Rijnenburg as the first Dutch cradle-to-cradle district?

Rijnenburg is a polder on the south-west of the city of Utrecht. In the ‘Note on Space’ (Nota Ruimte) by the Dutch government this location is appointed for 5000 to 8000 new dwellings. There has been a vivid discussion on this amount of new dwellings, the loss of green near the city of Utrecht and the ambition to develop a green neighborhood in combination with meeting the city’s need for low cost housing. With in mind the upcoming interventions needed to adapt to the results of climate change, the regional, and local government, together with the Stichtse Rijnlanden -the board that manages the watersystem of central Holland- decided to make Rijnenburg a pilot as a ‘climate robust urban development’. The inspirational meeting on 30th of September was meant to inspire people how to develop climate robust , what the parameters could be to design sustainable as well as adapted to the future water level rise and rainfall.

The meeting was led by Prof. Geert Teisman who proposed the project as extra difficult since it doesn’t only deal with the physical, social and economical aspects of a project but is extended with qualifications of being climate proof and giving extra values to the future in sense of being “climate robust”. The introduction about the project was given by the aldermen for building in Utrecht Harry Bosch who is therefore responsible for the development in Rijnenburg. After Bosch, Martine Sluijs from the province of Utrecht and Martijn Jongens from HDSR tried to warm the visitors up to work on this exciting pilot project and they explained the reasons and pressure to make Rijnenburg climate robust. A questionable thing about these reasons is that they want to develop in a deep outer dike polder, (the last place to build more dwellings in Utrecht) and now they want to work on climate proof solutions to shield from the typical aspect of building in polders. Despite the reasons to do so, the project their proposing is a super challenging next-generation urban development were people are trying to find a balance in living and nature.

The polder Rijnenburg is located on the southwest of the crossing of the highways A12 and A2 and is 1000 Ha. It will house 5000-7000 new dwellings in a green environment (which they call ‘living in the landscape’) combined with around 130 ha. of recreational green. In this way the area needs to become a transition zone between the urban areas of Leidse Rijn, Utrecht and Nieuwegein and the Green Heart. There are thoughts on moving the Meerdijk, the first class dike running along the north side of Rijnenburg, making it an innerdike area with all its benefits. The design for the polder will respect the current structure because of cultural and natural reasons but also because of the complexity of the soil in the polder. The complex characteristics of a polder landscape make the designers give extra attention to other water problems like floods from dike-breaks, excessive rainfall, drought and all the consequences on the design like water drainage in public space (having water storage areas) and foundations. But besides being safe and able to live there, the initiators want more: offer a sustainable design for the future. The design for Rijnenburg will be finished in 2010 and building should begin at the latest in 2013.

To inspire on becoming climate robust, the next speaker was Prof. Pier Vellinga from the UvA and Wageningen to talk about climate change. He spoke of the effect of climate change and he emphasised that the prognoses are not over reacting and that we have to take the prospects very seriously. With this he explained that the climate changes in cycles, so if there is not that much rainfall or temperature rise next year that doesn't mean that the problem should not be taken seriously and the government should stay strict in their legislation concerning this topic. For Rijnenburg he recommended to look at the pillars set up for the project ‘Thames 2100’: safety, livingclimate, climate neutralist, economy & infrastructure and nature & landscape. More practical he said to look at water, energy, temperature ecology and flow and proposed to think about using this (natural) characteristics in a positive way. He suggested an all electric Rijnenburg, heat pumps, a big lake or building on terps, but most importantly to adapt to its environment and use the characteristics of water to become climate neutral.

The new consensus in every market seems to be sustainability. The way people deal with this can be seen as drenched in a sort of guilt management. This compensating way of thinking was refreshingly opposed by Prof. Michael Braungart (chemist) who talked about the philosophy he and his companion William McDonough (architect) are lecturing all over the world: cradle to cradle. In short you could say that cradle to cradle pleads to adjust all processes instigated by humans to make them circular as we can see in nature. A lot of (industrial) processes and cycles produce tons of waste with which we pollute the earth and all kinds of organisms and processes. The cradle to cradle philosophy urges to adjust our production methods in a way that we only create products that can be fully recycled into new products, with use of rest energy from example other processes or solar income. To be able to do this we have to go back to a molecular level. For example the c2c book is printed on a synthetic ‘paper,’ made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers, designed to look and feel like top quality paper while also being waterproof and rugged. And the book can be easily recycled in localities with systems to collect polypropylene, like that in yogurt containers. In this way this ‘treeless’ book is a showcase for synthetic books which, like many other products, can be used, recycled, and used again without losing any material quality—in cradle to cradle cycles.

If we manage to make these kind of cycles in the ‘technosphere’ standard like they are in the biosphere, we will have no waste (in the end, but maybe less for now) and we don’t have to adjust our way and measure of consuming. Braungart seemed agitated by the message that people like Al Gore send: that we as humans are wrong for being here in such big numbers consuming everything around us to death, so we have to compensate for our existing. Braungart says that ‘we don’t have to apologize for being human beings’, and when we all gently adjust to the c2c-principle we can keep consuming like crazy since waste is food anyway. The customer is still our friend. As he said it ‘We shouldn’t try to be less bad, but try to be good’

He is pleading for effectiveness over efficiency, and in a way his lecture was exactly this. His words, and examples are most inspiring and sound totally credible, even though he said nothing specific on what actions to take for Rijnenburg. Some people seemed disturbed by this and asked how to translate the ideas into projects. To this Braungart explained that he (obviously) is not all-knowing and that we have to do the practical part ourselves. He explained that his idea about this is that we don’t have to be perfect. If everybody tries to make their product cradle to cradle in three ways to add to the ‘cradle to cradle museum’, then after a few decades we have a planet full of showcases and test cases and we can keep improving ourselves. “Show what the future can look like.”

Original article: http://www.climateadaptationlab.nl/links/related-events/rijnenburg-cradle-to-cradle/


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