It was back to Antwerp again last week for another meeting with our partners in the EU funded Livinggreen project. Part of the project involves running “Livinggreen Labs” looking at various challenges posed by climate change and diminishing resources. The labs are led by Daphne and Sietze from Delft University of Technology and focus on five themes: energy, water, materials, architectural values and climate robustness.
Daphne and Sietze ran a mini lab for the partners so that we can learn how to run our own labs. The labs can be run with everyone from design students, professional designers and engineers to children and homeowners. No experience is necessary, just an open mind, whcih makes them a great, and fun, awareness raising exercise.
We started by looking at different products, some of which are already on the market. A favourite was Jun Yasumoto’s Phyto-Purification Bathroom. Another, more practical product is a toilet with an integrated hand basin which we have decided to use in the renovated stable yard.
We then tried to come up with solutions to a particular problem – how to maximise the use of rainwater for domestic use in blocks of flats, for example. Some interesting results showed that in theory anything is possible. In practice however, barriers such as strict legislation governing the use of rainwater for domestic use means that our brilliant ideas are still a long way off becoming reality.
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