Growing volumes of wood are being used in construction, interior architecture, and product design, resulting in increasing amounts of wood waste. Using this waste is challenging, because it is too labor-intensive to process large volumes of uneven wood pieces that vary in geometry, quality, and origin. The project “Circular Wood for the Neighborhood” researches how advanced computational design and robotic production approaches can be used to create meaningful applications from waste wood. shifting the perception of circular wood as a simply harvested stream, towards a material with unique aesthetics of its own right. The complexity of the material is suggested to be tackled by switching from the object-oriented design towards designing soft systems. The system developed uses a bottom-up approach where each piece of wood aggregates according to certain parameters and the designed medium is mainly rule-sets and connections. The system is able to produce many options and bring the end-user for a meaningful co-design instead of choosing from the pre-designed options. Material-driven design algorithms were developed, which can be used by designers and end-users to design bespoke products from waste wood. In the first of three case studies, a small furniture item (“coffee table”) was designed from an old door, harvested from a renovation project. For its production, two principle approaches were developed: with or without preprocessing the wood. The principles were tested with an industrial robotic arm and available waste wood. A first prototype was made using the generated aggregation from the system, parametric production processes and robotic fabrication.
Creative SMEs are heavily focusing on the creating process designing new products and services. Consequently, their managers tend to loose contact with crucial management issues. Especially their knowledge of the financial aspects of their business can be so limited that they fail to connect with the financial viability of their business, which can lead to serious business problems. This paper draws on a number of studies that examine the role of outsiders -contracted professional service providers- in relation to business success of SMEs. In the light of the potential growth of Flemish creative SMEs on international markets the question can be raised as to what extent outsiders, and more specifically financial service providers like accountants and banks, contribute to the export success of these firms. In this paper therefore the role played by accountants and banks was explored to solve export-related questions by small furniture designers in Flanders, Belgium. Export can be considered as the most successful growth and therefore raises interesting management issues for creative SMEs. Little is known about the content and intensity of services of accountants and bank employees in relation to export-related questions of owner-managers of small creative firms. In order to examine the fit between supply and demand the focus is on outsider contribution during six phases of export.
In this study we examined how physical features of a natural setting influenced perceived coherence and three positive outcome variables: preference, pleasure, and (self-reported) restoration. Furthermore, we examined the mediating role of perceived coherence. One hundred thirty-one students evaluated three (virtual) natural environments: an environment with metal furniture, an environment with wooden furniture, and an environment without furniture. Results showed that metal furniture negatively influenced perceived coherence as well as preference, pleasure and restoration, compared to wooden furniture and no furniture. Perceived coherence of the environment with wooden furniture was significantly higher than the environment with metal furniture, but significantly lower than the environment without furniture. We did not find support that preference for, and experienced pleasure and restoration in the environment with wooden furniture differed from the environment without furniture. Perceived coherence mediated the effect of (metal) furniture on preference, pleasure, and restoration. Scientific and practical implications are discussed.
Phosphorus is an essential element for life, whether in the agricultural sector or in the chemical industry to make products such as flame retardants and batteries. Almost all the phosphorus we use are mined from phosphate rocks. Since Europe scarcely has any mine, we therefore depend on imported phosphate, which poses a risk of supply. To that effect, Europe has listed phosphate as one of its main critical raw materials. This creates a need for the search for alternative sources of phosphate such as wastewater, since most of the phosphate we use end up in our wastewater. Additionally, the direct discharge of wastewater with high concentration of phosphorus (typically > 50 ppb phosphorus) creates a range of environmental problems such as eutrophication . In this context, the Dutch start-up company, SusPhos, created a process to produce biobased flame retardants using phosphorus recovered from municipal wastewater. Flame retardants are often used in textiles, furniture, electronics, construction materials, to mention a few. They are important for safety reasons since they can help prevent or spread fires. Currently, almost all the phosphate flame retardants in the market are obtained from phosphate rocks, but SusPhos is changing this paradigm by being the first company to produce phosphate flame retardants from waste. The process developed by SusPhos to upcycle phosphate-rich streams to high-quality flame retardant can be considered to be in the TRL 5. The company seeks to move further to a TRL 7 via building and operating a demo-scale plant in 2021/2022. BioFlame proposes a collaboration between a SME (SusPhos), a ZZP (Willem Schipper Consultancy) and HBO institute group (Water Technology, NHL Stenden) to expand the available expertise and generate the necessary infrastructure to tackle this transition challenge.
The climate change and depletion of the world’s raw materials are commonly acknowledged as the biggest societal challenges. Decreasing the energy use and the related use of fossil fuels and fossil based materials is imperative for the future. Currently 40% of the total European energy consumption and about 45% of the CO2 emissions are related to building construction and utilization (EC, 2015). Almost half of this energy is embodied in materials. Developing sustainable materials to find replacement for traditional building materials is therefore an increasingly important issue. Mycelium biocomposites have a high potential to replace the traditional fossil based building materials. Mycelium is the ‘root network’ of mushrooms, which acts as a natural glue to bind biomass. Mycelium grows through the biomass, which functions simultaneously as a growth substrate and a biocomposite matrix. Different organic residual streams such as straw, sawdust or other agricultural waste can be used as substrate, therefore mycelium biocomposites are totally natural, non-toxic, biological materials which can be grown locally and can be composted after usage (Jones et al., 2018). In the “Building On Mycelium” project Avans University of Applied Sciences, HZ University of Applied Sciences, University of Utrecht and the industrial partners will investigate how the locally available organic waste streams can be used to produce mycelium biocomposites with properties, which make them suitable for the building industry. In this project the focus will be on studying the use of the biocomposite as raw materials for the manufacturing of furniture or interior panels (insulation or acoustic).
Professionals van woningbouwcorporaties en gemeentes die zich bezig houden met verduurzaming hebben vragen over hergebruik van afvalhout uit hun (renovatie) projecten. De doelstelling van dit voorstel is het onderzoeken van de mogelijkheden om hout te hergebruiken door gebruik te maken van innovatieve digitale productietechnieken, en om implementatiestrategieën hiervoor te ontwikkelen voor publieke organisaties in de bouwsector, in het bijzonder woningcorporaties en gemeentes. Strategieën omvatten concrete voorstellen om a) afvalhout van woningen in te zamelen en te verwerken; b) waarde toe te voegen aan houtafvalstromen door middel van digitale productie; c) de betrokkenheid en acceptatie van huurders te vergroten bij circulaire verwerking van hout in nieuwe toepassingen; en d) goede toepassingen voor een circulaire economie te realiseren. Het project onderzoekt aard en omvang van houtafvalstromen uit woningrenovatie en identificeert de mogelijkheden voor het hergebruik van specifieke fracties daarvan voor (lokale) toepassingen. Uit voorgaande projecten blijkt dat digitale productie mogelijkheden biedt om stedelijk afval om te zetten in zinvolle circulaire producten. Digitale productie maakt de (lokale) creatie van unieke prototypen en grootschalige toepassingen mogelijk. Het onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd in vier werkpakketten. De eerste identificeert de aard van huishoudelijk houtafval (volume, houtsoort, verzamelproces) door zorgvuldig cases van Ymere en Rochdale te bestuderen. Daarnaast worden er een raamwerk van indicatoren gedefinieerd om projectresultaten te kunnen evalueren. Het tweede werkpakket onderzoekt welke toepassingen kunnen worden bedacht, gegeven de beschikbare houtfracties. In het derde werkpakket wordt een aantal case studies uitgevoerd voor concrete projecten van de deelnemende woningcorporaties. Deze applicaties hebben als doel het potentieel van digitale productie met houtafval te laten zien, rekening houdend met het perspectief van bewoners. Het biedt belangrijke inzichten in de uitvoerbaarheid van concrete toepassingen uit teruggewonnen hout. In het vierde werkpakket worden alle projectbevindingen gecombineerd in een set implementatie strategieën voor publieke organisaties in het stedelijk domein.
