5 Dutch companies building a sustainable future
The Netherlands is known for its creativity, sustainability and smart city innovation, so it should come as no surprise that there are plenty of Dutch design and smart city companies modernising architecture and infrastructure for a future-ready society. Read on to learn about five of these forward-thinking companies.
FABRICations
Sustainable architecture is the name of the game for FABRICations, which focuses on the circular economy, child-friendly cities, supporting infrastructure and more. The company’s in-house methodology is renowned for its design options for resilient cities and sustainability.
The company’s current services include urban design, landscape architecture, interior design and more. The company worked on the design of Amsterdam’s Bijlmerbajes complex – a former prison adapted into sustainable housing – and is currently revitalising the Ministry of Social Affairs in The Hague. Find out what else FABRICations has been up to.
Space&Matter
When it comes to creating and designing sustainable architecture, Space&Matter are at the top of their game. The forward-thinking architecture agency designs community-focused architecture for a sustainable future.
In one of their recent projects, SWEETS hotel, the company helped transform 28 historical Amsterdam bridge houses into hotels. For a century, the city’s bridge keepers occupied these bridge houses, but when the centralised bridge-control system was implemented, the houses were no longer in use. Until Space&Matter and SWEETS came along that is, who reduced wastage and created a unique attraction in the process.
SEMiLLA Sanitation Hubs
Dutch startup SEMiLLA Sanitation Hubs wants to help the UN reach its sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG): to ensure that everyone has access to clean water and hygienic sanitation by 2020. To that end, the company utilises the latest tech to convert sanitary wastewater into clean water and nutrients that can be used to produce food.
The company has grand ambitions to introduce their sanitation hubs to remote holiday resorts, plug-and-play villages, remote rural areas, residential housing, public bathrooms and more – as well as to help with disaster relief.
Arup
Ever since the now-massive design company was set up in Amsterdam almost 20 years ago, Arup’s talented team of engineers, planners, designers, consultants and technical specialists have done things a little differently. The company, which works across every aspect of building and design, was founded on the idea that the environment can be used to better people’s lives.
Some of the company’s projects include preserving Sydney Opera House for future generations, designing a self-installing platform to power the Philippines and transforming a visionary architect’s designs into a sustainable reality in China. Learn more about Arup’s projects.
Madaster
Madaster aims to eliminate waste by providing materials with an identity, which – in turn – makes recycling easier. The company’s ethos? That planet Earth is a closed system with scare raw materials, so we need to keep materials available – always. The documentation of materials makes them easier to reuse, stimulating the circular economy and creating more environmentally friendly design solutions.