The first Aedes exhibition of 2011 continues our long-term, intensive involvement with questions of sustainability and resource conservation. This presentation and its accompanying festival is devoted to the philosophy and operational principles of the approach known as “Cradle to Cradle®.” This all-embracing and radical conception is based on the conviction that environmental protection is viable only provided that products are developed with an attentiveness to their material lifecycles as a whole. “Cradle to Cradle®” products, then, generate no waste materials, and are responsive to the most urgent challenges of our time.
The idea of developing intelligent products according to the so-called “Cradle to Cradle®” design concept was developed back in 1987 by Professor Michael Braungart and his environmental institute EPEA (Environmental Protection and Encouragement Agency, or Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH), which has received the Océ-van-der-Grinten Prize. Not only is the concept a productive basis for innovative approaches to developing ecologically sustainable products, but also promises effective and sustainable approaches to architectural design and town planning.
The Cradle to Cradle® design concept can be regarded as a strategy for effecting change as we move toward a new economic model, one in which products and processes are designed in such a way that they need not be strictly regulated. On the contrary: they now generate positive effects, and have beneficial or positive “ecological footprints.”
The exhibition represents an inspiring, striking, and informative integrated visualization of the Cradle to Cradle® principle and its ecological and economic implications on the basis of a variety of products and their processes of development and manufacture. A number of firms – some of which have been involved with the concept for a long time – convincingly demonstrate how such intelligent products can look and function. When it comes to implementing the strategy, the Netherlands occupies a leadership role, both in terms of product development and of the application of Cradle to Cradle® principles to architecture and town planning. In fact, a number of Dutch cities and communities have already incorporated Cradle to Cradle® principles into their development strategies.
The exhibition features both well-known enterprises, which present their most innovative product ideas, alongside a number of Dutch towns and communities which have adopted Cradle to Cradle® principles. The wealth of examples on view provides viewers with insights into a variegated spectrum of products. These range from “edible” textiles to compostable T-shirts, to floor tiles capable of purifying the air of interior spaces, and all the way to leased office furniture, innovative “click bricks” and recyclable tiles for interiors and exteriors. And there is more: even televisions can be conceived in terms of material cycles while nonetheless functioning impeccably.
With the help of the Cradle to Cradle® strategies, products, and materials, it also becomes possible in the context of architecture and urban development to regard houses as “trees” and towns as “forests.” The sun, for example, can be used as a has an energy source, while living space and water storage can be generated through building technologies, materials, and the landscaping of roofs and walls.
The exhibition features a cross-section drawn from a wide-ranging and dynamically developing conceptual and operational process occurring now in firms and on the level of political decision-making, a process whose network already extends far beyond the Netherlands itself. The exhibition “The Next Industrial Revolution - Blueprint Netherlands” is part of the Cradle to Cradle® Festival, which includes an international symposium, lectures, roundtable discussions, and workshops.
