Venlo

City Hall Venlo’s design is a paramount example of applying the Cradle to Cradle design principles on building scale. City Hall Venlo is being recognized for many innovations. The building is designed for its users and residents, culture and as a place to anticipate future innovations and continuous improvements at all scales.

One of the desired results was to enhance indoor and outdoor air quality with the building. Average buildings often contain poor indoor air quality, which can directly affect productivity and the amount of sick-days. The city hall is located at a busy arterial road, which has a negative impact on the outdoor air quality. To compensate for this, integral elements were designed to create a healthy, pleasant and safe environment with good air quality. A greenhouse purifies the air from outside with the help of natural vegetation before it enters the building. A smart piping system makes sure that a comfortable temperature is reached, before the air is distributed to the different floors

Another distinguishing factor in the building is the water cycle. Water streams are divided into rainwater, drinking water, grey water, black water, which can be subdivided in brown-, and yellow water such as residual water from toilets. The roofs, covered with plants, collect rainwater for watering the green wall and flushing toilets.

Subsequently, the goal of the city council is to generate more renewable energy than the building will use and to have a beneficial footprint in the city.

(2012 - 2016)

EPEA Services

  • Cradle to Cradle training on the Cradle to Cradle® design framework for the C2C ExpoLAB and members of the planning team
  • Creation of Circularity Passports for building products

Benefits

  • Improvement of indoor and outdoor air quality
  • Continuous material cycles with leasing and take-back programmes with manufacturers
  • Usage of renewable sources of energy
  • Improvement water quality
  • Increase of user’s health & well-being