PROJECT OUTCOMES This document summarizes the work done by the Metabolic Lab team since phase two of both projects began in September 2012. Though this was officially a conceptual design and feasibility study for the technological aspects of the plan, our goal from the start was to ensure that the design we developed would lead to a socially, technologically, and financially realistic plan within the contexts’ of both Schoonschip and de Ceuvel. From early on in the process, we knew that a single, inflexible design would not constitute a realistic solution for these sites. Both communities are diverse in terms of their financial means and desired levels of hands-on involvement. Moreover, due to the nature of both projects, there remain many unknown variables in how the development process will unfold. One of the clearest examples of this uncertainty is the fact that the de Ceuvel site will be populated with upcycled houseboats, most of which still need to be acquired. Properly retrofitting these houseboats will require a plan that is specifically adapted to the quality and typology of each boat. Meanwhile, the Schoonschip community has diverse income levels and housing preferences, which cannot be optimally served with a single design. To handle these unknown variables, we have developed an overall technological framework and toolkit that includes the following elements: › Performance targets: A set of performance targets for each major aspect of site construction (on the level of individual buildings as well as the level of each neighborhood as a whole). › Fixed and flexible elements: a mix of fixed technological recommendations and flexible elements that can be selected by users depending on their specific preferences and financial means (similar to buying a computer or car and being able to choose preferred options and add-ons). › A technology selection tool consisting of a set of decision 10 / 146 › trees that will guide users through the suitable technological options we have identified for the site. A financial modeling tool that will allow users to see the cost and earnings profile of any selected technological mix, including upfront investment, overall costs, and payback times. › A phasing and deployment plan recommending when investments should be made in order to keep the project financially feasible while still reaching the highest sustainability targets. › Recommendations for creating specific management structures within both communities to handle do-ityourself (DIY) constructions and shared oversight responsibilities, such as system maintenance, which will continue throughout the lifetime of both developments. Taken together, these elements result in a flexible toolkit of technologies than can be selected by individual home or office owners based on their specific requirments, financial situations, and market prices for technologies at the time of construction. TEST SCENARIOS To make our recommendations concrete, this document presents a worked out test case for each site to demonstrate that the toolkit yields options that are feasible even for the lowest possible range of financial flexibility. We summarize the general plan, the anticipated system performance, and estimated costs for each site. For both Schoonschip and de Ceuvel, we have described the final vision of how the communities will function and relate to the suggested technologies. We have also included a more detailed deployment plan for how new technologies can be adopted over time by the users of both areas. At the end of all three deployment phases, both sites should be fully self-sufficient in renewable energy, water management, organic waste processing, and a large part of food production. BLUEPRINT FOR SUSTAINABLE CITIES Besides aiming to exceed the targets currently set by state-ofthe-art ecovillages, the drive behind the CTP is to fundamentally shiſt the pattern of urbanization by providing a reusable blueprint for development. A large part of this is the goal of making these systems transparent and educational for visitors who wish to see the functioning of the system. Cities are currently consumers. They are drainage points for resources; river deltas of food, fuels, metals, minerals, and other valuable materials. Despite their enormous social, cultural, and economic value, the primary physical output of cities is waste. A majority of the materials that enter are destined to become pollutants of some kind. As urbanization continues at a fast clip, we believe it is essential to alter this pattern of lineral material flows by making cities producers in their own right. This shiſt requires the adoption of new technologies, new infrastructural patterns, and changes in the mindsets of individuals and communities. URBAN ECOSYSTEM The Cleantech Playground can be seen as an urban ecosystem embedded into the fabric of the city. All ecosystems are made up of a complex web of actors: plants that harvest sunlight as fuel, herbivores that consume the plants, carnivores and omnivores that consume each other, and detritivores that break down wastes, bringing nutrients back into a state that can be used as food by other living creatures in the system. Natural systems are not perfect, but they are much more efficient than most current urban and industrial human systems. Pagina 9
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