Making Furniture With the Wind Herman Wouters for The New York Times Merel Karhof in the Netherlands, where she has set up a temporary factory using wind to make furniture. This week, Merel Karhof, a 34-year-old Dutch designer who lives in London, set up a small, temporary factory in the Netherlands to make furniture with wind. For the project, called Windworks, she collaborated with the owners of two neighboring windmills in Zaanse Schans, in the province of North Holland: one, a sawmill that cut the wood used in her collection of chairs, stools and benches; the other, a paint mill that ground the minerals with which she dyed wool upholstery fabric produced through her own wind-powered knitting machine. Speaking by phone from the Netherlands, Ms. Karhof, who studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands and at the Royal College of Art in London, discussed the evolution of her interest in the invisible forces of nature. Q. You've been at this for a while. A. At the Royal College of Art, I did a big research about wind. I started making these little jewelry pieces - brooches - quite simply from plastic. And I made them as a test to see how the wind was behaving around the body of a human. I made a performance where I covered myself with little windmills and I walked around the city to see where the wind was and how the wind behaves when you're on a rooftop or when you're opening a door. Q. How did Londoners react to the sight of you covered in what I would describe as pinwheels? A. They thought it was really funny, of course. Some people asked me what I was doing. Q. Then you covered an entire building with pinwheels. And then it was just a small step to developing a wind-powered knitting machine? A. I wanted to collect or to visualize wind so that people can actually see how much wind there is in the city and how you can use it. Nowadays, a lot of people have green energy. They can buy that from their provider. But what is that actually, and is it actually green? I quite quickly came up with the idea of some sort of mechanical machine. I started off with a really simple children's knitting machine, which I transformed into a wind-knitting machine on the roof of a building in South Kensington. I had my first harvest, but I wasn't satisfied because the harvest was this real rough knitwear. I got into contact with the Audax Textile Museum in the Netherlands. They donated a really old 1900s sock-knitting machine. That enabled me to actually make real, proper knitwear. O.K., then I have this long tube coming off it. What would it be? First I started off making scarves. Then I developed the scarf more and more. I still had this wish of making upholstery for furniture, so that's what was happening the last few weeks with Windworks. Q. Despite the help from nature and your windmill-owning partners, I'm assuming you don't have a warehouse filled with this furniture. A. They're not limited-edition, but the edition is limited. I can't sell huge quantities. Q. After the week of collaboration ends, what will happen to your equipment? A. My windmill is mobile. I'd like to go to other places with it to show other people what you can do with a wind-knitting machine. Q. Tell me honestly: As a Dutch person, don't you find windmills a bit of a cliché? A. It's so bizarre, because I moved from the Netherlands to England to do this education, and then a lot of people quite quickly were starting to make fun of me: "Oh, the Dutch girl is making a windmill." And I never thought about it. I think it's nice, in this case, because I was an outsider myself. I brought my heritage with me. Q. Are you planning to remain in England? A. I'm really having fun in London. Maybe one day I'd like to return to the Netherlands. Depends on where the wind blows, I guess. Windworks machinery and products are on display through Sunday at the De Kat paint mill, Kalverringdijk 29, Zaandam, Netherlands. Information: merelkarhof.nl.