Workshop #1 on Huis van de Toekomst
News & Updates
The first in a series of three prototyping workshops with Huis van de Toekomst took place on February 28 and 29. During this first workshop, we worked on the design assignment for developing a prototype in which we want to visualize and discuss a radical rethinking of the current energy supply, financial flows, spatial qualities and how ownership, management, and maintenance in the J.J.P. Oudblok are currently organized.
What room and possibilities arise after this radical rethinking? How do we make this visible and discussable? Can the building block be regarded as a learning environment for all involved, including residents and institutions? Who is the prototype ultimately intended for and why? These are a few of the questions that we explored during the workshop together with consortium partners Bright, Tellart, IABR, and Huis van de Toekomst, Havensteder Housing Corporation and Delfshaven Coöperatie.
We developed a set of scenarios for initial prototypes in the empty homes including a communal kitchen, communal birthday room, and wake room (a place to visit the recently deceased). We want to explore these ideas by making them more tangible for the community, public and policymakers, as a way of garnering understanding, support, and conversation around these radical ideas. What does a human-powered birthday room actually look like? What makes it different from one fueled by gas? We are also developing a new value system to represent the well-being and functioning of this new kind of energy community, one that represents alternative currencies to money. These values are (in Dutch): uur, huur, buur, and vuur (or, hours, rent, neighbours, and happiness). We are interested in how these four metrics could be represented or even measured in each room. These metrics could ultimately end up in an interactive model of the whole block to make the interaction between the four values visible and understandable for residents to apply, and for policymakers to learn from. Master Digital Design students will start working on these questions in March.