Imagine a stacking robot that sorts and cleans old bricks for reuse, instead of discarding them. Down the road, freshly laid asphalt is mixed twenty degrees cooler than industry standards. A construction site's trailer runs on solar panels, and a hydrogen generator powers the entire site in a future scenario that would one day draw nothing from the city grid. These are elements of De Nieuwe Straat (The New Street) project, where AMS Institute, the City of Amsterdam, TU Delft, Wageningen University & Research, and frontline contractors are testing such solutions, co-creating the infrastructure sector's future. They form an ecosystem of overlapping pilots, each targeting a different piece of the urban infrastructure puzzle.
This article was featured in the AMS Impact Digest 2025-2026
Nelson Mandelapark is one of four locations in the city testing low-temperature asphalt to reduce emissions and environmental impact.
Innovation in practice
The project is part of a broader program, Toekomstbestendige Leefomgeving (Future-proof Living Environment), and forms an ecosystem of overlapping pilots. The sustainable asphalt is being field-tested simultaneously at four Amsterdam locations: Nelson Mandelapark, Van Nijenrodeweg, Gooiseweg, and Middenweg. Low-temperature mixes, synthetic binders, and bio-based alternatives to conventional bitumen are being assessed for performance and long-term viability under real traffic conditions. Early data are already informing city-wide procurement decisions.
Energy on the construction site has long been a blind spot in urban sustainability accounting. Through a three-phase pilot, contractor KWS and the municipality tested green hydrogen as the basis for an emission-free construction site, beginning with a hydrogen-powered site, batteries, and solar panels, scaling up to charging heavy electric machinery, and ultimately powering a full asphalt operation using a 100-kW fuel cell and MEGC trailer. Replacing around 22,000 liters of diesel with 219.7 kg of green hydrogen delivered a 58% relative reduction in CO₂ emissions. The key barriers to scaling were not technical but logistical and regulatory: green hydrogen availability, spatial safety requirements, and a nine-month permitting process that cut the final phase short. In 2026, a national technical standard (NTA) for hydrogen aggregates will be introduced to clarify and standardize permitting across Dutch construction sites.
“Amsterdam's pavements are made of bricks and concrete tiles. We aim to increase their reuse by analyzing current processes, logistics, and emissions. As a link between the city and contractors, we provide insight and fresh ideas to support the transition to a circular economy.”
Petar Koljensic
Research Fellow
Scaling has been held back by a lack of storage space, which the municipality addressed by creating HUB XL: a large warehouse at the Port of Amsterdam offering shared workspace for municipalities, contractors, knowledge institutions, and young talent, alongside practical storage and processing of infrastructure materials.
Amsterdam's streets are paved with generations of bricks; the challenge has always been making reuse economically viable. A purpose-built stacking robot, made by contractor Beentjes, now automates the restacking process after cleaning, slashing the labor costs that have historically made reuse impractical. The results are striking: a 98% relative reduction in CO₂, the greatest Environmental Cost Indicator saving of all pilots tested.
Sharing the load
Pioneering innovation requires organizations to take risks together. With multiple stakeholders, competing interests, and uncertainty built into the process, how do you keep everyone aligned? For De Nieuwe Straat, the answer lies in two complementary roles.
The Living Lab Coordinator, working from AMS Institute, holds the system: understanding how the work fits into the broader landscape of Amsterdam, the infrastructure sector, and other knowledge and policy organizations. The Mediator of Innovation holds the relationships, embedded directly in the day-to-day workings of the project from the municipality or contractor side, aligning interests and keeping shared goals visible when institutional pressure creates tension.
Together, they turn isolated pilots into durable change. Claudia Walraven, a Mediator of Innovation for the municipality, finds that projects move faster, decisions are made more efficiently, and outcomes are more measurable. "The innovations do not remain pilots; they grow into lasting solutions for the city."
Contractor Tim Rietmeijer of KWS describes a collaboration that pushes his team further than a conventional project ever would: "Together with the Mediator of Innovation, we look at how we can innovate and become more sustainable. Our hydrogen shed is our pride and joy; it's currently being tested at another location in the city. And we're already exploring whether we can add new zero-emission equipment and innovative asphalt mixtures."
"I believe we can learn from technology, as we learn from looking at nature. Working in Living Labs allows us, both the municipality and society as a whole, to learn from one of the greatest technological achievements people can build: ingenious, resilient, and sustainable cities," said Amsterdam Director of Innovation for the Future Proof Assets Program, Sacha Stolp.
In November 2025, the De Nieuwe Straat consortium gathered at “Working Together on Tomorrow’s Infrastructure” and took on hands-on exercises designed to test collaboration under pressure, where trust, communication and alignment proved essential.
Leerlab Infra: Passing the playbook forward
A Living Lab does not keep its insights to itself. Therefore, on behalf of the program Toekomstbestendige Leefomgeving, AMS Institute created an online learning environment: Leerlab Infra. It is a platform that makes the knowledge, methods, and tools developed through De Nieuwe Straat available to professionals across the Netherlands. "My ambition is to make insights from research, but also from colleagues and partners, accessible to practice. In this way, we can strengthen Living Labs as engines for societal change and help create real impact," said TU Delft researcher Sterre Lidwine de Jager.
The training, workshops, and shared frameworks equip contractors, municipalities, and researchers with the practical skills to put this way of working into practice, for resilient, regenerative, and just urban infrastructure at scale.
Living Labs: Not a typical infrastructure project
"I believe we can learn from technology, as we learn from looking at nature. Working in Living Labs allows us, both the municipality and society as a whole, to learn from one of the greatest technological achievements people can build: ingenious, resilient, and sustainable cities," said Amsterdam Director of Innovation for the Future Proof Assets Program, Sacha Stolp.
De Nieuwe Straat is designed to keep generating value: a new emissions-tracking tool captures project-level data on materials, vehicles, and machinery in real time, producing the evidence base policymakers have needed. Alongside that, AI-powered predictive maintenance models are being developed by TU Delft researchers to help Amsterdam optimize when and how it intervenes in its road network. This automates a manual process, making it faster, less error-prone, and capable of looking further ahead than traditional planning allows.
"Our Living Lab Way of Working handbook is a means to an end: making Amsterdam and other cities more resilient, regenerative, and just. To actually change the city, we need a smart, effective approach. For this, we have a handbook that we use in our daily work," said Mark Kauw, Team Lead & Urban Living Lab Program Developer at AMS Institute. "The handbook's detailed methodology and advice on collaboration are for anyone to download and use. We hope this creates a ripple effect among practitioners beyond AMS Institute."
Read the Living Lab Way of Working handbook here.
