In Amsterdam, an ambitious team is making their innovative ideas come true on the riverbanks of the Van Hasseltkanaal. This is the successful story of the regeneration of land and material: the multidisciplinary project “De Ceuvel”. A temporary eco-community of refurbished houseboats, built on a former shipyard.

It is a clever idea: clean the polluted soil with plants and place refurbished houseboats on the green site as workspace for creative and social enterprises. Initiated in 2010, construction started in the spring of 2013 and will be completely finished in the summer of 2014. For a period of ten years, this piece of former wasteland will house a “purifying garden”, over ten workspaces, plus a research lab where sustainable methods are tested, to eventually leave a cleaner site.

The initiators have designed a multidciplinary team^[1] to entered the competition of Amsterdam Noord with their clever idea. They won and soon after, specialists joined in and all parties connected their skills and innovative ideas. Besides the two initiating firms, the main team now also includes Metabolic and DELVA Landscape Architecture, to design respectively the Cleantech Playgound and phytoremediation park. Supported by several other partners and volunteers, they are turning the polluted brownfield into a pilot project of how innovative ideas can build a better future.

Traditionally, the future for such an attractively located plot of land, would be sale, mechanical sanitation and construction. The municipality of Amsterdam decided to act different. It was Amsterdam Noordwaarts, part of the municipality that offered this piece of land in a competition. To be used for ten years, without rental costs. Due to the bad conditions of the soil, not many competitors dared to take the risk. The innovative idea of Glasl and Smeele brought an unexpected logical solution.

The successful translation of this idea into reality, is also due to the organization structure. The development of the project is defined as top-up, rather than the common top-down or bottom-up, by Sanderine van Odijk, from sustainable development agency Metabolic. She explains this approach as following: ‘There is a steering group, which sets vision and is leading the project. Volunteers help and together they create a community. For and by people’.