Studio Vans
“I guess when you’ve been away from Scotland, you can look at the things you really loved about the country and see what things have developed since you’ve been away.”
‘Coming Home’ for Rob Hall meant travelling for over 33 hours, 10,000 miles, and 15 in-flight movies, all the way from the bottom right hand corner of Australia to the top left hand corner of Scotland. A native of Gartocharn, Loch Lomondside, Rob has gone the extra few miles and relocated to Grimsay where he set up his new business, Studio Vans. This (normally, half-a-day) journey from the mainland to the islands can prove to be more of a headache than coming from Sydney, Australia.
Studio Vans is a new Benbecula based design and manufacturing business, who re-fit the interior of campervans with recycled and sustainable materials. They utilise small spaces and cater for the necessities of travelling and living in a van, while taking advantage of these local surroundings. Parts of the kit they build within the camper are made of plastic which has washed up on our very own Hebridean shores.
“Unfortunately we’ve got all this plastic coming up on the beaches, it’s just horrible coming out of the sea and seeing bits of plastic wrapped around things. I’ve travelled around the world and it’s really apparent here” says Rob “so I wanted to do something about it. When you talk about ‘local materials’, unfortunately plastic is a local material. If we can turn that rubbish into something that’s long lasting then at least that stops it going back into the ocean for a while.”
Rob is an engineer, keen traveller, surfer and camper-van enthusiast who spent 10 years in Australia heading a team of 60 people for a global environmental consultancy. This company covered a broad range of projects across the Asia Pacific Region. In his time away his affection and appreciation for his homeland grew.
“The environmental revolution is real”
Scotland has also impressed Rob within his professional field. As he was sitting in Australia Googling domestic renewables he noticed that most of the results coming up were from companies from back home. At the time he put this down to algorithms, being a Scot searching for alternative energy solutions, however it turned out that Scotland is really at the forefront of pushing that renewable revolution in energy, which, says Rob, is super exciting. “The environmental revolution is real in terms of the knowledge that people have in this country, and I think that that’s really inspiring”
After his time in Australia, Rob decided to come back to Scotland and move to Grimsay. As a company working nationwide and aiming for international as well as local customers, there are logistical, material and costing disadvantages to their island location, but Studio Vans have set themselves up to be able to grow and evolve their company to combat these challenges and cater for the van living enthusiast.
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