The ICEhouse™ (ICE = Innovation for the Circular Economy) was reassembled this week as a featured meeting location for the Circular EXPO at The Valley, the Netherlands’ national hotspot for the circular economy.
The reusable building was first constructed and unveiled in Davos in January 2016 for the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting, where William McDonough is the Chair of the Meta-Council for the Circular Economy.
After Davos, the building was disassembled and shipped to the Netherlands where it was quickly and easily reassembled for the Circular EXPO—showcasing what is possible when designs eliminate the concept of waste and instead add to the “resourcefulness” of a system.
Cradle to Cradle proposes that, as in nature, the “waste” of one system can become food for another. Everything can be designed to be disassembled and safely returned to the soil as biological nutrients or re-utilized as high quality materials for new products as technical nutrients.
ICEhouse is primarily made of three technical nutrient materials:
- aluminum (the structural frame),
- polymers (SABIC’s LEXANTM sheet and systems used for the walls and roof), and
- aerogel (Cabot Nanogel® is used as an insulation material within the LEXAN wall and ceiling system).
As defined technical nutrients, at the end of their use cycle they will be returned to industry and endlessly re-manufactured into new products with no loss in material quality. All of the materials are either Cradle to Cradle CertifiedTM or in the evaluation process to become certified.
William McDonough would like to thank Hub Culture, SABIC, and Delta Development Group for their support for the ICEhouse experimental prototype.
Learn more about the ICEhouse here.
See more ICEhouseTM interviews and footage on William McDonough’s YouTube Channel.
