This Embassy comprises partners who are working on this future scenario through practical design assignments and by exploring new approaches. The key questions are: how can we scale, what does a new circular construction chain look like and which new design language is associated with using biobased building materials?
As an extension of last years theme – circularity – this Embassy opted for the addition of a biobased approach and proposed sustainable strategies to meet today’s standards and the challenges of tomorrow. This reached far beyond eco-neutral construction. We took an eco-positive perspective as our starting point with the goal of changing our footprint from a negative to a positive one. By continuing to build, we will store CO2 instead of emitting it. Biobasecamp, a design by Ketelhuisplein art director Marco Vermeulen, showed how this works.
Together with Company New Heroes, we went one step further in the Growing Pavilion: we investigated new experimental biobased materials by applying them in the pavilion. The skin of the pavilion was made of materials including mycelium building blocks which were specially cultivated for this project.
Dutch Design Week 2019
The Embassy of Circular & Biobased Building offered inspiration and context with temporary architecture on the Ketelhuisplein (the square dedicated entirely to circular and biobased building during DDW), and also demonstrated the current social transition challenges and showed how designers, governments and innovative entrepreneurs can develop solutions. It also addressed the role of users, consumers and citizens.
