cepezed, Superuse, Interactivist and Studio Carbon think about the future of written-off wind turbines. This takes place in the What If Lab of the Dutch Design Foundation, at the initiative of energy company Vattenfall. For the rotor blades, cepezed envisions a second life as floats.
specific qualities
Rotor blades of wind turbines are meticulously tailored to catching wind high in the air. Because of their complex construction of materials, you cannot recycle them - in the US, they are even buried. cepezed investigated whether the very specific qualities of the rotor blades could be used for something other than catching wind. The aim is to leave them virtually intact, so that as little material as possible is lost.
floats
Their length, light weight, strength and hollow shape makes rotor blades potentially suitable as floats. This is a beneficial second life due to the large amount of discarded rotor blades in the future. Multiple blades together can form names a floating island, on which, for example, houses, fields, or solar parks are located. Long, narrow islands can serve as roads. Floating islands are entirely useful if sea levels continue to rise as predicted.
fantastic pictures
cepezed's proposal produces fantastic pictures. The fact that they look a bit utopian has to do with the exploratory, pioneering approach of the What If Lab. Even cepezed thinks experiments are important, given the challenges we face. We work on - sustainable - building assignments and regularly conduct research. How the circular experiment with floating rotor blades works out in practice, we hope to find out in the near future together with Vattenfall.
The results of the What If Lab will be exhibited at Dutch Design Week 2024. That the 'lab' was worthwhile is evident from the very different outcomes of cepezed, Superuse, Interactivist and Studio Carbon alone.
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