshop.
In our first year, our current website served us well. Now that we’re growing, it’s time for a bit of a facelift. If you’re a web designer, please take a look at our RFP and make your bid for the project.
About the Vancouver Tool Library
The Vancouver Tool Library (VTL) is a cooperative tool-lending library located in the Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood in East Vancouver. We encourage the sharing of tools for home repairs, bicycle maintenance, and gardening between community members. The VTL offers an alternative to the current system in which we each purchase our own: a long-lasting, collectively-owned resource shaped by the community, allowing our members to use tools at their leisure without having to buy, maintain, or store them.
Through this alternative purchasing and ownership model, the VTL helps reduce redundancy in tool ownership, the consumption of consumer goods, and the extraction of non-renewable resources required to manufacture both tools and goods. Although the space holds a finite amount of tools, its presence in the community facilitates the exchange of knowledge and ideas between members and the public, opening a dialogue and encouraging engagement in neighbourhoods.
For those who are new to the idea of building and repairing on their own, we provide workshops to reduce the initial intimidation and uncertainty sometimes felt when using tools for the first time. We regularly feature and applaud projects that our members have completed, demonstrating what is possible with a bit of time, a few tools, and the know-how. To build or repair something by hand is to feel pride, accomplishment, and joy; these are feelings the VTL strives to support in its members and beyond.
Website Overview
Our current website allows members to see which tools are available for loan, what events and workshops are coming up, and what is new in the shop. We receive positive feedback on the logo and branding of our website; this will remain the same. The issue is that our website is predominately a one-way interaction. Our site contains a fair amount of information, but only in a few places are members asked to send in feedback or ideas. At this time, they are unable to interact with each other via our website. Most interaction takes place in our shop – we want to extend that to our online presence.
Project Goals and Objectives
Our goal is to generate a different kind of interaction between users on our website. We would like to encourage our members to display their completed projects and events to the public. We are especially interested in highlighting our members’ projects through a dedicated photo gallery accompanied by their stories and design processes. With a full and varied gallery to look through, our visitors will recognize all of the different things that can be accomplished with our tool inventory. We want the content on our website to inspire and excite users, leaving them with concrete plans for their next project. Our content will be a visual representation of the satisfaction that comes from building something from nothing. This should also help us continue to fulfill our mandate of reducing barriers to tool use; our users should be leaving the site eager to start building or repairing.
To a much lesser extent, we are targeting new members. Our membership growth is steadily increasing through word-of-mouth so we would rather focus on enticing our current members to linger on our site’s pages longer and contribute to our knowledge-sharing community.
Technical Parameters
Because different staff and volunteers will be updating content quite frequently, the website must be relatively simple to maintain. Currently, we are using a customized WordPress theme that we purchased. We are open to the idea of trying another type of format or staying with a theme. We will be remaining with our current web host and will continue to operate our tool inventory through a program called Local Tools, which most tool libraries in Canada and the United States are using. We would like to have a mobile capable site that focuses on our inventory, hours of operations, and workshop information.
Usability Requirements
The people in our audience know their way around a computer; they are comfortable with technology and different platforms. The median age of our members is 28. The front page must supply all vital information, preferably through “call to action” buttons. Other information should be available through tabs at the top of the home page and must be accessible in as few clicks as possible; we never want our users to feel frustrated because they cannot find the information they are seeking.
Functional Parameters
Our home page should supply the most important and relevant information to our users. It will have three “call to action” buttons with our most popular pages: tool inventory, workshops, and volunteering. Shop hours and address will be easily visible. We would like to continue to have a slideshow of 3-5 pictures, each of which bring users to another page on the site with a click (blog posts, events, etc).
The new features we are interested in are a photo gallery, community event submissions page, and a mechanism through which our members can interact with each other (with as little moderation as possible on the part of the VTL). We are open to ideas on existing interfaces for these features. The gallery should allow our members to upload pictures of projects they’ve worked on and share their stories. The interactive feature will allow users to ask tool-related questions to others in the community. Content for these features will only be coming from our active members. The extra resources available should be an incentive for members to renew with us. They should sign in with their VTL membership ID number (given to them when they sign up) and a password. The general public will be able to see the pictures and information but not contribute. On the events submission page, members should be able to add dates of upcoming events to a communal calendar.
On the workshop page, we would like to have an idea submission form. Aside from surveying our members through e-mails and workshop feedback forms, we do not receive many requests for certain types of workshops.
We want to include a prompt for users to sign up for a membership with modo car co-op, who will be partnering with the VTL to supply our members with cars to transport heavier tools home. This should be under the Membership tab.
The search bar should be easily located at the top of the home page, along with buttons that would take users to our social media accounts in new pages.
Proposal Directions
In your proposal submission package, please include your resume and portfolio, with examples of websites you’ve designed. We ask that all persons or teams submitting a proposal also provide a statement of interest, answering the question “what would you bring to this project that no one else could offer?”. Given the scope of the project, please detail the amount of time you or your team would allocate to which specific tasks and your hourly rate. We would also like to see a letter of reference from a client for whom you have previously completed a website.
Timeframe
We would like the website to be completed by mid-spring, to coincide with the start of our busy season (April – May).
Contact Information
Please send completed proposals in one document, PDF format to Chris Diplock, President at president[at]vancouvertoollibrary[dot]com by March 1, 2013.
Every month, we feature a project created by a different Vancouver Tool Library member. This month, we’re featuring a very Valentine’s Day-appropriate project. This one comes from our very own Director of Volunteers, Kathy Yan Li.
Tell us about the project you built and what inspired you to work on it.
I was involved in the
Vancouver Canadian Asian Theatre‘s production of “The Theory of Everything”. Because it was a community theatre production, we had very limited resources. I was designing the lights, but because they couldn’t find a set designer in the end, I offered to build a fundamental set piece: a neon light sign that said ‘The Chapel of Love’ on a budget of $120. Things looked grim, so I called on my friend Paul Bucci, who came up with the design and concept. We decided against faking the look of neon light tubing, and went with cut outs in the sign, which turned out pretty well. We cut the entire sign out of one sheet of plywood.
Which tools did you use for this project?
We used a jig saw, saw horses, paint brushes, and a belt sander.
Did you face any challenges?
Our main challenge was finding a space to make the sign, so we ended up working the back alley of Paul’s dad’s place. His back yard was sloped downwards, so we worked half in and out of his house. Even after we had finished the cutting and painting, finding a place to store it before moving it into the theatre was another challenge.
How do you feel now that you’ve completed a project of this nature?
Pretty good. It turned out a lot better than what we had expected.
Next project plans?
Creating life-sized chocolate figures of ourselves.
I definitely want in on that next project. Thanks Kathy! Beautiful sign!
How can Vancouver Tool Library members and supporters help you with your project?
