We are dedicated to bringing back some old nomadic tent forms, true to the work of our dear friend Peter Alford Andrews, who studied and documented nomadic tent architecture. We seek to make a fusion of innovation, modern materials and traditional design.
With the rise of E-commerce, and endless low quality products made abroad we have launched our campaign against modular product design with an aim to bring tent making back into the hands (literally) of local craftsman, away from CNC machinery or the endless stream of tent copies made in China and sold cheaper by people who do not understand tents, or the industry itself. Very few real tent makers have survived this process, the tents that have started a revolution on countryside living creating a myriad of small business have cleared away, now replaced by structures that are either made at the other side of the world and have no quality, or are made in the UK (or Europe) but are so modular and usually too expensive they defeat the object, which was allowing people to make an honest living from 3-5 structures in the countryside.
The hand made hand is also looking for you, if you are a yurt maker, a canvas worker or someone with a passion for nomadic tents, for real outdoor product design, our aim is to bring a small group of people together to take this campaign much further. We have created a string of small companies along the way, and so we are looking for you too, if you dream of making your living by hand, if like us you want to see the Glamping industry come back to its real canvas living roots, we work with a variety of projects, and so have unique insight into the industry, we integrate regenerative agriculture with our “Slient Engine” model, and we have accompanied over 400 projects in the UK, Europe and even Israel.
Our requirements is that things are made by hand, without substituting the process of frame making, we want you to join us in this adventure and dream new tents, and brand new business in nomadic structures, projects that combine sustainable tourism and regenerative farming. Those can be Pop up hotels that move every night, gourmet restaurants in the forest. If you haven’t got an idea yet but have dreamt for years to break loose from the humdrum into a freer way of life and making a living, something with a passion we can possibly work with you to run one of our many projects, because so much is missing in our opinion, we can help develop a brand with you as consultants, design your dream campsite, and integrate it with our work for the Heartland Cooperative for rural design, so help us all dream a new frontier of integrated rural areas and innovation in regenerative farming and tourism, with a new focus in the centre rural thematic territories, a new field we are constructing with small projects all over the world. We do not believe in teachers, but in people who dedicate their lived to a passion and process.
We are currently focusing most of our design and creative output on a less explored tent form from Iran called the Alachigh, used by the Shasevan people. It is like a yurt but without the trellis walls, just the rafters. Our approach is to use a new system of metal and wood connectors, to make this tent more stable, allowing us to play with the concept a little more. In essence the wood and metal connector is a way to extend tent making into any given shape, allowing one to bypass the limitations of hard wood log lengths, or smaller bending jigs, but we also have wooden round, fixed structures designs that are unique, and much more.
In essence we feel that many the traditional elements are no longer needed in tent making, yet the break from the traditional design has usually meant horrible looking tents and units. In the last years the Glamping industry, seeking diversity, has resulted in many new structures which have become increasingly expensive and, as such, defeat the object of sustainable tourism in movable, affordable structures that were the true success of this industry.
As we have worked with so many projects over the years, we also developed an array of business plans for some of the new tents we are working on. We invite you to talk to us if you want to have new tent designs or are attracted to create a new business in hospitality or even in manufacturing nomadic and fixed ecological structures, as it is possible we can even help you into work.
The Hand Made Hand project, is a sort of poetry in motion, bringing all the elements into one pot: economic needs, tent design, manufacturing, rural living and running a business, but above all it is a hand made revolution that brings making back into our own hands.
We aim to bring glamping structures and industry back to the hands of the people who created this unique industry, the local artisans from the UK, people who developed a whole sector in small barns and sheds, and with it have changed the tourism industry forever.