Looking back

The first day we all got to know each other, Enviu and the project of The Hague. Hotze Hofstre, Andre Everts and Ralph de Schipper were representing the municipality of the city The Hague. They told us all about the project and even showed us the area, Erasmusveld, by bicycle. Our group exists out of 12 students and young professionals.


working as a team

To get to know each other we got a teambuilding assignment. First the group was split into two groups. While the first group was working on the assignment the other would observe and the other way around.We had to construct a ‘marslander’, a space shuttle which could handle a drop of two meters high. The Marslander was build out of 10 straws and one meter of tape. It had to protect the raw egg from exploding while landing. Unfortunately both eggs didn’t survive the trip but fun we had and bonding it was!


playing hacky sack in lunchbreak with the representatives of the municipality of The Hague

Now a week later in the middle of the process, it is apparent that we have a good team. The mix of characters blend extremely well as decisions are made unanimously and this mix of different backgrounds insure creativity. Critical thinking has lead to interesting discussions. All of which comprise a good foundation for creating innovative ideas!

Creative Factory

During the Enviu Erasmusveld program we had the chance to do some work in the Creative Factory, a repurposed industrial building, once used for making oatmeal now used as offices for up-and-coming creatives.

Creative Factory in Rotterdam

Max Amosov explaining Charter Cities

Giving our pitch for ECO EASY

Working amongst the post-it notes

Sunglasses and coffee cups in the afternoon

Pitches to experts on Friday

After a few days of brainstorming and a lot of informative sessions, Friday was the first time to show our ideas to a couple of sustainability experts. All four groups had ideas that tap into different sustainability issues. The group of experts consisted of Auke Ferweda, Thierry de Wijn, Boris Gastaldi, André Everts, and Ralph de Schipper. Each of the experts visited each group, providing them with advice and challenging them to take their ideas to the next level.
The input from the experts proved to be very helpful for my team. Our idea deals with the preservation and creation of a blue and green area in Erasmusveld and the integration of this area with public space. The main goal is to achieve social, cultural, and natural integration at the Erasmusveld. We intend to use a hub and spoke structure to achieve this. The second week we will work on the refinement of this idea and on our ability to pitch this idea to the Municipality of The Hague.

Thierry de Wijn – Integral city development.

Photo by Nels Nelson

Friday meeting with Thierry was very inspiring both for our brains and receptors.

Meeting started with introduction of different scientists of different centuries, such as Ken Wilber, Barbara Marx and etc, who did a lot on conceptualization of the universe and civilization’s development processes. He introduced us Evolutionary Spiral, Chaos Point, relation of supply and demand relationships and how to find balance in it to move closer to sustainability.

Then he showed us how to create sustainable community according to study done in the field of common values for people, such as: love, spirituality, community service and etc. Main idea was: if to create such a community with the same values than it could be the most sustainable community with the same identity which can be easily maintained in the future.

Another food for mental digestion, proposed by Thierry, was approach on validation of components of the human environment, such as sports centers, shops, schools, laundries, etc.; and how they can interact to each other to create, explore new fields of sustainable multifunctional area use.

To finalize his lecture Thierry provide us with tasty home-made berry juice to entertain our receptors.

Thanks Thierry for such a well-organized lecture!

Waanzinng!

Photo by Nels Nelson

In 2004 Auke Ferwerda founded the communication and gaming company Waanzinnig! The company has a gaming department that designs more serious games. Next to entertainment they also have an educational or social content. One example is the energy game.

They energy game is designed because energy saving can and has to be more fun. By monitoring real time energy use in houses the energy game makes saving energy a competition. The more you save the more it helps the environment and off course yourself by lowering the energy bill. With this game they want to limit the energy use and the CO2 emission in Rotterdam and the rest of the Netherlands.

Preliminary Concepts

The group brainstorming in Rotterdam.

After a week of guest speakers and brainstorming sessions, we have four concept groups which will work for another week refining ideas for a presentation on Friday to the municipality of Den Haag.

Automatic & Easy Sustainability: The goal is to make living sustainably as easy as possible.  People living in the future neighborhood will almost automatically be sustainable simply by the new and innovative infrastructure for movement of resources within the community.

Public Space Super-Functionality: How can functions within public space be combined for new and interesting attractions?  This group is addressing green and blue infrastructure (Dutch for plants and water) along with energy production, recreation, relaxation, performance space, and food production.

Sustainable Center: How to create a sustainable center without reverting to a 1970’s hippy commune?  How does a sustainable platform look in 2050? Is it even a physical place?  This group is considering branding, identity, education, and a centered community.

Flexible Engagement: This addresses the social side of sustainability by crafting a system for inhabitants’ engagement into community activities.  For example, how to reward citizens who work in the neighborhood collecting vegetables but still respect some citizens’ desire to simply “come home and crash” after a long work week?

We welcome any thoughts you have on these concepts in the comments section!

The 4th day of the summerschool David Dooghe, architect_urban designer, gave a presentation about how city events can unite communties within a city. A example he gave was about the city of Ghent in Belgium, the Ghentse feesten (parties of the city Ghent). The tradion of these parties goes back to the middle-ages and unites people from all over Belgium.
The other example he gave was about the summercarnival in Rotterdam and how it unites the Carribean citizins of the city because of a common goal. The festival is also used as a way the promote the city of Rotterdam in the rest of the Netherlands.
David Doohge has created a new urban design for the coolsingel, it has not been approved by the local goverment but serves as inspiration for the city to use events as a tool to unite its inhabitants and market the city outside of Rotterdam.
The presentation was very interesting because it gave a new perspective on sustainability. Sustainability is more than just 'green' it's also about creating strong communities and branding a city.

Meet the Enviu Summerschool students!

In order of appearance:

Iris: MSc Environment and Resource Management, VU

Maxim: MSc Urban Environmental Management, Wageningen University

Laila: BA Communication, HRO; will start MSc Culture Economics and Management, Erasmus University

Sanderine: BSc Psychology, Roosevelt Academy; will start MSc Sustainable Development, UU

Iliana: BSc International Business Administration, Erasmus University

Nels: Msc Urban Environmental Management, Wageningen University

Wim: BSc International Business Administration, Erasmus University

Loek: Former KaosPilot Rotterdam

Susan: BSc Environmental Science, Roosevelt Academy

Corné: MSc Business Administration, Erasmus University

Evita: Will start BSc Architecture, Delft University

Arjan van Timmeren presentation

On the second day of summerschool our team met Arjan van Timmeren - designer of sustainable decisions in a built environment.

First, he presented us his background, according to which he came to some decisions\projects he was showing us later. As one of the starting sources he mentioned book ‘ Biomimicry ’ - to take a look how ‘the things’ are working in the natural environment at small scale. As example of applied biomimicry he mentioned Regenerative Design: Bamai Canal Project in China. Another source mentioned – wide-known ‘Cradle to Cradle’ book.

Then he switched to examples of sustainable solutions\projects which were failed, because of number of mistakes. One of the most representative examples was ‘Bio-climatic complex - Biosphere’. According to Arjan, if to close eyes on a technical mistakes, one of the main aspects why it was failed, was social aspect, which should be researched with a high importance. Other aspects which Arjan mentioned were: to take into consideration functions you want to provide for a built area or environment, use as much as possible passive energy, consider materials and try to integrate in the system energy supply.

Afterwards, Arjan presented us different points of view\ concepts how to find a way to sustainability, which are: 3P, 3N and 3R.

3P means- Planet (as a metabolism in space, energy, water and air), People (as comfort and livability), Prosperity (as benefits for both planet and people).

3N means: Now (as a refer to act now), New (as a refer to innovate), Next (as a refer to be sustainable in time with actions and decisions made).

3R means: Reduce consumption, Reuse materials and energy, Recycle materials and energy.

As last part of Arjan performance was discussion of some projects of different scales, successful and not.

It was very inspiring meeting, showing that everything is possible and sustainability achievable. But involvement of understanding process why we are doing this, how and by which means is of a high importance.

Visit to the Waterspin

Photos by Nels Nelson

Tuesday morning we went to visit the Waterspin, which is a living area in the centre of The Hague where sustainable living is promoted. We were shown around by Liesbeth and Rob who are both inhabitants of the residence. The inhabitants of the Waterspin work together on a voluntary basis in order to keep the area sustainable in its broadest sense. They don’t have their own private gardens, but instead they have a large communal garden. In this garden, water is filtered by bushes of reed making it suited for re-use (Helophyte filter). There are also fruit trees and all kinds of different plants in the garden making it a diverse and attractive area in all seasons of the year. A washing space was created for the inhabitants, this not only saves energy (as the re-usable water can be easily transported to this facility) and space (as people don’t have to have their own washing machine in their homes anymore), but it also functions as a social meeting place for the inhabitants.
The concept of the Waterspin, despite the fact that it is currently not very extraordinary anymore, seems to a large extent applicable to the area of Erasmusveld. Our visit to this living area was very interesting and inspirational for our project.
For more information on the Waterspin pay a visit to the following website: Dewaterspin.eco-ict.nl

Marco Vermeulen

STUDIOMARCOVERMEULEN inspired us with upcoming projects.  Working out of Rotterdam, Marco Vermeulen has his own architecture / urban planning firm.

Waterpleinen Rotterdam is an infrastructural concept that combines two functions: public square and storm water retention.  The city is in need of large holding tanks for water from the rare severe storm, but these tanks are very expensive and mono-functional.  The alternative developed by Marco is a public square that fills incrementally dependant upon how much storm water runoff there is.

For the municipality of Venlo, Marco created an industrial-ecology focused master plan for an ambition new series of industrial parks.  The new project is called Greenport Venlo, and is a massive building project that aims to be as green as possible.  He arranged the parks into ‘clovers’ of four industries which are well suited to trading waste products.  At the base of each clover, a Combined Heat-Power (CHP) plant combusts biogas to power the nearby buildings.

 

We were very impressed by his work and hope that we can capture his innovative spirit for the Erasmusveld workshop.

Brainstorming the afternoon away

12 students from all different fields of study and hundreds of little yellow sticky friends; post-its. The perfect ingredients for an afternoon of heavily brainstorming.

Our assignment: sustainable living in 2040, what does it look like? Of course, everything would be possible in 2040 and exactly this field of total possibilities we wanted to explore. The biggest challenge of the afternoon was to unleash all our most creative, unconventional, authentic and groundbreaking ideas possible.

With some interesting brainstorm techniques, we started freely associating. While writing on post-its like there was no tomorrow, every idea got sprouted into our little space. After 4 intensive hours, we narrowed the brainstorm chaos down to 12 categories in which all our ideas about sustainable living found a place. From here on the real challenge starts; translating these ideas in workable options for the Erasmusveld.

The Summerschool kicks off!

Living in the most sustainable city area of the Netherlands, what will that look like? Where does your energy come from? Who are your neighbours? And how do you get to work?

These are just some questions that will be tackled during the Enviu Summerschool on sustainable urban development. On Monday 17th of August 12 students will be kicking off with a 2-week, full-time summerschool that the city of The Hague organizes in cooperation with Enviu. It promises to be weeks full of creativity, experts presentations, excursions, trainings and most of all loads of new, crazy ideas on sustainable living!

The city of The Hague is developing the existing city area Erasmusveld as most sustainable city area of the Netherlands. A city area that will be generating more energy than it consumes.

During these 2 weeks you can follow the developments of the students on this blog and Flickr page. They will be informing you about their experiences and would love to share their ideas with you, discuss them and make them better!