● practice● Active
De Ceuvel
Scale
local
subnational
national
systemic
Description
Circular urban laboratory built in 2014 on a formerly contaminated shipyard in Amsterdam-Noord, granted by the municipality under a temporary concession (winning plan of a 2012 municipal competition, land lent for 10 years). A consortium (Space&Matter with Metabolic's sustainability plan) transformed the toxic soil using phytoremediation and populated the site with ~17 refurbished houseboats serving as offices for creative and social enterprises, plus a café-restaurant and event spaces. It operates as a 'living lab' for cleantech systems: solar panels, helophyte filters for wastewater, an aquaponics greenhouse, struvite reactors to recover nutrients and the Jouliette token for peer-to-peer energy exchange.