The municipality of Alkmaar challenged students to redesign an empty piece of land as a climate resilient residential area. Congratulations to the winning ideas which included insulated housing with green energy, community centres, emergency food and drink stores, and spaces to charge electric cars.
You can learn more about the challenge on the Alkmaar City website and the celebration post .
The Challenge
Young people were challenged to build a climate-proof residential area, located on the old gas site on the Helderseweg. Students were asked to:
Design and build a sustainable and liveable
residential area on the Alkmaars Kanaal near the old gas works.
They were asked to yhink about:
- Ensuring the district supplies what residents need as much as possible.
- Construction must also be smart; where do the materials come from? Are there materials from the area that can be used? For example, there will also be supermarkets or a sports facility. How and where do they come?
- How do people and things move and how does everything remain easily accessible?
- How can houses and buildings be made energy efficient and even generate and store energy?
- How do you build future-proof housing that incorporate urban nature and are climate resilient?
The celebration
Student solutions were judged by a panel of city experts. The winning team of students presented to Mayor Schouten in the Council Chamber of City Hall.
Student team De Bouwers
“This project has shown that the future of Alkmaar is in good hands. The innovative and imaginative ideas that we have seen inspire us all to work together to build a better and more beautiful municipality.” Mayor Anja Schouten
About POCITYF
POCITYF is a European subsidized sustainability project to make historic cities throughout Europe energy positive. Alkmaar is a model city in this project, to learn more please see www.pocityf.eu. From this EU project, the idea arose to participate in Schools Reinventing Netherlands.
Questions?
If you have a question or would like more details on the Students Reinventing Cities competition, please use the form below. You will receive a response via email.
