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Who are we?

The Garage is a physical place and an educational concept in one. Think of it as a project office where students work in different groups on projects with and for the professional field and/or the research groups. A minor is offered, with two tracks, but there are also students who do their internship at The Garage, graduate or obtain their HZ Personality points. Extra-curriculara assignments are of course also possible. Students are often mixed in terms of study background but also in terms of year and language. The Garage is also involved in HZ project weeks and likes to think along with courses or colleagues on topics such as design thinking and interdisciplinary learning.

Why do we call it The Garage? We see the range of projects as metaphorical cars that need repairs. The Garage is always open, and ‘mechanics’ (students) constantly work as cars come and go. The cars, as a metaphor for the projects, are in need of a certain fix. The repair takes a certain amount of time, approach, and tools.

Students come and go; some complete their full minor of 30 EC, a half minor of 15 EC, their internship, graduation thesis, or elective credits like HZ Personality. This means some students are full-time and others part-time. Altogether, this creates the dynamic and eclectic mix we treasure.

Feel free to take a look at our projects page in which all projects that students worked on, are shortly explained by means of a project description and the most important outcomes.

Two Tracks

When deciding to follow the minor of the Garage, you can choose between the Applied Research Track, or the Design Thinking Track. But how do they differ?

The Applied Research track focusses on research assignments that require deep exploration of a specific subject, including conducting research and collecting data. Projects are provided by internal HZ research groups. Students work individually, in pairs or in groups of 3 on a project. Ideally, students spend one day a week with the internal research group and the remaining days at the Garage office, working from home, or other workspaces.

Students choosing the Design Thinking track will work on projects addressing specific problems that need innovative and practical solutions. This can be products, services, experiences or processes. The projects are provided by external commissioners, such as regional organizations, businesses, entrepreneurs or municipalities. Students work in teams of three to five. In addition, students work on two projects simultaneously and use our Design Thinking toolkit as the project group’s major companion throughout the weeks.

Coaching is being offered for students of both tracks. All HZ Studio students can make use of the facilities in the Garage, such as being part of social activities, the wellbeing program and the open-plan office, located in the HZ Tower in Vlissingen. 

Who can join?

From time to time, you are not exactly sure how things will turn out, which is both a fun and confusing aspect. However, with our encouragement, you will more and more trust the process and see the context, concept or business case become clear in front of your eyes. A long the way, you keep on filling your toolbox to tackle this type of challenges for future reference. The particular toolbox of design thinking is relevant for numerous (study) disciplines and related industries or professions. Our projects are mostly related to vitality, tourism, leisure, recreation, business, destination and regional development. They are, however, often of interdisciplinary nature. For this reason, we believe that every study discipline can and will be of added value in the project team(s) somehow.

The studio is most familiar in welcoming students from programs that educate you in the field of;

• International Business
• Business and Management Studies
• Tourism Management
• Leisure, Events and Facility
• Hospitality Management
• Commercial Economics, Sales
• Finance & Control
• Human Resource Management
• Communication
• Sport and Movement Studies
• Health and Wellbeing
• Social Work and Care

Project teams are composed of students with as mixed backgrounds, study programs, study years but also mixed nationalities. The interdisciplinary set-up allows to learn from other students. Work with people from different studies, cultures and nationalities to develop cross-cultural skills.

Students are made aware of our existence and possibilities by means of our manual, student testimonials, descriptions of past and future projects, word-to-mouth, suggestions from their study coaches, social media or via our in-class visits. In these latter we present the Garage or provide a workshop that covers parts of the ways we think about and do things.

Each semester, the Garage also welcomes one or two graduation students that help develop and scale our innovation studio. Students work, for example, on improving our wellbeing program, design thinking toolbox, the formulation of interdisciplinary projects and marketing. Additionally, it could be that we are supported by fellow HZ lecturers or researchers in supervising particular projects. These colleagues also come and go, are guided in our way of supervising but do use their own knowledge, skills and tools. Although many projects and most talks in the studio are conducted in English, it is also possible projects are carried out in Dutch by Dutch speaking students only. However, in order to stimulate internationalization at home, hosting numerous HZ and external students from various nationalities and cultural backgrounds, we prefer English as our used language.

Let our studenst Nele and Marlene introduce you to the Garage in the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPWL8M-anag