Job van den Heuvel
Architectural Engineering: 1M Homes
WeGrowCo - an open-building strategy
WeGrowCo explores how the new neighbourhood of Strandeiland can be organically grown from an ecological and social perspective. It is a manifest for growing and harvesting building materials, food, energy and water as locally as possible. The main focus of the ecological approach can be summarised in three steps: (1) grow hemp to fertilise the ground, (2) harvest hemp to make bio-based building materials and components and (3) build a completely bio-based and self-sufficient neighbourhood.
The social goal of WeGrowCo is to be adaptable for co-creation and to give opportunities for inhabitants to choose their own infill of shared spaces, layout of dwellings and facades. To create this adaptability, a differentiation in the design process is made between Drager and Inbouw, based on the open-building legacy. Open-building makes it possible to grow, make and build Strandeiland together. Therefore, a more social community is formed, even before the neighbourhood is built.