What we know — and what we measure
Every year we report to the City of Leuven on what happens on the site. The figures on this page come from those reports for 2024 and 2025. We want to better understand what participants learn and take away.
Learning through practice
In our labs you can work on a project, try techniques and ask for help. This is the way of working we aim to offer.
Figures tell how many open labs, workshops and repairs there were and how many people we reach. On their own, they do not show what people learn. Understanding that requires participants’ experiences and focused research.
A year at the Molens van Orshoven
288
open labs and open days across four labs
820+
garments and backpacks repaired in the Textile Repair Hub
1,500
visitors at the first maakleerfest, on Car-Free Sunday
7
student mini-companies made their product in the High Tech Lab
Source: maakleerplek vzw’s 2025 activity report to the City of Leuven (June 2026 version) under the 2024–2027 cooperation agreement. The reports are not published online. Figures taken on 10 September 2026.
Almost every day a door is open somewhere
The High Tech Lab and the Tool Library are the backbone: together they account for two open sessions a week. The Textile Lab adds a weekly one, and the Graphic Lab has run on Thursday evenings since spring 2025.
High Tech Lab
- 2025: 104
Tool Library
- 2025: 100
Textile Lab
- 2025: 49
Graphic Lab
open since spring 2025
- 2025: 35
The High Tech Lab is growing
More open labs, more teenagers in the Young Maker Lab and, above all, schools that more often hold their own key.
open labs
- 2024: 94
- 2025: 104
Young Maker Labs
- 2024: 67
- 2025: 90
workshops on request
- 2024: 25
- 2025: 32
visits by schools working independently
- 2024: 11
- 2025: 19
- 2024
- 2025
Source: maakleerplek vzw’s 2024 and 2025 activity reports to the City of Leuven under the 2024–2027 cooperation agreement. The reports are not published online. Figures taken on 10 September 2026.
Almost half of the pupils come with their own teacher
Teachers who completed a Teach-the-Teacher programme work independently with their class in the lab. That needs fewer volunteers, costs the school less and makes the lab an extension of the classroom.
276
pupils in workshops guided by our volunteers
228
pupils who worked independently with their own trained teacher
Five times more appliances a month
After moving to a larger space next to the Tool Library, the Electro Repair Hub has room for ten repairers at a time instead of three. Appliances the shop no longer repairs now end up here too.
8 appliances a month before the move
40 appliances a month after the move
And in the Textile Repair Hub
In 2025 eight repairers gave more than 820 garments and backpacks a second life, around 140 days of repair work. Clothing can be dropped off on site, at Vaude and at UZ Leuven for staff.
Source: maakleerplek vzw’s 2025 activity report to the City of Leuven (June 2026 version) under the 2024–2027 cooperation agreement. The reports are not published online. Figures taken on 10 September 2026.
A pop-up restaurant almost every week
The canteen is growing into a Food Lab: permanent partners share equipment and knowledge, and anyone looking for a kitchen to try out an idea can come here.
49 of the 52 weeks of 2025 with a pop-up restaurant in the canteen
On top of that: 6 cooking workshops, 13 events with food and 114 days on which a partner prepared catering here.
What the numbers don’t tell
The first Kids Repair Café
On 21 June 2025 the Electro Repair Hub, the Textile Lab and the High Tech Lab joined forces with Boomerang vzw. Children learned alongside volunteers how an appliance gets a second life. A second edition followed in October.
Eight repairers, one coordinator
In the Textile Repair Hub eight repairers worked around 140 days, led by a coordinator who had started as a repairer herself a year earlier. One repairer moved on to the regular labour market, another to a sheltered workshop.
Six escape boxes about repairing electronics
Volunteers from the High Tech Lab and the Electro Repair Hub designed six laser-cut escape boxes together with teenagers from the Young Maker Lab. A whole class cracks the puzzles in small groups and learns to use a multimeter, screws and a washing machine manual along the way.
maakleerfest on Car-Free Sunday
On 21 September 2025 around 1,500 visitors came to the first edition: workshops in every lab, panel talks on circular clothing and sustainable food at school, and a market with local makers on Stapelhuisplein.
Seven student mini-companies
Pupils from seven schools made their product in the High Tech Lab: coasters and bracelets from recycled plastic, keyrings from leftover wood, pots made from waste plastic collected in their own schoolyard.
Schools that hold their own key
After a Teach-the-Teacher programme, teachers work independently with their class in the lab. In 2025 the school Stroom came sixteen times to the High Tech Lab and fourteen times to the Tool Library. On the ‘Break out of your LLES’ day, teachers from other schools got a taste of the same recipe.
Source: maakleerplek vzw’s 2025 activity report to the City of Leuven (June 2026 version) under the 2024–2027 cooperation agreement. The reports are not published online. Figures taken on 10 September 2026.
What we measure
Since autumn 2025 we have been collecting data systematically for an impact study with UCLL, as part of the Leuven Learning Ecosystem. We want to follow who takes part, who returns and what barriers visitors experience. Results will include the measurement period and method.
Figures from outside the site
300
kinds of tools in the Tool Library
55 mln
unused electrical appliances in Belgian households, according to Recupel (2024 annual report); national context
Recupel’s national figure is not a result achieved by maakleerplek. It does explain why a repair hub in a city like Leuven makes sense.
Read how we think about this
Why we do this is in our mission. What it means for people, you read in their stories.