Because of his vast experience in biobased building, in particular mass timber (book: Tomorrow’s Timber) and engineered bamboo (book: Booming Bamboo), Pablo van der Lugt (founder Green Matters, senior lecturer TU Delft) was asked in summer 2020 to further drive this topic within the ‘Circularity in Urban Regions’ program at AMS Institute. His mandate within this program is to accelerate the adoption of biobased materials within the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region (MRA).
Amsterdam is a very suitable city environment because of the city’s goals towards climate change mitigation (mass timber buildings store CO2), circularity (mass timber buildings are very suitable for prefab, demountable building) and health (mass timber buildings fit with very well in biophilic design principles).
Furthermore, the mindset is already there, with some of the most exciting mass timber buildings in Europe being hosted in Amsterdam, such as hotel Jakarta, Circl pavilion, residential towers HAUT, Patch 22 and Stories. The highest timber building worldwide (86m), Vivaldi III, is also projected in Amsterdam.
For more information about Pablo van der Lugt, please refer to his staff page at Technical University Delft.
For an interview with Pablo van der Lugt (Dec 2020, in Dutch), please refer to this article in the national daily building journal Cobouw: “het is tijd voor een Nationaal Houtakkoord”.
“Given the ambitious focus on innovation, circularity and sustainability, Amsterdam has the potential to become the Biobased Capital of Europe.”
Pablo van der Lugt
Former Research Fellow at AMS Institute
Photo by Walter Kallenbach, Speakers Academy.