Mission & vision
Why a city needs a place where everyone can learn to make.
Our vision
Everyone can learn to make.
A city has a future when its residents can make, repair and understand things themselves — not merely consume what others make. We are working towards a Leuven that keeps learning out of curiosity, that repairs instead of throwing away, that understands its technology instead of merely undergoing it, where art and technology meet, and where people get to know each other before things go wrong.
We are already building that today, in the old industrial heart of Leuven.
Why this place is needed
A project often starts with a question: how do I assemble this, how does this machine work, can this be repaired? At maakleerplek you will find tools and people to explore that question. Each lab and activity explains its offer and any costs.
Not everyone knows how to find their way into a workshop. Experience, time, language and money can make the first step harder. We aim to explain where to start and what help is available.
Our volunteers, facilitators and partners share their experience. You can ask a question, try something and return to continue. There is room for beginners and for people who want to pass on their skills.
We want to give repair, reuse and learning a lasting place in Leuven. To do that, we bring space, tools and guidance together.
That ambition grows with the people who work here. Visitors’ needs help shape how we develop the space.
What we believe
A city has a future when its residents can make, repair and understand things themselves. Beneath that lie six convictions.
01
Room for curiosity
Knowledge helps us understand the world. Curiosity keeps us looking and asking about what we don't yet know. In a fast-changing world we don't just need people who know the answers, but above all people who dare to ask new questions. That is why lifelong learning is not a catalogue to us but an attitude: a culture where questions are welcome and experimenting is self-evident. Nobody here is ever “done learning”.
02
Try things and learn
Making is not only about building an object. It is about seeing a possibility, starting, getting stuck, asking for help, adjusting and persevering. Whoever does that discovers that the world is not only something that happens to you. A self-made thing that works is proof of your own ability that is harder to talk away than any report card. And behind it lies a bigger insight: everything that exists was made by someone — and can therefore be made differently.
03
Understand how technology works
Whoever only knows how to operate a system remains dependent on choices made elsewhere. Whoever understands how it works can ask questions, fix mistakes and imagine alternatives — from a washing machine to artificial intelligence. Nobody has to become a specialist. But a free society needs people who don't merely undergo its technology. That is why we teach techniques broadly here: soldering and programming, sewing and 3D printing, printing and pressing, repairing and designing.
04
Care for what already exists
Recycling makes materials usable again, usually only after a product has been destroyed and much of its value lost. Repair starts from a different question: what still works, what can work again, and what do we learn from what broke? Repairing saves raw materials and preserves knowledge, craftsmanship and care for what already exists. Whoever repairs sees no waste but possibilities. That is why we know no ranking between those who make something new and those who save something existing: our repair cafés belong at the heart of this place, not in the margins.
05
Room for imagination
Art is a way of knowing in its own right. It asks the questions that specialisms skip, disturbs the self-evident and lets us look differently at the world we are rebuilding. Whoever only builds knows how something can be done; whoever also imagines knows why it should be different. That is why the artists' studios sit in the middle of our site and not at its edge, and why artists, technicians, children and engineers work side by side here. That chafes sometimes. That is precisely where it happens.
06
Share knowledge
Nobody learns or makes entirely alone. One sees a possibility where another still saw an obstacle; one brings experience, the other a fresh question. Today's learner explains it tomorrow; whoever gets help today helps someone else along later. That is not a side effect of how we work — it is how we work. And making something together is a reason to be together that nobody has to explain: whoever says “I'm going to the lab” doesn't declare themselves lonely. That is how we reach people no desk reaches.
And that goes for everyone. An open door is not enough — time, money, language, prior knowledge and self-confidence all help determine who dares to take the step. Open doors mainly attract those who already know the way. That is why accessibility is a verb here: we go out and fetch people, we make sure someone is always there to look with you, and we keep what we do broad enough that there is a first door for everyone. That is also why we prefer not to talk about “makers”, as if it were a club you belong to or not. We talk about making: something everyone does, every day, in their own way.
The city we see
A city that keeps learning
Where learning starts with curiosity — the only door that stays open for those whom school put off, and the only engine that keeps running once the course is over. Where school is not replaced but strengthened. And where what you can do counts even when it isn't on paper, with — for those who want it — a step towards recognition: a certificate of experience, a pathway, a job.
A city that repairs
We want Leuven to repair and reuse more. In our repair spaces, people share knowledge about devices and materials. We aim to pass on experience and make room to try solutions.
A city that understands its technology
Where digital and AI literacy are there for everyone, not just for experts — for the pupil and the senior, the artist and the handyperson. Where you learn what an algorithm does the way you learn what a fuse box does: by opening it up, together with someone who has done it before.
A city where people meet each other
Across age, language, income and education — not by accident, but because there are places made for it and people who hold the door open. That bond doesn't form during a crisis, but on a Thursday evening, among people who didn't have to be there.
And beyond Leuven: what works here, we want to share. Every city deserves a place like this.
Our mission
maakleerplek is Leuven's open making and learning place, at the Vaartkom, in the old Molens van Orshoven. A place in Leuven, for everyone — whether you live, work or study here or are just coming to have a look. Neighbours, schools, companies, artists and volunteers learn, make and work here together, as equals.
Whoever comes in may try, may fail and may start again; the outcome is never fixed in advance. Whoever learns today explains it tomorrow. Everyone is equal here, and everything we do is about making and learning.
What we do
We make room
Open, affordable and flexible studios, machines and materials — shared instead of owned, with room for what nobody has thought of yet.
We spark curiosity
Learning here doesn't start with a course but with the question “how does that work?”. We are the community where that question always finds someone willing to look with you. That is how we pass on making, repair, digital and AI skills from person to person.
We go out and fetch people
We don't wait for people to find us. Together with schools, learning shops and outreach workers we reach those least likely to come by themselves, and we train facilitators and teachers so that what is learned travels beyond our walls. Because this we know: the relationship does the work, not the machine.
We repair — the things and the cycle
Repair before replacement, reuse before recycling, recycling before throwing away. That is how we keep materials, knowledge and talent in the city. And in our open lab we look together for new materials from waste streams.
We give art a place at the heart
Artists work here alongside technicians, children and entrepreneurs. They bring the questions, the imagination and the perspective no machine park delivers.
We hold the fabric together
Everyone has a role here, and needs the others for it. Contributing is part of it: whoever takes something here also brings something — time, talent, a hand, knowledge you pass on. As the engine of Leuven's learning ecosystem we extend that beyond our walls: learning places, schools, associations and companies, under one conviction — 1+1=3. Hospitality is our first principle, with the kantine as the front door.
We leave everything better than we found it
The people, the materials, the place. And we also show what failed, because that is where the learning is.
What we are for the city
maakleerplek is not a project with an end date. Just as the library is the place where the city reads, we are the place where the city makes, repairs and learns by doing. That is not a cost item at the edge of policy — it is social infrastructure: the places that determine whether people meet each other, and where everything a city wants to achieve must ultimately land — talent, inclusion, circularity, digital literacy, resilience.
We are a public place that runs on people. Hundreds of volunteers keep our labs open, share their knowledge and make the place everyone's. Our paid staff do not stand in their place, but in their service: they build and carry the ecosystem in which all those volunteers can do their thing, find each other and welcome new people.
What we ask of the city — and of everyone who wants to build with us — is therefore not a machine park. It is the certainty of a public amenity that is allowed to keep existing, instead of the breath of a three-year project.
Every place asks a question
Our labs, hubs and studios are not a machine park — every place asks the city a question. Together they form more than an offer: that breadth is deliberate, because whoever comes for textile discovers electronics — and whoever comes for the coffee discovers themselves.
Come and experience it
You don't read a mission, you take part in it. Walk in, pick a workshop or come to a repair café.