by Tom Bosschaert
Director

Nov. 4, 2013

Tom Bosschaert

This autumn's Grid Night theme was 'City of Tomorrow'. Our guest speakers tickled, challenged and inspired the audience around 3 main topics "Future Foods", "Future Cities" and "Future Life". The evening brought together over 100 inspired professionals, and we were thrilled to see so many new connections and partnerships arise. We look forward to taking the next steps with the project ideas that arose during the many conversations that took place until deep into the night. In 5 minute talks several speakers shared their vision on the City of Tomorrow. After some drinks and chats it was time for brain gymnastics with the "Pub Quiz", and win some fabulous prizes. We ended the night with drinks, bites, and music. We'd like to share a few talks, the pub quiz answers, and some inspiration with you here.

We thank our partners and friends for their vivid talks: Ruilrestaurant, Slow Food Amsterdam, We Canteen, Platform 31, Posad, Urhahn Urban Design, Merel Segers, ShareNL, MyWheels, Bubble & Stitch, Seats2Meet, Copper8, and last but not least our DJ Jasper Schaap.

‘Future Foods’

An inspirational video about an algae-culture fish farm to introduce Future Foods.

 

Ruilrestaurant - Lotte Boonstra

How to start a restaurant without a budget? Eva Bullens shares her story with us. She also prepared a few tongue tickling bites for us.

 

Slow Food Amsterdam - Mieke Snoek

Slow Food Amsterdam is a local department of the worldwide Slow Food network of members promoting good, clean and fair food. You can join excursions, workshops, discussions where producers and consumers meet each other. In 2013 Slow Food Amsterdam started a cooperation with city-farmers in Amsterdam West and had a harvest festival for the neighbourhood "Groente Buurtfestijn". The vegetables were prepared in a workshop and transferred into delicious veggie dishes. This project connects Slow Food Amsterdam with local farmers (producers) and the neighbourhood. As a result there is a collaboration of the local producers and FoodCoop Amsterdam, a local food cooperation in West who sells the harvest from the neighbourhood. And collaborators were inspired to grow their veggies in a more professional manner. In this way we do what we can for a better food system in practice.


 

We Canteen - Charlotte van Leeuwen & Maaike de Reuver

Do you ever eat in a canteen? How do you like the food? Charlotte and Maaike came up with the perfect solution to improve the experience of eating in a canteen.

Inspired by the Asian food court, Maaike and Charlotte devised the catering concept We Canteen. This catering concept is for universities, businesses, hospitals or other institutions. There are several stalls where local entrepreneurs can offer their products and tell the story behind it. For each location We Canteen determines which local entrepreneurs can offer their specialties for the relevant public. The offer will be diverse and the local entrepreneur get the opportunity to sell their products.

 

‘Future Cities’

Platform 31 - Olof van der Wal

A breeding ground for research and experiments, a stage for new sounds and an inspiring network of thinkers and doers who are not afraid to get their hands dirty. That is Platform31, the knowledge organization for the city and the regions. Good living, jobs and quality of life, that is what we represent.

The world is changing, and with it Dutch cities and regions are changing as well. Municipalities, provinces, housing corporations, care and welfare, consultancies and other companies need to change accordingly to be able to respond to new issues. Platform31 offers an approach you will immediately be able to put into practice.

 

Posad - Emile Revier

Posad is a design office working on complex spatial projects in the city, street and region, by research and design.

Posad acknowledges four challenging and relevant tasks for our generation: urban transformation, water, energy and public transport. Posad wants to contribute on these themes with spatial solutions. With a dedicated team they develop through thorough analysis, research and design, strategic proposals at different scale levels, for governments and the private sector at home and abroad. They put much attention and energy in understanding the questions in each assignment to come up with the best possible solution.

Inspiration: Living with Water

 

The Spontaneous City: people make the city - Urhahn Urban Design - Tess Broekmans

During the 20th century the fate of cities was largely determined by big money, top-down urban planning machines. But the economic crisis since 2008 brought all of these machines to a standstill. There was no money for development any more. Or so everyone thought. Instead of stifling development, this created room for new ways of transformation. The Spontaneous City is a way of city development that focuses on gradual transformation and puts users first. Building a city from its qualities and the demands of the users, not from its property value. Urhahn Urban Design is participating in this process in several neighborhoods, for example the island Oostenburg in Amsterdam and Strijp S in Eindhoven.

Tess Broekmans is an urban designer and director of Urhahn Urban Design, an Amsterdam based office on urban design and transformation strategy. Tess takes a broad view on urban design, based on a close interplay of social, economical and spatial demands. Her focus lies on the transformation of inner city areas and housing. She is currently working on complex urban transformation projects such as Oostenburg island in Amsterdam and Strijp S in Eindhoven. Her international work includes projects in London and Washington, D.C. Tess is a guest teacher at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture.

 

 

‘Future Life’

Inspiration for a new way of creation office space.

 

Share NL - Harmen van Sprang

Share NL is a platform for the Dutch Sharing Economy. Their activities focus on: consumers, politics, entrepreneurs, research and advice. The founders of Share NL are FLOOW2, Konnektid, Peerby, Snappcar, Thuisafgehaald and Toogethr.

 

My Wheels - Henry Mentink

Share your wheels! My wheels is a car sharing concept. Henry will tell you how he started My Wheels and how it became a huge success.

 

Bubble & Stitch - Maurits Tiethoff

Bubble & Stitch is a new and modern dry cleaning and laundry concept which differentiates itself by a focus on quality, service, speed and sustainability.

 

Seats2Meet.com - Felix Lepoutre

The co-working formula Seats2meet.com (S2M) offers venues, like MeetBerlage, for free-co-working, meetings and collaboration between Knowmads and traditional organizations on their way to the Society 3.0. A super hub & spoke network of physical co-work, office and meeting locations. The conference- & meeting rooms as well as the office spaces are booked by regular corporate clients and Knowmads. For Knowmads who just want a place to work, meet and connect with others, they offer co-workspaces, WiFi, beverages and even an occasional lunch free of charge in old monetary terms. Payment by Knowmads is  done by means of social capital. Our host MeetBerlage is a Seats2Meet location.

 

MeetBerlage hosted the Grid Night. Want to see an impression? Check these picture by Hidde.

 

Copper8 - Noor Huitema

Passionate and driven, we are confident that a new approach is necessary to achieve change! Copper8 has a focus on realizing sustainable breakthroughs in the manufacturing industry by organizing co-operation. We inspire companies to initiate progressive projects with ambitious sustainability goals and facilitate open-minded multi-disciplinary processes. Our strength lies in combining the softer elements of (multi-party) collaboration with the harder aspects of sustainability targets (both technical and financial) to achieve a defined project result.

 

Pub quiz questions & answers

 

Impression of the Grid Night

Fotografie Groen

Check out more photo's on our Facebook.

Nov. 4, 2013