Laura Greindl has built a woodworking studio founded on solid intuition. When she speaks about it, you get a sense of how much it actually takes to create a furniture workshop and woodworking training centre, yet you also have the impression that her path as founder, designer, craftswoman and entrepreneur has developed fluently thanks to her natural instincts. Atelier365 is the result of her trust in her own ideas and in the people around her.
Atelier365 is centred around woodworking. You studied product and interior design, why did you choose to specialise in woodworking?
I grew up between Brussels and the Ardennes in the south of Belgium, surrounded by wild nature and forest. I spent a lot of my weekends building cabins and playing in the woods with my brother, sister and cousins at my grandparents’ place. My mother is a carpenter which has also left a positive impression on me. I moved to Brussels to study product and interior design at the College of Advertising and Design which offers a practice-based type of education with professional designers as tutors.
After a few internships and jobs in different design studios, I decided to open my own studio in 2012, at the age of 25. I wanted to set up a studio with a workshop where designers and artisans could work together in the same space; I felt the need for brining both parties together to facilitate a better product development. There’s a great deal of considerations to be made in the design of a furniture piece, and often the architect hands over a kind of loose drawing to the producers which they are then supposed to understand and build. I felt like setting up a workshop space for both design and production, working in dialogue, through trials and collaborations. Working with wood is so intuitive and straightforward for me, opening the studio and workshop just seemed like the natural way to make furniture.
So, that was the start of Atelier365?
Yes, it was. I had some old machines that had been passed down from my mother and I teamed up with my friend Pierre Waterlot, a carpenter, to open a shared woodworking space in Ixelles, at Chaussée de Boondael 365 (hence the name). Pierre and I worked side by side in the atelier and other designers could come in and make use of our machines and expertise. To ensure everyone could use the equipment safely, we started offering woodworking classes, with my mother and Pierre both involved in the teaching. The classes quickly gained popularity which helped us cover the rent. Over time, they became a regular monthly event and a reliable source of income. I decided to shift focus from machinery to a woodworking program centred around hand tools, emphasizing traditional joinery techniques and more detailed, theoretical work. This approach steered the workshops towards a hand-crafted direction and it was met with great enthusiasm right from the start.
How did you come across the right spaces for these activities - is it easy to find industrial spaces like this in Brussels?
Our first space in Ixelles, where we stayed for 10 years, had been a woodworking workshop since 1924 and it was the perfect place for us to settle into. However, after the Covid-19 pandemic and a long break, I passed on the space to some architect friends. Last year, I found this new location which is more centrally located and offered us a fresh start. I would say it’s not easy to find the right place as it has to tick a lot of boxes. I searched for a long time. Initially I was looking for something out of town, making it easier for deliveries and parking, yet it also had to be accessible by public transport for our students. We ended up very central here in Saint-Gilles. This place was a garage before and already had the permit to be used as a workshop. It does not have central heating which is a bit of a challenge in winter but we’ve installed a stove. The rent is rather high but we have a good number of projects so it works out in the end.
Could you describe your activities a bit more in detail, both the woodworking classes and your own design and furniture production?
We offer evening classes from Monday to Friday, from 6.30pm to 9pm. These are 20-hour courses on different levels. On Saturdays, we offer a 4-hour one-off course where you can try out the technique and see if woodworking is something for you. During the summer period, we offer a more intense two-week course. The courses consist of both practical and theoretical training and the materials and tools are always provided by us. We use this traditional Japanese tool, a Dozuki saw, which we also sell to students and cabinetmakers.
At the moment, we are five people working in the workshop on a daily basis. We come from different backgrounds, interior architecture, product design and carpentry, but all share the same love for woodworking and craftsmanship. We produce most of the furniture of our collection ourselves here, and for bigger orders, we collaborate with workshops in Wallonia who have the machinery to produce in larger quantities.
We are frequently commissioned to design complete interiors, with a piece of furniture from our collection as starting point. Over the years, we've worked on various restaurants, shops and art galleries across Belgium and also collaborate with architects on private residences. Through our classes and diverse projects, I've had the opportunity to meet countless interesting people. The studio has become a fantastic hub for connection and collaboration.
How do your products stand out and what are the key points about their design and creation?
My designs are functional pieces of furniture made from solid wood, using only wood joints. We work mainly with Belgian wood. Dimensions and proportions naturally and instinctively evolve based on the material we receive. For instance, when we receive oak, it comes in specific dimensions, like when I ordered an entire oak tree last summer which was cut into 33mm thick planks. All of our projects were designed with these dimensions in mind, as this was the wood available in our workshop.
Our stackable chair began as an exercise for the students. It features a complex triple joint and needs to be exceptionally tight and solid, as the chair has no reinforcements. After extensive discussions with my team, we figured out how to make the chair thinner by chamfering every edge, and stronger thanks to this triple connection. What started as a simple chair for the studio quickly gained attention because of its sleek and elegant design. Eventually, we began selling it. All our furniture is made in solid wood and our leftover wooden scrap pieces are used for smaller accessories like lamps, mirror frames, storage boxes and the pepper grinders. We spend a lot of time developing the best joinery for each piece of furniture, to make them as stable and durable as possible. I’m not at all strategic or conceptual in my designs; I come up with projects which intrigue and amuse me. One idea which is rather consistent though is the absence of bracing or cross-bars on the tables and chairs. I like to find other solutions to make them stable.
You grew up in the Belgian countryside but you live in Brussels. Do you see yourself moving back to the Ardennes, setting up a workshop there, closer to your material source?
Perhaps later it would make sense, but for now I’m happily living in the city. I live near the studio in a place I love and designed myself. I come here by foot every day with my dog. I walk a lot around town and I think Brussels is a beautiful place. It's full of accessible parks and the amazing Forêt de Soignes; and it’s so easy to jump on a train to visit other cities or head into nature for a hike. I also really enjoy Brussels for its cultural scene and all the people I can meet through the atelier being in this central location.
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Laura is one of the 73 locals who has generously contributed to our city guide 'Brussels by locals' by sharing her favourite spots in town.
Pictures by Stephanie De Smet