Essay-longread, original: ‘Hub Holland Hub’ It is well known and frequently in the news how Schiphol and KLM defend themselves regarding the impact and number of flights via Schiphol. Especially concerning the ‘hub’ function, meaning that half the world cannot function without us, that if they don’t offer this hub…
Cork. Lately I regularly come across publications and buildings with Cork. Ideal insulator, it seems, and weatherproof, And quite a decorative material, recently saw some nice applications in construction design. Well, that could be so, but is it a serious option? For that, we have to dive into some figures….
Vertical farming, and thus “indoors,” is a form of enormous technocratic hubris, which costs more than it yields. I wrote about it before, that trying to beat nature, millions of years of evolution, is complete madness.[1] Growing crops via natural selection/cropcrossings and maybe indoors ( unheated greenhouses),with yields accelerated thus…
The discussion keeps coming back: high-rise buildings or not. Cities and towns can’t resist falling in love with high towers.that is, the project developers and politicians. Last year I had the opportunity to explain to a council committee in Utrecht and to a mixed political audience in Eindhoven what is…
The Netherlands is grappling with its land. With its land management and spatial planning. From all sides, there’s a demand for scarce land: by livestock farmers for pasture and spreading manure, they want to expand more and more. But also for construction, roads, and solar parks. And data and distribution…
How long do buildings last? There’s little scientifically sound to say on the matter, and there are hardly any studies that have fundamentally examined it. Like the question: when does a building lose its primary function as a dwelling when no maintenance is carried out? In other words, when is…
The year 2100: Finally! It’s the year 2100, and for the first time, CO2 emissions from buildings will start going down. It should have been already zero by 2050, but due to spreading emissions over the lifespan of buildings, it’s only mathematically the case from 2100 onwards. Yearly that will…
Regularly questions and discussions arise about wool and sheep [1]. Is it effective and/or useful, is it better/worse than alternatives, and so forth. Time to delve into that and try to put it into perspective. First, let’s look at some numbers: There are approximately 800.000 sheep in the Netherlands, producing…
Lets look ate the climate problem in another way: At a 1.5-degree increase, you have a fever, 38.5 degrees. You stay stay indoors, and move as little as possible; you don’t want to cause further damage. Because in various activities, you quickly start sweating and get tired. You won’t train…
It will be cities that in the coming decades (and partly already now), will have to face people’s problems most directly. Which was my reasoning in my recently published book ‘Post Fossil Life.’ ( in Dutch, later this year in English). To start with Interpersonal problems, as we already see…
