New designs, new lives

Gabriele Gottwald-Nathaniel sits at the huge table that serves as her desk in a room just off the airy, sun-filled shop called Gabarage on Vienna's hip Schleifmuhlgasse.

The store name is a blend of the words "garage" and "garbage" – a funky reflection of what Gabarage does. Under Gottwald-Nathaniel's direction, the staff takes left-over or used materials and in its garage-like workshop on in the Viennese Sixth district, transforms them into imaginative new designs.

At Gabarage, old traffic signs become chairs and tables. Used footballs are transformed into vases. Puzzle pieces or small mechanical parts form one-of-a-kind earrings and necklaces. Objects and furniture that have won prestigious design awards in Austria.

Gottwald-Nathaniel has a special name for what the store does: upcycling.

"We have more than before. This is the meaning of upcycling," explains Gottwald-Nathaniel. "We design it up."

Beautiful things should be accessible to everyone

But Gottwald-Nathaniel isn't just the founder and manager of Gabarage: she's also a social worker. Seven years ago, she convinced Europe's biggest drug and alcohol rehab organization, the Anton Proksch Institute, to back her on setting up Gabarage as a way to help reintegrate former addicts into the mainstream labor market.

What inspired her, she says, was her conviction that beautiful things should be accessible to everyone – from drug addicts to students to the wealthy. She also believes that one of the causes of addiction is suppressed or stunted creativity and that if addicts were given the tools and space to tap into their creativity, recovery would be more successful.

"It is a necessary gift for ourselves to live our lives creatively," she says. "And if addicts were given the chance to be learn to be creative, I thought they could also learn to live in a different way."

Indeed, the success rate has been high. Each year, 20 new interns start work at Gabarage, receiving a minimum-wage salary paid by the Austrian state of 20,000 euros. Most stay a maximum of 12 months. When they leave, 80 percent enter and remain within the mainstream labor market, working in everything from administration to road construction.

Gunter, a 38-year-old former baker has been working at Gabarage since 2002. When he first joined the staff, he'd just gotten clean from addiction to everything from alcohol to heroin. He now oversees production, helping new interns turn canvas billboards into groovy shoulder bags.

"I feel accepted, respected as a human being," he says, standing beside a row of buzzing sewing machines. "If you make a mistake, you won't lose your job. That's not the case with other places. But being here gives me the space to grow."

Learning from mistakes

Also key to Garbarage's success is co-operation from some of the country's top businesses such as Knauf and Siemens, who have donated used or extra materials and objects they would otherwise have to discard.

The growth of Gabarage hasn't been all innovative bliss, however. At first, interns brainstormed for design ideas with the help of local designers, then they sought out the material among various companies with which to realize their designs. When that didn't work – it proved too difficult to find the needed specific material from discarded objects – they flipped the process.

They asked the companies for whatever leftovers they had, then they figured out what they could make out of it. They now take orders directly from corporations of 20 up to 4,000 items for product promotion or freebies.

Gabarage's designs at first also proved to be too high-concept and high priced, which kept potential customers away. So they widened the price range – rings made out of old coins, for instance, sell for about 30 euros – and introduced more items that would appeal to younger people. Sales shot up.

The store's new goals are to add an on-line shop, provide more places to help people create new lives, and most importantly, to go completely independent from any outside funding, says Gottwald-Nathaniel. Currently, the Anton Proksch Institute and government cover most of the 1 million euro expenses, with sales making up for a 200,000-euro gap.

Gottwald-Nathaniel insists being financially independent is feasible, now that people have seen how addicts can – quite literally – design a new vision of their lives.

Author: Megan Williams in Vienna
Editor: Rob Turner