Halfwerk: A Brussels design studio turning surplus materials into honest, lasting objects.

Halfwerk is a Brussels-based design studio with a simple premise: make objects that deserve to exist. Founded by Maarten Gielen, the studio works with surplus and reclaimed materials — offcuts, leftover stock, discarded industrial parts — and turns them into pieces that are both functional and quietly compelling.

The name says it all. Halfwerk — half-finished, or halfway there — acknowledges that honest making involves accepting the material as it is. Aluminised steel from exhaust systems becomes a vide-poche. Borosilicate glass covers originally destined for vehicle lamps become a wall light. Reused sheet steel, pressed into a tray or folded into coat hooks, carries the minor marks of its previous life.

Not every piece is by Gielen alone. The Coat rack 'Waves' is the work of Denis Romainville, made in his Anderlecht workshop with a single press fold — no welding, no assembly. Halfwerk functions as a platform for this kind of making: unhurried, material-led, rooted in the workshop culture of Brussels.

We carry Halfwerk at Supermerci because their objects have integrity. They don't try to look like more than they are.