Trash Skips Filled With Found Materials Become Fun Meeting Spots in The Netherlands

Dutch designers Rikkert Paauw and Jet van Zwieten of <a href="http://www.foundationprojects.eu/">Foundation Projects</a> fill up trash skips with found materials and convert them into tiny urban meeting spots. First presented at Vienna Design Week 2010 and then again at the Milan Public Festival in 2011, these funky recycled structures finally made their way to their home country in April this year, forming the central hub of a mini festival at <a href="http://www.foundationprojects.eu/?cat=25">Utrecht's Neude Center Square</a>.

Rikkert Paauw and Jet van Zwieten turn trash skips into foundations of mini buildings

First introduced in Vienna in 2010, the concept was most recently displayed in Utrech in April, 2012

The skips are deposited in a central urban spot

Then the designers scout out recycled building materials. Community members also donate materials.

Then, within a week, it's necessary to build mini structures

The built-in bar is an essential feature

These skips then become urban meeting spots where locals can connect for a cup of coffee or a drink

This year, Foundation Projects transformed three skips into such meeting spots

Straatlokaal in Utrecht took the concept a little further by projecting images of the materials' history on the structures at night

The mini bars/coffee spots formed a central hub during a mini festival