The challenge
Elaborating, together with our partners, how biobased construction can become the new standard in building towards a sustainable future.
The approach
The Natural Pavilion is designed, engineered and constructed within nine months due to a high level of coordination and collaboration in our consortium. It is a showcase of many (r)evolutions in the construction sector: digitalisation, industrialisation, circularity, bio-based, and nature-inclusiveness. These trends are mostly theoretical, and with the Natural Pavilion we’ve proven the potentiality to solve the Dutch housing crisis: building 1 million houses before 2030, with stricter legal carbon- and nitrogen emission ceilings.
An accumulation of innovations have been applied, including a smart water buffer, parametrically designed slats, natural climate systems, sustainable foundation, growing vegetables in-house. In addition, the pavilion is also a showroom of an enormous variety of bio-based construction materials and interior products.
As a sustainability partner, Hedgehog Company was at the core of translating and anchoring the sustainability vision to all partners throughout the design, engineering, and construction phases. We provided tools aiding sustainable decision-making based on data, and mapped out the environmental impact of the entire pavilion.
The result
The Natural Pavilion is the showcase of our consortium of bio-based, modular and nature-inclusive construction, and the show-piece of the Floriade.
In collaboration with the Woningbouwatelier, we also worked on the upscaling of the use of bio-based materials in the Dutch construction industry by performing Life Cycle Assessments of ten products. Together with the Dutch research institute TNO we’ve investigated the environmental impact of the foundation used in The Natural Pavilion and how it can be applied on a larger scale. In addition, we made the MPG (0.25) together with De Groene Jongens, and we realised the material-passport of the whole building.
The pavilion was visited by king Willem-Alexander himself. Hence, he was able to feel and walk on (rejected!) spinach seeds. The Floriade Expo 2022 was open to the public, and we invited everyone to come and admire the future of construction and be inspired to get started yourself towards a more sustainable world!