Our first site visit today was a floating neighborhood called Schoonschip. It was designed to support a community that was very sustainable, and also very modern. Some of the sustainability features include solar panels on each house, green spaces on the roofs, water recycling, and sustainable materials like wood and bamboo. There is only one connection to the power grid for the whole neighborhood, as they try to only rely on solar energy to power their homes. There is also no gas connection, so they heat the houses using solar energy as well. This allows them to be mostly self-sufficient. The whole neighborhood is very close and they have great amenities for both children and adults making it a very desirable location, despite its non-standard style of living.

Our other site visit, Edge, was a company that specializes in sustainable buildings. Some of their more recent buildings actually produce more energy than they use. They also have designed some of the only buildings to be “Paris-proof,” meaning that the building has zero emissions. Using AI, they are able to save lots of energy on cooling and heating by tracking where people are in the building and only supplying air to those rooms, rather than climate controlling rooms that nobody is in. Between this, energy efficient designs, and lots and lots of solar panels, Edge is able to design some of the most sustainable buildings in the world. Sadly, they have not been able to get a foothold in the US, as our climate laws are not strict enough, and there is not enough cultural interest in building sustainable buildings. Hopefully this can change in the near future.