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Posts Tagged ‘Netherlands’

New Life for Old Schools

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 16, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: MWA Hart Nibbrig.
The makeover by Maarten van Kesteren Architects of  a 1960s Utrecht college at less than half the cost of a new building and a third the carbon footprint is a lesson in sustainability.

In today’s story, a design company worked with what was available to make an old building sustainable. Apparently there’s some controversy about the approach, refitting the old instead of building everything new. See what’s happening in the Netherlands.

Rowan Moore writes at the Guardian, ” ‘The greenest building,’ to quote a slogan now popular among architects, ‘is one that is already built.’ It sums up the belated realization that the carbon impact and energy consumption of demolition and new building can be more significant than those of heating, cooling and running a building when it’s in use. It’s still a principle that is only patchily put into practice, in the UK and elsewhere. But the Dutch not-for-profit organization Mevrouw Meijer (meaning Mrs Meijer), which works to give new life to old school buildings, is quietly showing how it can be done.

“Her organization’s approach, says its founder, Wilma Kempinga, makes environmental, financial and practical sense, but it’s also about the experiences and memories of childhood. ‘It’s very important that students experience beauty,’ she says. ‘This is a place you will remember for the rest of your life.’ For Kempinga, beauty is best achieved by making the most of existing buildings – even those thought unremarkable – and getting the best young architects to design the transformation.

“We’re sitting in Nimeto, a trade school in Utrecht where students aged 16 to 21 learn shop window dressing, theatre set design, painting and decoration, specialist restoration and other skills. It’s a decent work of 1960s Dutch welfare state modernism – one of thousands from the country’s postwar educational construction boom: well lit and well proportioned, built in white-painted brick, within whose plain walls are the sights, sounds and smells of young people making things. Some of them are painting at encrusted easels beneath north-facing skylights, or planing and cutting timber; others trying out their decorating techniques on a house-like structure built to offer them as many awkward junctions and other challenges as possible. The school is populated with trompe l’oeil fragments of architecture – parts of stage sets – and experimental displays of objects you might find in a shop window.

“Now it’s better than ever. Where once the school was divided into two main blocks, they are now linked by first floor bridge and gallery with a colonnade underneath. A central courtyard that was a car park is now a garden that marks the cycle of the school year with yellow-and-white flowers in September, and blue-and-white flowers in spring. Double-height spaces bring light into a large basement, which can now be used for learning rather just storage. They also break open a regimented former arrangement of internal corridors double-loaded with classrooms. You can now look up, down, sideways and across, as well as straight ahead.

“The canteen is in one of the two blocks, the library in another, meaning that the two facilities shared by all students are distributed across the school. Previously, says Nimeto’s principal, Henk Vermeulen, students working in one part would refer to those in another as being ‘on the other side,’ but now all parts of the building are equally theirs. …

“The new design, by Maarten van Kesteren, a young architect based in The Hague, is about opening up and connections and making a shared container for the multifarious creativity of the students. The ‘whole school has a feeling that you are part of a lively workshop,’ as Van Kesteren puts it. The detail is simple, with what Kempinga calls ‘very beautiful pure materials that are unusual in school buildings,’ such as an oak floor whose woody smell mixes with that of the workshops. The project is achieved by the minimum of means, the only new structure being the long gallery/bridge, and gains additional education space. … It is also less than half the cost of an equivalent new building, with 30% of the carbon footprint.

“Mevrouw Meijer’s role, here and elsewhere, is to make the case for renovating rather than replacing, generating the evidence that it will be cheap, practical and climate-friendly. They also help select the architect. … Young practices without previous school experience, such as Van Kesteren’s, are preferred. ‘We don’t want an old guy or an old girl,’ says Vermeulen, but someone who will bring fresh thinking. As his school is always making the case that its inexperienced students should be trusted with opportunities, he says, it should do the same when appointing architects. …

“The original Nimeto building is typical of many in the Netherlands, whose design is quietly humane without being spectacular or special enough for it to be designated as significant heritage. Yet, says Kempinga, they are part of the country’s shared memory. …

“Schools also tend to be located in the centre of the communities they serve, whereas new replacements are often more remote. Yet, as Vermeulen puts it, ‘our neighborhood should profit from a new school, and our students are supposed to be working for this society,’ so it’s better if they stay put. The external landscape at Nimeto has been designed so as to connect the school’s garden with its surroundings and form part of the ‘ecological structure,’ as Van Kesteren says, of Utrecht.

“Mevrouw Meijer now have a number of school projects under way and recently completed. … Mevrouw Meijer is named after a well-loved children’s book character who worries a lot about nothing until she adopts and raises a baby blackbird, which teaches her to concentrate on essentials. If this sounds whimsical, the organization’s projects seem to be based on impeccable logic and well-founded aspirations; the only mystery is why their ideas are not applied more widely. There’s a mistaken belief that the best way to be sustainable to is to build something with all the latest environmental materials and devices. …

“Kempinga says it’s a question of attitude. ‘A lot of people like new buildings,’ she says, ‘and don’t have the imagination to see what’s possible with old ones.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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What the Hague Hid in WW II

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 6, 2025| 7 Comments »

Photo: rkd/Mauritshuis.
Wilhelm Martin, the director of the Mauritshuis museum, quietly resisted by removing artworks from the museum during the Nazi occupation. And he hid people.

Today we go back to WW II to gather new information on the difficult choices that people had to make under Nazi occupation and how some Dutchmen practiced resistance while hiding in plain sight.

The Guardian‘s Senay Boztas reported the story from the Netherlands.

“The 13-year-old boy answered the doorbell,” she begins. “ ‘Tell your dad I’m here,’ said a man, who stored his bicycle and then disappeared upstairs.

“It was 1944, and right under the noses of Nazi command, people were hiding in the attic of The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum from forced labour conscription – Arbeitseinsatz – under which hundreds of thousands of men from the Nazi-occupied Netherlands were conscripted to work in Germany.

“The memories of 93-year-old Menno de Groot – a Dutch-Canadian who was that young boy – form an extraordinary part of a book and an exhibition of the secret history of the Dutch museum during the second world war.

“ ‘He must have gone all the way to the attic,’ De Groot tells his granddaughter Kella Flach in a video for the exhibition, referring to the man who he assumed had arrived to go into hiding. ‘I don’t know how many were up there. I have no idea how they lived up there, how they got there.’

“The chance find of a logbook by De Groot’s father, Mense de Groot, an administrator who from 1942 lived in the Mauritshuis museum with his wife and children, including Menno, inspired researchers to examine the museum’s history.

“ ‘People were hiding in November 1944 because of the Arbeitseinsatz, but hiding in the Mauritshuis was hiding in plain sight,’ Quentin Buvelot, a researcher and curator, said. ‘It was a house in the storm.’

“Art from the museum, including Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring, was first hidden in a bomb-proof bunker underneath the building and later stored in locations around the Netherlands. The German-born museum director Wilhelm Martin played a careful role, allowing the Nazis five propaganda exhibitions while also quietly resisting.

“A newly discovered note on Martin’s retirement in 1953 revealed he was involved in supporting people who had gone undercover on Assendelftstraat and in the museum. ‘Martin doesn’t say how many, but he says that on a daily basis, 36 loaves of bread were delivered. …

“Secret concerts were also held in the museum’s basement between 1942 and 1944, according to Frank van Vree, an author and researcher at the NIOD institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. ‘They were held to support musicians who were cornered by their resistance to German measures, especially compulsory membership of the Nazi Kultuurkamer,’ he said. …

“Mense de Groot, who was hired to work at the museum when the janitor retired, also worked for the resistance. ‘He usually got Trouw, an underground newspaper,’ Menno de Groot says in the exhibition. ‘And my dad, he copied them, made more copies. …

“Life under occupation was a series of difficult choices, according to Eelke Muller, a historian and NIOD specialist in looted art. ‘There was little knowledge [before this research] about how culture could be a political instrument for resistance from the Netherlands but also a strong ideological instrument for the occupier,’ she said. ‘Every museum, every civil servant in times of war was confronted with huge dilemmas: do you choose principled resistance, enthusiastically get behind Nazi ideas, or are you somewhere in the middle?’ More at the Guardian, here. No paywall.

Nina Siegal at the New York Times adds details about the famous Vermeer that Martin also hid.

“At first it went to a bomb shelter in the basement of a museum, then an art bunker built into the dunes on the North Sea in the Netherlands. Toward the end of the war it was hidden in a secured cave in Maastricht, a Dutch city near the Belgian border.

“Starting in 1939, as war in Europe spread and the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands loomed, leaders of the Mauritshuis, the jewel box museum in The Hague, took extraordinary steps to protect Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ and other works central to its collection.

“Wilhelm Martin, the museum’s director at the time, removed it and other famous works … before the Germans arrived because he understood that they would be in peril, both from bombardments and from potential Nazi looting afterward.

“The survival of these works, through strategic planning, diplomatic appeasement and the German affinity with the conquered Dutch as ethnic brethren, is now the subject of an exhibit at the Mauritshuis. ‘Facing the Storm: A Museum in Wartime,’ which is on view until June 29, coincides with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 and is based on extensive new research.”

I hope blogging chefs Michiel and Jeen in the Netherlands get to see this.

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Dementia and the Five Senses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 1, 2024| 5 Comments »

Photo: Judith Jockel/The Guardian.
As part of outreach to people in the Netherlands with dementia, Yke Prins uses a paint palette and spinning tops for a demonstration about colors.

About a year ago, I saw a meditation and breathing exercise that involves focusing on one’s five senses. Very interesting. (Click here.) Just as we don’t think about our breathing all the time, we don’t always think about how important each of our five senses is either.

Now I’m reading that one approach to reaching people with dementia also taps into the five senses. That is happening in the Netherlands, which is generally ahead of the curve on senior care. It’s from there that Senay Boztas reported today’s story for the Guardian.

“Eight people approached a fragrant carpet of lavender in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag gallery,” she writes. “Four of them had dementia and four were their relatives and carers. ‘Put your nose nearer the ground and smell it, it’s wonderful!’ called Annie Versteeg, 88, to Bwieuwkje Bruinenberg-Haisma, 90, in her wheelchair nearby.

“ ‘This tour is about color and here we have a color and it goes with a smell,’ said Yke Prins, the museum guide. ‘Do you know what it is? It is lavender. What does it make you think about?’

“This was no ordinary gallery tour, but a dedicated effort to welcome visitors with dementia and their carers. The new Art Connection tour ran for the first time [in June] and is scheduled for the last Friday afternoon of every month.

“ ‘The heart does not get dementia,’ said Maaike Staffhorst, the museum’s spokesperson. ‘People with dementia still have feelings [that] can give a sense of fulfillment. For the carer, this brings a level of equality. You can talk about the same thing.’ …

“On the inaugural tour, the residents of the Nebo care home and their carers looked at four artworks. … Prins opened up a bag of tricks: she whipped spinning tops to demonstrate how dots of color blend in front of the eye; pulled out palettes of color and, at the last work, coloring-in sheets.

“Bruinenberg-Haisma, who, her son Harry said, had been in the care home for four months after it became too difficult for him to look after her, wore a constant smile. ‘Beautiful!’ she said, several times.

“Another visitor, Jeroen Smit, 74, who was diagnosed with dementia after falling from his bicycle two years ago, said over tea before the tour that he struggled with daily life. ‘I can’t do it any more – I’m rudderless,’ he said. As the afternoon progressed, he visibly relaxed.

“The free art tours in The Hague– organized thanks to a bequest – were inspired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York’s Alzheimer’s Project. They are part of a larger push to adapt Dutch society as the population ages and one in three women and one in seven men will be diagnosed with dementia.

“This was a priority for Conny Helder, the last minister of long-term care. ‘It’s vital that we keep working to ensure that people with dementia are treated as valued members of society,’ she told the Guardian. … ‘Science shows that this can enhance cognitive functioning in many people with dementia, effectively giving them their lives back. All this requires a major change in thinking.’

“One driving force towards a ‘dementia-friendly‘ society is Alzheimer Nederland. The charity has helped create free, online training videos so everyone can recognize and respond correctly to signs of Alzheimer’s. …

“ ‘This is hugely urgent,’ said the director, Gerjoke Wilmink. ‘Right now, about 300,000 people are living with dementia in the Netherlands and this number will rise explosively to around half a million in 2040. But care and carers are not growing in tandem. It is essential that people with dementia can continue to participate … and this needs to be systematically embedded in our society.’ …

“Rotterdam’s deputy mayor for care, Ronald Buijt, described initiatives such as multilingual awareness programs for city workers and taxi drivers, and Alzheimer’s cafes for old and young. ‘The most important thing is for us to learn that these people should live as good a life as possible, and as normal a life,’ he said. ‘Let them do what they can still do.’ …

“Elsewhere in the Netherlands, a ‘participation choir‘ initiative matches singers with dementia with two supportive buddies, who pick them up and help them find their way in the songbook. ‘The musical memory stays intact for the longest time,’ said the choir’s founder, Erik Zwiers. ‘Caregivers, the audience, musicians all see that people with dementia can reach a higher artistic level than they often think. It gives a completely new view on how to deal with people with dementia – and it’s fun.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here.

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The Offline Club

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 24, 2024| 4 Comments »

Photo: Stefano Giovannini for N.Y.Post.
A reading party in New York. No phones.

I often wonder why anyone agrees to get notifications on their mobile phones. To me, it feels like some sort of conspiracy to keep us all from ever finishing a thought. That’s why I love hearing about people who have said “enough already” to cellphones, at least for a fewer hours a day.

Today’s story is from the Netherlands, and Orla Barry covers it at the radio show The World.

“Saliha Gündüz, a PhD student from Turkey, has just handed over her smartphone to one of the founders of The Offline Club in Amsterdam, who places it carefully in a ‘phone hotel’ — essentially a locker with dividers that holds up to 60 phones.

“Gündüz said she doesn’t feel apprehensive yet — and she settled down to a cup of herbal tea at the New Yoga School cafe in the center of Amsterdam.

“ ‘The withdrawal symptoms will kick in later,’ she said. ‘But maybe a withdrawal is what’s needed if I’m going to cure myself of my addiction.’ …

“Gündüz is among 20 people of all ages and nationalities who turned up at The Offline Club on a wet Friday evening in May to see if they could wean themselves off of their addiction.

“The club’s founders — Ilya Kneppelhout, Valentijn Klok and Jordy van Bennekom — started the venture in 2022 with a plan to host offline weekend getaways. Kneppelhout said, at the time, each of the co-founders felt their phones had been dominating their lives.

“Earlier that year, he took a short trip to the north of the Netherlands on his own with ‘some books, a journal and myself.’ No phone. He said something shifted over those four days.

“ ‘I felt so much creativity and, at the same time, a sense of peace.’

“Van Bennekom did the same and loved it. They began organizing weekend getaways with groups in a house in the countryside. Everyone was required to hand over their phones upon arrival. The three-day events were a hit. But Kneppelhout said that not everyone can afford to pay a few hundred dollars for the experience. So, the idea of The Offline Club was born.

“Each attendee at the club pays around $8 at the door. The events and venues differ each time. At the New Yoga School in Amsterdam, van Bennekom lays out the rules for the evening.

“First, there’s 45 minutes of quiet time, then a 30-minute break to chat, then a further 30 minutes of time to yourself. Most people bring books to read. Soft music plays in the background as van Bennekom lays out coloring books and markers for anyone who wants to draw or doodle.

“On that rainy Friday, three men from Puglia in Italy were huddled in one corner drinking tea. Two of them were visiting their friend Pietro Maggi who lives in Amsterdam. Maggi, who works for electric carmaker Tesla, said the evening was his idea and that he persuaded his two visitors to join him. …

“[Damiano Caforio admits] ‘I keep looking at the news constantly, checking to see what’s going on in the world, or, more specifically, with my job.’ He works at the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

“ ‘I need to know what’s going on, I feel I need to control the environment. … Actually, I desperately need this experience tonight,’ he laughed. …

“Leah Davies from Wales said she spotted a post about The Offline Club on Instagram.

“ ‘I saw people reading books and knitting and playing piano,’ she said. ‘And I just loved the idea of being able to go somewhere where you’re not checking your phone all night.’ …

“Davies said she would like to see phones restricted at other events too, like concerts and nightclubs, ‘so people can just dance or talk like you did in the ‘90s.’

“Phone-free music events are already happening elsewhere in the Netherlands. In Tilburg, a city in the south of the country, another group, Off the Radar, organizes music gigs where attendees are expected to hand in their devices at the door.

“There isn’t anything quintessentially Dutch about the desire to have smartphone-free events, said Ilya Kneppelhout, co-founder of The Offline Club. But work-life balance is an important aspect of life in the Netherlands. …

“A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found only 0.3% of employees in the Netherlands work very long hours in paid work, the lowest rate in the OECD, where the average is 10%. In January, smartphones were banned in secondary schools across the country under government guidelines.

“A similar ban is set to be introduced in Dutch primary schools in the 2024-25 school year. A study last month by Radboud University in the Netherlands found that students were generally positive about the change, saying breaks were more enjoyable and there was less bullying during school hours.”

More at The World, here. No firewall. See my earlier post on the new book-reading parties, here.

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The Fish Doorbell of Utrecht

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 26, 2024| 5 Comments »

Photo: Trip.com.
The Weerdsluis lock in Utrecht, the Netherlands, has an unusual fish-friendly feature.

More often than not constructions that humans think they need really don’t work for wildlife. Some creatures adapt. Others need help.

Hannah Docter-Loeb writes at Slate magazine, “It’s a rainy Friday morning in Utrecht, a town just outside Amsterdam, and I’m looking for a boat lock. The city is full of them, but I’m looking for a very special one — the Weerdsluis lock. … (A boat lock is, for the uninitiated, basically an elevator for boats. It helps raise and lower them between areas with different water levels. There are a lot of them in the Netherlands.) There are lock attendants in a booth, waiting for boats to pass.

“But if you look closely enough, you can see a camera submerged in the water. Which from my vantage point, looks like … muddy water. But I know about 1,000 people are tuning in to the footage in real time to see what’s below the muck. They are waiting to ring the fish doorbell.

“The doorbell ‘opened’ for the season at the end of March. Fish will gather on one side, where the underwater camera keeps watch and livestreams the view on a website. People anywhere in the world can spot a fish, and press a button (the doorbell), signaling for the lock operator to open the barrier. ….

“The idea came to ecologist Mark van Heukelum in 2021. He had been studying the barriers to fish migration in Utrecht. Like many Dutch cities, the city is laden with canals, fixed channels, and boats. Although picturesque, some of these structures physically get in the way of fish that swim through the city during spawning season. One of the most troublesome barriers to fish swimming through Utrecht: the Weerdsluis lock.

” ‘One of the main issues for fish was that the boat lock is in the way,’ van Heukelum told me over Zoom, with three little decorative fish in the background. During that initial visit, he could literally see the fish queuing up at the lock — which is typically closed in the spring, and operated manually by lock operators.

“Van Heukelum, who works as an environmental consultant, thought it would take a lot of effort and bureaucracy to implement a way for the fish to get through. But the lock operator offered a simpler solution. ‘He listened to me and said, “Well I can also open the lock right now for the fish.” ‘

“In fact, the lock operator was willing to open the lock more often, as long as he knew fish were present. Within a year, van Heukelum and his team had installed a camera, livestreaming the ecosystem below the water. …

‘A camera on the water isn’t necessarily a new thing, but the fact you can actually do something and push a button and help out, that is definitely a first,’ van Heukelum said.

“The fish doorbell launched for the first time on March 29, 2021 — unfortunate timing, van Heukelum noted, as it was just a few days before April Fool’s Day. ‘We didn’t think about it,’ he recounted. ‘Media jumped on it because they thought it was so funny, it had to be a joke.’ ”

At the New York Times, Callie Holtermann adds, “Four years later, that skepticism has subsided. Mr. van Heukelum said he had been shocked by how many people had developed an obsession with his fish doorbell. He estimated that more than 6,300 fish passed through last year thanks to their efforts.

“ ‘Realizing that people from the U.S. or Australia or New Zealand are helping to get fish past a lock in the Netherlands, it’s such a strange idea,’ he said, adding, ‘I am living on a cloud right now.’ ”

Hannah Poole sent the Slate article. More at the Times, here.

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Dutch Town Adores Dickens

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 20, 2024| 7 Comments »

Photo: Sander Korvemaker.
Despite no known historical connection with Charles Dickens, this Dutch town plays host to an annual Dickens festival, the world’s largest.

Today’s story about a town that loves Charles Dickens drew me in because I also love Dickens. That is, I love his novels. With the exception of The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge — neither of which I liked — I have read them all multiple times. But I have also read about the man himself and am pretty sure he was not a very nice guy.

The surprising Dickens festival that Senay Boztas writes about at the Guardian focuses on both the novels and the guy.

Boztas reports, “Soon after limited Sunday trading started in the Netherlands, an anglophile shopkeeper in the small city of Deventer decided it could all be a bit more fun.

“ ‘My 82-year-old mother, Emmy Strik, is England-minded because my grandfather always went to England and read a lot of Dickens,’ said her daughter, Liesbeth Velders, who now runs the Dille & Kamille homeware store. ‘So when we were going to open on Sunday, she decided to make it a fancy-dress party – except the fancy-dress party got a bit out of hand.’

“Decades later, Strik’s experiment in literary frivolity has gone further than she could have imagined. The event she began in 1991 to commemorate Charles Dickens has run for 33 years, with a two-year break during the Covid pandemic.

“Despite no known historical connection with the author, Deventer, in the eastern province of Overijssel, now plays host to what is believed to be the world’s largest Dickens festival. This weekend [in December 2023], 950 volunteers will fill the streets of the ancient Bergkwartier, performing street theatre and selling hot punch and Victorian treats. There are strict rules for actors and traders: no [sneakers], modern watches or mobile phones.

“Among the expected 125,000 visitors will be Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Queen Victoria, Miss Havisham, beggars, thieves and, for the first time, Dickens himself.

“Ojon van Strijland, a bookseller and volunteer at the Dickens Kabinet museum, said he and Strik had learned while on a trip to Kent, where Dickens spent much of his childhood, that authenticity was essential.

“ ‘Years ago, Emmy and I went to [the city of] Rochester’s Dickensian Christmas festival to seek inspiration but there were things there we would not want,’ he said. ‘There were people walking around with Christmas lights on, Santa hats and polyester costumes.’ …

“Strik amassed almost 1,000 authentic costumes, collected enough Dickensian items to fill a museum and grew the Dickens Festijn with commercial sponsorship and support from Events dEVENTer. She has now – largely – handed over the reins to her daughter.

“ ‘We can’t roast chestnuts in big drums any more; there’s a fist-thick book of rules from the fire brigade and the police, but it’s still a real festival,’ said Velders.

“The festival has huge local status. One couple’s 50th wedding anniversary is being incorporated into this year’s edition, while 62-year-old system administrator Wessel Lindeboom is polishing insults in multiple languages for his dream role of Scrooge. …

“At a time when Dutch children’s reading skills are declining, some hope the festival will encourage a wider love of literature. ‘A lot of the visitors have never read a Dickens book but everyone recognizes Scrooge, who walks around calling “humbug!” and insulting people,’ said Velders. ‘There are also storytellers who recount the story of the books.’ …

“The mayor of Deventer, Ron König, hopes visitors will have an enormous amount of fun but also take home a more profound message. ‘The festival beautifully portrays the differences between rich and poor, an issue we are still trying to tackle.’ …

“Peter Jan Margry, professor of European ethnology at Amsterdam University, believes this kind of event provides a welcome break, particularly in dark days. …

“ ‘The festival of Christmas is also about stepping out of your own time into an atmosphere of carols and Christmas trees and a flight from reality,’ he said. ‘But it’s also a form of occupying yourself, a type of tourism, stepping out of your daily life, that you see in all fantasy and live action role-playing. … It’s about stepping into another world.’ “

I hope my blogging friends at Cook and Drink will weigh in on this aspect of life in their beautiful and surprising country.

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall. Subscriptions encouraged.

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The World’s Cycling City

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 1, 2023| 5 Comments »

Photo: Modacity.
“To understand how Groningen got to where it is today, one must look back nearly 50 years, to a young, idealistic politician who bravely decided to go against conventional wisdom,” says the Daily Hive.

I haven’t been to Ocean Beach on Fire Island in decades, so I don’t know if it is still entirely free of cars, but it definitely was in my childhood summers, and it’s hard to convey just how radically that changes the quality of life for the better. Car-free in the Netherlands sounds heavenly, too.

Chris and Melissa Bruntlett write at the Daily Hive, “When we initially selected the five Dutch cities we would explore over the course of our #CyclingAbroad adventure, many of our friends had no idea where Groningen was, let alone why we would want to visit there. But among our colleagues in the transportation and urbanism world, a pilgrimage to this once-fortressed college town, 200 km northeast of Utrecht – famously declared ‘The World’s Cycling City’ by Streetfilms’ short documentary  – was an absolute must.

“With a population of around 200,000, a quarter of whom are students at the two local universities, Groningen has accomplished a feat many emerging cycling cities could only dream of: a bicycle mode share that eclipses the established powerhouses of Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Recent figures indicate a staggering 61% of trips in the city are made by bicycle. That’s almost nine times larger than Vancouver’s celebrated mode share. …

“To understand how Groningen got to where it is today, one must look back nearly 50 years, to a young, idealistic politician who bravely decided to go against conventional wisdom.

“In the mid-1970s, as cities across the country were scrambling to create the ideal conditions for mass motoring (including, most notably, Amsterdam), a left-leaning Groningen council recognized the inherent flaws in rebuilding their city around the private automobile. Max Van den Berg, then just 24 years old, and the councillor responsible for traffic and urban development, resolved to take his city in the opposite direction. Under Van den Berg’s advice, in 1977, council all but banished motor vehicles from the city centre, making it a far more pleasant place for people on foot and bicycle.

“For Lior Steinberg, an urban planner born and raised in Tel Aviv, the resulting lively cityscape is what drew him to relocate to Groningen, after a study tour while completing his master’s degree. ‘Groningen is a vibrant city, and there is a great cultural life. It’s a real hidden gem,’ he claims. …

“Steinberg credits Van den Berg’s Traffic Circulation Plan as central to Groningen’s successes: ‘The circulation plan divided the city centre to four parts, forbidding cars to cross between those quarters,’ he explains. ‘This made the city centre practically impenetrable with a car, and made cycling and walking the best way to get around.’

“While the plan didn’t completely remove motor vehicles from the equation (public buses and delivery vans still access certain parts of the city centre), we pedalled practically everywhere with our children over the course of a week, feeling completely at ease with our surroundings. Bicycles definitely rule the road in Groningen, with thousands of cyclists rolling along virtually every one of its cobblestone streets, from dawn until long after dusk. …

“Other Dutch cities began replicating their winning formula, and – having discovered that improving cycling conditions serves as an inexpensive and effective way to remain competitive – quickly started catching up.

“At the same time, many of the city’s cycle routes were experiencing problematic congestion, particularly on corridors leading to the university campus. The need to deal with an ever-increasing volume of people on bikes, along with the desire to retain their title of ‘The World’s Cycling City,’ are what provided the impetus for the Groningen Cycling City strategy.

“ ‘Cycling is in our DNA. We are proud of it and definitely aim to keep it that way,’ reads the preface of the 48-page plan. This is as clear of a mission statement as it gets. …

“Many the projects contained in this ‘bicycle first’ strategy are rather ambitious and innovative. Most notably, as a northern city, Groningen’s temperatures often hover around freezing during winter months, creating frosty conditions unsafe for road users, especially those on the narrow wheels of a bike. Within the next decade, officials hope to use geothermal energy (from the earth) and wastewater thermal energy (from the sewers) to heat the cycle tracks, keeping them clear of frost and snow, and allowing for safe, year-round, two-wheeled travel.

“Other measures include a series of ‘smart routes‘: direct, convenient cycle paths designed to get students and staff to school in 15 minutes, without having to make a single stop.

Groningen is also one of the first cities to attempt to ‘solve traffic situations with eye contact,’ first piloting, then expanding, a counterintuitive, but highly effective four-way green light for cyclists at 29 different intersections.

“With as many as 20,000 cyclists traveling certain corridors on a given day, planners are being forced to ‘think outside the lane,’ and experiment with the notion of handing entire streets – known as fietsstraten (Dutch for ‘bike streets’) – over to the bicycle as the dominant mode of transportation.

“The plan also includes a long-overdue expansion of their central train and bus station. Already overflowing from its above and below-ground parking lots – capable of holding 10,000 bikes – the strategy aims to expand that availability by another 5,000 bikes. The City also hopes to improve connectivity from the station to the existing cycling network by building a bicycle tunnel under the bus depot, reducing conflicts between these two popular modes. …

“In every Dutch city we toured, moving by bike was simple and intuitive, even for our seven-year-old son. But traveling on foot was much less desirable, and Groningen was no exception. Sidewalks are narrow, and teeming with bikes parked anywhere their owners could find a space. In fact, shops along the busier routes in Groningen now roll out red carpets to their front doors; not to make their patrons feel like royalty, but to discourage the parking of bicycles, and maintain access for their customers.

“Steinberg feels addressing people on foot is of utmost importance: ‘To be frank, the biggest concern at City Hall today shouldn’t be cycling, but walkability. Many of the city’s sidewalks are not accessible to elderly or physically-challenged people.’ ”

More at the Daily Hive, here. Because the Hive article is from 2016, I recommend that biking enthusiasts check out this update from 2022.

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Too Litigious for Happy Aging

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 12, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Alex Halada/AFP via Getty Images.
Elderly spectators arrive to attend a concert specifically tailored to people living with dementia at the Wiener Musikverein in Vienna on December 5, 2022.

Meghna Chakrabarti of WBUR’s On Point had a great show recently about enlightened dementia communities in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe.

I came away feeling that the reason we have little like this in the US is because of insurance. We are such a crazily litigious society, we can’t afford to take the slightest risk, even if it means an older person will have a happier aging experience.

Producer Paige Sutherland and host Meghna Chakrabarti shared highlights from the show at the WBUR website.

“Is there a better way to care for dementia patients? And what might that look like?

” ‘I think it really focuses on what’s the day-to-day life and looking at this balance between safety and freedom,’ Dr. Tia Powell [professor of psychiatry and bioethics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine] says.

“And that’s exactly what the Netherlands did when they opened up the first-ever ‘dementia village,’ where residents can live freely despite their memory loss.

” ‘Officially, it’s a nursing home, so we offer highly complex care, skilled nursing. But it does not look anything like a nursing home,’ [advisor at Be Advice] Iris Van Slooten says. …

“On the idea behind a ‘dementia village’

“Iris Van Slooten: It should be about the individual; it should be about the person living in that place and need to deal with dementia. And you want to continue your life even though you are dealing with dementia. And so you want to continue life like you did before and not be hospitalized. I always ask our visitors and the people we work with, would you want to live in a hospital for the rest of your life? And then always the answer, of course, is no.

“So then why did we do that to the people that were living with us? … You can continue with your life, you can stay a human being. And what makes you a human being, for instance, is that you can make your own choices every day. Like … what do I have on my sandwich? Or in what place do I want to be right now? Very, very simple choices we make every day but are taken away from people that live in a nursing home.

“On what the village looks like

“Iris Van Slooten: You will enter through a door and then you will enter the hallway. And that is a safe neighborhood where the outside of the homes are the barrier to the … broader surroundings. And we had a door because there were laws in place back when we designed … we had to keep people inside. But you will find 27 homes in a normal looking community. In a normal neighborhood. The homes look like normal Dutch homes with a normal living room, a kitchen, private bedrooms.

“And when residents also step out of the front door, … they are really outside. And there are many streets and many gardens they can explore. We have a restaurant, a pub, a theater, many club rooms, a supermarket. So, everything you will find in any neighborhood, in any community. So yeah, very normal, and especially on a sunny day and in spring and summer, of course, then you see a lot of people walking around, having conversations, meeting each other, grabbing a chair, enjoying a drink in a restaurant. It’s just life. …

“Every resident that lives there has severe dementia. So, you need to have an indication from the Dutch government saying you have severe dementia. … We have teams in the houses that support the household and really run the household. But we also have a quite extensive medical support team, including a specialist, elderly care, doctor, but also a psychiatrist, an official therapist, a social coach. …

“Say someone left their home, and they wanted to go to the village supermarket, but got lost or forgot the way. How do you help that person get to where they wanted to go?

“Iris Van Slooten: One thing we highly value in the Hogeweyk is having freedom and giving the freedom to these people and not restraining them. … They are free to walk around on their own. A lot of people can find their way because also people with severe dementia, they still have learning abilities, and the place is designed [so that it is] recognizable for them. …

“So also the staff in the restaurant, also the reception, also the technicians, also me when I’m there. … When I look out my office and I see somebody in the rain without a coat on, it might slip to the attention of a staff member in house. But then it’s also my job to go over there and find a jacket for that person. …

“On helping people maintain their independence and humanity in the ‘dementia village’

“Dr. Tia Powell: [As] a bioethicist, really all of our challenges can be summed up by the tension between maintaining freedom, which is part of what all human beings strive for, and safety. And this argument’s been going on forever for hundreds of years.

So I do think that many of the ways in which we provide care today in the U.S. for people with dementia do not focus on care, but they focus on other issues. You know, maintaining regulations, all kinds of other things.

“And we have forgotten about freedom and joy.”

A bit from the transcript on the sad US situation.

“Meghna Chakrabarti: Beth Ounsworth … was living a very rich life full of friends and music. As a member of her choir, she was independent in her own apartment in Philadelphia. And that started changing when Beth was about 69 years old. She began forgetting simple things like what day and time she had scheduled meetings, directions to common places. …

“And so her children finally took her to see a neurologist. And Beth was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Now, we spoke with her daughter, Meg Ounsworth Steere. Because Meg wanted to care for her mother, but with two young children at home, it just wasn’t possible. So they looked at assisted living centers near where Meg lived in Boston.

“Meg Ounsworth Steere: So she did go and visit a few assisted living centers with me. … We went to lunch, and she just looked around and she was like, Not me, not now. And I was like, okay, you know? And that’s when we had this conversation about she was like, I don’t want to be in a place where I’m just surrounded by old people. I want to be in a place where there are, you know, babies, too, and young families, and I can feel a part of a community. …

“Chakrabarti: So Beth stayed in Philadelphia, but it wasn’t easy. Daughter Meg had to find full time aides to take Beth to all of her appointments and to help with all of her daily activities. Meanwhile, the disease progressed.

“Ounsworth Steere: It got to a point when I took her to the neurologist. He would give her a mini mental state exam and 30 is normal. My mom was testing at a four at that point. Partially because she has aphasia and so she doesn’t really understand words. And so he was like, you know, she’s not going to answer the questions that were like, do you know who the president is? …

“Chakrabarti: So the family decided it would be better for Beth to live in a memory care facility. And they found a good one near Boston. Beth moved in in 2018, and ever since then, Meg and the family have been paying about $100,000 out of pocket for the facility every year.

“Ounsworth Steere: What worries me is that I know I’m on the luckier side and it’s still not perfect. So I can’t quite fathom what it’s like when you have to go to a facility that can’t possibly retain the aides that they want. … Or where aides are just less engaged and involved, they’re just kind of physically there. Kind of like the first aides that I had, but not really assisting, you know, and engaging with and kind of trying to love the resident and then the people who can’t afford care at all. I just, I don’t know how that’s possible.

“Chakrabarti: Meg visits her mother often. Beth is nonverbal now, However, Meg gets to communicate with her in a different way: by singing.”

If you click on the arrow at WBUR, here, you can listen to the whole show. PS. I blogged about the Dutch dementia village in 2016, here!

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High-Tech Dutch Farming

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 17, 2022| 4 Comments »

Photo: Pixabay.
Believe it or not, little Holland is the world’s second-largest food exporter.

We know from childhood stories that the Dutch have always been innovative. Think about all that land taken from the sea by means of dikes. But who knew that such a little country as the Netherlands was the world’s second-largest food exporter? How do they do it?

Laura Reiley at the Washington Post has the details.

“The rallying cry in the Netherlands started two decades ago, as concern mounted about its ability to feed its 17 million people: Produce twice as much food using half as many resources.

“The country, which is a bit bigger than Maryland, not only accomplished this feat but also has become the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products by value behind the United States. Perhaps even more significant in the face of a warming planet: It is among the largest exporters of agricultural and food technology. The Dutch have pioneered cell-cultured meat, vertical farming, seed technology and robotics in milking and harvesting — spearheading innovations that focus on decreased water usage as well as reduced carbon and methane emissions.

“The Netherlands produces 4 million cows, 13 million pigs and 104 million chickens annually and is Europe’s biggest meat exporter. But it also provides vegetables to much of Western Europe. The country has nearly 24,000 acres — almost twice the size of Manhattan — of crops growing in greenhouses. These greenhouses, with less fertilizer and water, can grow in a single acre what would take 10 acres of traditional dirt farming to achieve.

Dutch farms use only a half-gallon of water to grow about a pound of tomatoes, while the global average is more than 28 gallons. …

“With their limited land and a rainy climate, the Dutch have become masters of efficiency. But there are challenges: The greenhouse industry has flourished in part because of cheap energy, but Western Europe is facing soaring gas prices. And the country’s intensive animal agricultural practices are also at risk. This summer, a conservative government coalition pledged to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030, which would necessitate a dramatic reduction in the number of animals raised in the country. Farmers and ranchers have protested. …

“Dutch companies are the world’s top suppliers of seeds for ornamental plants and vegetables. There is an area in the northwest called Seed Valley, where new varieties of vegetables and flowers are in constant development. Enza Zaden is headquartered here, just north of Amsterdam.

“In three generations, Enza Zaden has evolved from a family-owned seed shop into a global market leader in vegetable breeding, with more than 2,500 employees and 45 subsidiaries in 25 countries.

“Jaap Mazereeuw, Enza Zaden’s managing director, said the company spends $100 million annually on research, introducing about 150 new vegetable varieties each year.

“ ‘We are very much a research company,’ he said. ‘With climate change, we are seeing the weather becoming more extreme. We’re looking at resilient varieties, seeds for organic farms as well as varieties that are more salt tolerant for places where water quality is not good. We need to find solutions for subsistence farmers all the way up to large-scale farmers. …

“ ‘We have our own indoor farm here where we develop the varieties of the future, crops that can grow quickly and be harvested quickly: lettuce, herbs, leafy crops. The genetics can be improved, as well as the whole technology — indoor farming will only become cheaper.’ …

“More than 12 billion heads of lettuce are grown each year from Enza Zaden’s seeds, but it was a tomato in the early 1960s that really put the company on the map — and perhaps what, in turn, put the Netherlands on the map for tomatoes. The country’s greenhouses produce nearly a million tons of tomatoes a year, with exports totaling around $2 billion annually.

“ ‘There’s a new tomato virus and we recently found the resistance to that virus in our seed bank,’ Mazereeuw said. The company stores its seeds in a temperature-controlled vault — called a seed bank — to preserve genetic diversity, but because seeds don’t stay viable forever, each stored variety must be grown out and those seeds, in turn, saved. …

“ [Eelco Ockers is] chief executive of PlantLab, which develops and operates custom-built indoor farms worldwide — systems they call ‘plant production units.’ Indoor vertical farmers trade in the free power of the sun for much more expensive electric light, but the benefit is they can much more easily control every variable to get consistent and reliable yield, Ockers said.

“The three founders put together their first prototype in 2008 and launched the company in 2010, helping Dutch greenhouse and indoor farmers increase yields with LED lights even when the technology was in its infancy. They have a system whereby enough crops to supply 100,000 residents daily with nearly half a pound of fresh vegetables each can be grown in an area no larger than two football fields. …

“PlantLab’s research and development center in Den Bosch is the largest such center for vertical farming in the world, and it uses limited light spectrum LEDs and plastic stacked production trays, and the plants grow in vermiculite with their roots in water. ‘Nothing is hand-harvested, nothing is touched by human hands,’ Ockers said. The water is recirculated, meaning no water is lost in the growing process. For now, the system is most effective for growing leafy greens, herbs and tomatoes, but he said cucumbers, zucchinis and all types of berries are suited to this growing system. And by limiting the time between harvest and consumption, he said, food waste is minimized and nutrient density is much higher than traditionally grown crops.”

Outdoor farming in Holland is really creative, too. The article covers not only growing vegetables outdoors but raising pigs, cows, and chickens. Read it all at the Post, here.

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“Mining” Demolished Buildings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 15, 2022| 6 Comments »

In the interest of bringing you some of the latest ideas in sustainability, here is a story on reusing building materials, leasing instead of buying products, and other ideas to lighten the planet’s burden. And they are not just ideas.

Jessica Camille Aguirre reports at the New York Times, “When the Dutch National Bank moved into its Amsterdam headquarters in 1968, the new buildings were epic and stylish. A sprawling Modernist landmark that took up an entire city block off the banks of the Amstel Canal, it was distinguished by a towering high-rise of polished ochre tile. …

“A few decades into the new millennium, the entire complex began to show signs of wear. Tiles fell off the facade. Pipes began to leak. And, perhaps most troubling in a country that prized itself on environmental innovation, its overextended heating systems burned too much fuel.

“In 2020, an architecture firm completed a design plan that would update the original structures and transform the inner courtyard into a public garden. …

“Typically, the fate of a building that has outlasted its usefulness is demolition, leaving behind a huge pile of waste. The Netherlands and other European countries have tried to reduce that waste with regulations. Buildings there are often smashed to pieces and repurposed for asphalt. … A Dutch environmental engineer named Michel Baars thought he could do better than turn [a building] into material for a road.

Mr. Baars considers himself an urban miner, someone who extracts raw materials from discarded infrastructure and finds a market for them. …

“Lean and no-nonsense, Mr. Baars belongs to an emerging group of architects, engineers, contractors and designers who are determined to find a new way to build. This group shares a philosophy rooted in a set of ideas sometimes called the circular or regenerative economy, the cradle-to-cradle approach, or the doughnut economy.

“There are two main tenets to their thinking: First, on a planet with limited resources and a rapidly warming climate, it’s crazy to throw stuff away; second, products should be designed with reuse in mind. The first idea is a recognizable part of our everyday lives: Recycling has retrieved value from household trash for a long time. More recently, the approach has started to gain a toehold in industries like fashion, with secondhand retailers and clothing rental services, and in food production, with compostable packaging. The second takes more forethought and would require companies to rethink their businesses in the most basic ways. Translating either concept to the infrastructure of human settlements requires considering reuse in much longer time scales. …

“Buildings use a prodigious amount of raw materials and are responsible for nearly 40 percent of the world’s climate emissions, half of which is generated by their construction. The production of cement is alone responsible for eight percent of global emissions.

“In recent years, concern about waste and the climate has led cities like Portland, Ore., and Milwaukee to pass ordinances requiring certain houses to be deconstructed rather than demolished. Private companies in Japan have spearheaded new ways of taking high-rises down from the inside, floor by floor. China promised to repurpose 60 percent of construction waste in its recent five-year plan. But perhaps no country has committed itself as deeply to circular policies as the Netherlands.

“In 2016, the national government announced that it would have a waste-free economy by 2050. At the same time, the country held the rotating Council of the European Union presidency, and it made circularity one of the main concepts driving the industrial sector across the bloc. Amsterdam’s city government has set its own goals, announcing plans to start building a fifth of new housing with wood or bio-based material by 2025 and halve the use of raw materials by 2030. Cities like Brussels, Copenhagen and Barcelona, Spain, have followed suit.

“Even in the Netherlands, though, creating a truly circular economy is challenging. Nearly half of all waste in the country comes from construction and demolition, according to national statistics, and a stunning 97 percent of that waste was classified as ‘recovered’ in 2018. But most of the recovered waste is downcycled — that is, crushed into roads or incinerated to produce energy. A 2020 report by the European Environment Agency pointed out that only 3 to 4 percent of material in new Dutch construction was reused in its original form, which means that trees are still being cut for lumber and limestone still mined for cement. …

“Mr. Baars, who runs a circular demolition company called New Horizon, sent a crew of around 15 people to take down the office partitions [in the bank tower]. They packed off interior glass and plasterboard to companies that could make use of the materials. Then, starting at the top of the 86,000-square-foot tower, they began removing the glass facade. A crane lifted pieces to a quay, where they were loaded onto barges in the Amstel Canal for the seven-mile trip upriver to Mr. Baars’s warehouse.”

A 2012 McKinsey report presented at the Davos World Economic Forum suggested that companies were missing out on opportunities to create new business models. “What if, for example, manufacturers could make more money by leasing, rather than selling, their products?

“Thomas Rau, an architect in Amsterdam, is a leading proponent of this idea. In 2015, he appeared in a Dutch documentary called The End of Ownership, in which he didn’t argue for abolishing ownership so much as for shifting it from individuals to manufacturers.

“If manufacturers retain ownership of their products, he argued, they will want to make products that last longer and need fewer repairs. Just as significant, they will want to design stuff that can be easily taken apart and used again. Theoretically, this could help consumers, too. No one wants to own a computer or television or washing machine, Mr. Rau claimed; they just want the services those products offer: computing ability, visual entertainment, textile cleaning. … Think about the speed with which subscription music-streaming services replaced ownership of CDs.” More at the Times, here.

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Dutch City Goes “Big Picture”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 28, 2021| 4 Comments »

This interesting story about reaching for a more egalitarian type of economics says that capitalism got started in the Netherlands in the 17th century, but a very good book says that says it started with the enclosure of commonly used pasture in England in the 13th century. (See Steven Stoll’s Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia.)

Whenever capitalism started, it’s past time for a look at whether it inevitably caused the extreme inequality we see today.

Ciara Nugent writes at Time, “One evening in December, after a long day working from home, Jennifer Drouin, 30, headed out to buy groceries in central Amsterdam. Once inside, she noticed new price tags. The label by the zucchini said they cost a little more than normal: 6¢ extra per kilo for their carbon footprint, 5¢ for the toll the farming takes on the land, and 4¢ to fairly pay workers. …

“The so-called true-price initiative, operating in the store since late 2020, is one of dozens of schemes that Amsterdammers have introduced in recent months as they reassess the impact of the existing economic system. By some accounts, that system, capitalism, has its origins just a mile from the grocery store. In 1602, in a house on a narrow alley, a merchant began selling shares in the nascent Dutch East India Company. In doing so, he paved the way for the creation of the first stock exchange — and the capitalist global economy that has transformed life on earth. ‘

“[But, asks Drouin], ‘Is it actually making us healthy and happy? …

“In April 2020, during the first wave of COVID-19, Amsterdam’s city government announced it would recover from the crisis, and avoid future ones, by embracing the theory of ‘doughnut economics.’

“Laid out by British economist Kate Raworth in a 2017 book, the theory argues that 20th century economic thinking is not equipped to deal with the 21st century reality of a planet teetering on the edge of climate breakdown. Instead of equating a growing GDP with a successful society, our goal should be to fit all of human life into what Raworth calls the ‘sweet spot’ between the ‘social foundation,’ where everyone has what they need to live a good life, and the ‘environmental ceiling.’ By and large, people in rich countries are living above the environmental ceiling. Those in poorer countries often fall below the social foundation. The space in between: that’s the doughnut.

“Amsterdam’s ambition is to bring all 872,000 residents inside the doughnut, ensuring everyone has access to a good quality of life, but without putting more pressure on the planet than is sustainable. Guided by Raworth’s organization, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), the city is introducing massive infrastructure projects, employment schemes and new policies for government contracts to that end. …

“Raworth says DEAL has received an avalanche of requests from municipal leaders and others seeking to build more resilient societies in the aftermath of COVID-19. Copenhagen’s city council majority decided to follow Amsterdam’s example in June, as did the Brussels region and the small city of Dunedin, New Zealand, in September, and Nanaimo, British Columbia, in December. In the U.S., Portland, Ore., is preparing to roll out its own version of the doughnut, and Austin may be close behind.

“The theory has won Raworth some high-profile fans; in November, Pope Francis endorsed her ‘fresh thinking,’ while celebrated British naturalist Sir David Attenborough dedicated a chapter to the doughnut in his latest book, A Life on Our Planet, calling it ‘our species’ compass for the journey’ to a sustainable future. …

“Amsterdam is grappling with what the doughnut would look like on the ground. Marieke van Doorninck, the deputy mayor for sustainability and urban planning, says the pandemic added urgency that helped the city get behind a bold new strategy. … She says, ‘I think in the darkest times, it’s easiest to imagine another world.’ …

“Raworth published her theory of the doughnut as a paper in 2012 and later as a 2017 book, which has since been translated into 20 languages. The theory doesn’t lay out specific policies or goals for countries. It requires stakeholders to decide what benchmarks would bring them inside the doughnut — emission limits, for example, or an end to homelessness. The process of setting those benchmarks is the first step to becoming a doughnut economy, she says.

“Raworth argues that the goal of getting ‘into the doughnut’ should replace governments’ and economists’ pursuit of never-ending GDP growth. Not only is the primacy of GDP overinflated when we now have many other data sets to measure economic and social well-being, she says, but also, endless growth powered by natural resources and fossil fuels will inevitably push the earth beyond its limits. …

“The doughnut can seem abstract, and it has attracted criticism. Some conservatives say the doughnut model can’t compete with capitalism’s proven ability to lift millions out of poverty. Some critics on the left say the doughnut’s apolitical nature means it will fail to tackle ideology and political structures that prevent climate action.

“Cities offer a good opportunity to prove that the doughnut can actually work in practice. … Van Doorninck, the deputy mayor, says the doughnut was a revelation.

‘I was brought up in Thatcher times, in Reagan times, with the idea that there’s no alternative to our economic model. … Reading the doughnut was like, Eureka! There is an alternative! Economics is a social science, not a natural one. It’s invented by people, and it can be changed by people.’ …

“When the Netherlands went into lockdown in March, the city realized that thousands of residents didn’t have access to computers that would become increasingly necessary to socialize and take part in society. Rather than buy new devices — which would have been expensive and eventually contribute to the rising problem of e-waste — the city arranged collections of old and broken laptops from residents who could spare them, hired a firm to refurbish them and distributed 3,500 of them to those in need. ‘It’s a small thing, but to me it’s pure doughnut,’ says van Doorninck. …

“The doughnut model doesn’t proscribe all economic growth or development. In her book, Raworth acknowledges that for low- and middle-income countries to climb above the doughnut’s social foundation, ‘significant GDP growth is very much needed.’ But that economic growth needs to be viewed as a means to reach social goals within ecological limits, she says, and not as an indicator of success in itself.”

More at Time, here.

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Refugees Making Face Masks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 14, 2020| 3 Comments »

As a volunteer in English classes (all online these days), I am aware that most immigrants are determined to contribute to the countries they arrive in. Consider, for example, the Muslim husband and wife in Germany who were largely responsible for the miracle vaccine developed in one year against the odds.

In the Netherlands, the Refugee Company has immigrants employed in making face masks to protect the Dutch against Covid-19.

Michal van der Toorn at the Local Europe has the story.

“Why be dependent on factories on the other side of the world if you can produce face masks locally? That’s exactly what Dutch entrepreneurs Jaap Stelwagen, Fleur Bakker, Johan Blom and Naz Kawan thought in March. The Netherlands, like many other countries at the time, was dealing with a big deficit of surgical face masks.

“Stelwagen, who lived in China, together with his wife who is originally from China, called several people there to ask whether it would be possible to get material. Bakker’s sister, a KLM pilot, managed to get hold of a roll of [fabric] that you need to make face masks, and brought it to the Netherlands on a plane full of other health equipment. Later that month, on one of the few flights that were running at the time, two face mask machines flew 7,000 kilometres to Amsterdam.

“But who would operate them? [One] Company already had a sewing workshop and restaurants in place where people with a refugee background were able to acquire work experience. [The company writes its name Refugee Company to focus on the work, not immigration status.]

“ ‘As a response to the pandemic,’ project spokesperson Peter-Paul de Jong explains, ‘we decided to set up a face mask factory: the Mondmaskerfabriek. … The project not only responded to the deficit of masks in Dutch healthcare,’ de Jong explains, “but also provides people with a refugee background with work experience and knowledge about the labour market in the Netherlands.’

“Firas al Naif, 33, is one of the employees in the factory. ‘I’m doing different tasks,’ he says. ‘I for example have to make sure the masks are properly wrapped and check if the machines work.’ It is all new for Al Naif, as in Syria, he worked as a biology teacher. ‘I wasn’t used to doing technical tasks. The first month was pretty hard, but now it’s going really well. …

” ‘We have a paid four-hour programme next to work, in which we can improve our language and become more familiar with the labour market, and we make for example a CV, application letters, we see how you can find work. …

“ ‘The one thing I like most about this work is solving problems,’ says Al Naif. ‘If there is a problem with the machine from China, I like to look for ways to get it working again.’

“And there were other problems, de Jong explains. After the challenges of getting the right machines and material, the next problem arose: getting certification to create surgical face masks for healthcare professionals. In order to be used in the healthcare sector, the face masks have to be certified by a laboratory to say they meet strict standards. And that took some time. …

“As the building is old, ventilation is a problem and it’s hard to get it up to the antibacterial standards, Bakker writes on the website. The location caused occasional deviations that stood in the way of the factory’s certification.

“The project tried different ways to ensure the masks were up to medical standards, including sterilizing them with gamma radiation and setting up a special sterile production room within the factory with purified air and an antibacterial floor.

“In mid October the certification was acquired and the factory started supplying the Dutch centralized point for healthcare products. …

“ ‘That distinguishes the Mondmaskerfabriek from other projects from the Refugee Company,’ de Jong explains, ‘as we can use the profits to pay employees, instead of only relying on funds and donations.’ …

“ ‘I love how much I learned about technology,’ [al Naif] says. But he would rather be a biology teacher again. ‘When my Dutch is good enough, I want to go back to the classroom.’ ”

More at the Local Europe, here.

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The Post-Covid Restaurant

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 4, 2020| 10 Comments »

mediamatic_eten_serre_separee_6-0

Photo: Anne Lakeman/Mediamatic ETEN
Testing the Serres Séparées safe-eating concept at Mediamatic restaurant in the Netherlands.

My husband keeps saying he can’t imagine that going to restaurants will ever be the same after coronavirus. In fact, he says, if nice restaurants continue doing takeout, maybe we should just stick with that.

Of course, restaurant owners are already thinking about these issues.

Byron Mühlberg reports from the Netherlands that the possibility of future guests requesting their own separate spaces has got some restaurateurs thinking creatively.

“With Dutch restaurants, bars and other catering services engulfed in uncertainty over how they might adjust to the 1.5-meter society,” he writes, “one Amsterdam restaurant is set to experiment with a brand new way of condoning off its guests: Using enclosed greenhouses.

“Mediamatic ETEN, part of a larger arts and entrepreneurship center focusing on sustainability, is a vegan restaurant. … From May 21, the restaurant will begin taking in guests, only this time they will be seated inside Serres Séparées (‘separated greenhouses’), enclosed glass structures, each equipped with a table for two or three diners.

” ‘This was one of the most feasible ideas from a large list of ideas we had when brainstorming,’ Mediamatic’s founding partner Willem Velthoven told NL Times. …

Initially, no more than three guests will be allowed to dine inside each greenhouse, even though there is the capacity for more. ‘[This is] is because we are now careful with our optimism,’ Velthoven explained. …

” ‘Bigger groups could [come] now, but then they should be families. For now, bigger groups are being discouraged because, from our experience, they are just louder and then you get the excited behavior causing spittle to fly and so on, and that’s the kind of behavior that would make the virus spread faster,’ Velthoven said. …

“Catering industry association KHN told NL Times, ‘We sent a protocol to the government two weeks ago, containing advice on how best to open the 1.5 [meter] distance. It is crucial that the government provide perspective quickly.’

“While KHN said it would not yet advise restaurants to reopen on June 1, renowned catering tycoon Laurens Meyer … questioned the idea of people becoming too careful with space.

” ‘We have to realize that there will always be some kind of virus. Whether it is worse than the flu, we have to see. If there is nothing left of our economy, we will no longer be able to afford health care and that will also cost human lives,’ explained Meyer.

“Velthoven, on the other hand, disagrees with Meyer’s approach, urging caution before advising restaurants to open their doors to the public without careful examination. ‘It’s about others and not just yourself in this case,’ he said. …

“Velthoven also understands the business argument, even though he has spent a career looking for creative solutions to problems instead of blunt responses. He ultimately wondered what the government’s plan is for the catering sector if those businesses are ordered to stay closed for a longer duration. If billions of euros are being diverted to KLM, he wonders what the government will be able to do to bail out his industry.

” ‘If I am not allowed to do anything the rest of this year, it’s finished,’ he lamented.” More at NL Times, here.

If you have heard of other good ideas for restaurants and bars in our cautious Covid-19 world, please share them in Comments. Pretty sure that there’s a large group of potential patrons who will be looking for the safest way to dine out — at least until a vaccine is widely available.

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Students Sail Home

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 28, 2020| 5 Comments »

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Photo: Sky News
Dutch students sail across the Atlantic to get home after coronavirus blocks their flight.

Of all the nutty adaptations caused by Covid-19, this is one of the most unusual. A group of Dutch students who were on an educational sailing trip in the Caribbean were unable to fly home. So they sailed all the way back over the Atlantic Ocean.

Aleksandar Furtula (with contributions from Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague) reports at the Washington Post, “A group of 25 Dutch high school students with very little sailing experience ended a trans-Atlantic voyage Sunday that was forced on them by coronavirus restrictions.

“The children, ages 14 to 17, watched over by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers, were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home in March.

“That gave one of the young sailors, 17-year-old Floor Hurkmans, one of the biggest lessons of her impromptu adventure. …

“ ‘The arrival time changed like 100 times. Being flexible is really important.’

Instead of flying back from Cuba as originally planned, the crew and students stocked up on supplies and warm clothes and set sail for the northern Dutch port of Harlingen, a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), on board the 60-meter (200-foot) top sail schooner Wylde Swan. …

“The teens hugged and chanted each other’s names as they walked off the ship and into the arms of their families, who drove their cars alongside the yacht one by one to adhere to social distancing rules imposed to rein in the spread of the virus that forced the students into their long trip home.

“For Hurkmans, the impossibility of any kind of social distancing took some getting used to. … Her mother, Renee Scholtemeijer, said she expects her daughter to miss life on the open sea once she encounters coronavirus containment measures in the Netherlands.

“ ‘I think that after two days she’ll want to go back on the boat, because life is very boring back at home,” she said. ‘There’s nothing to do, she can’t visit friends, so it’s very boring.’ …

“Masterskip, the company that organized the cruise, runs five educational voyages for about 150 students in all each year. Crossing the Atlantic is nothing new for the Wylde Swan, which has made the trip about 20 times.

“The company’s director, Christophe Meijer, said the students were monitored for the coronavirus in March to ensure nobody was infected. He said he was pleased the students had adapted to life on board and kept up their education on the long voyage.

“ ‘The children learned a lot about adaptivity, also about media attention, but also their normal school work,’ he said. ‘So they are actually far ahead now of their Dutch school colleagues. They have made us very proud.’

More at the Washington Post, here. A Reuters article with other details is here.

 

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24 Years After the Gift of a Bike

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 22, 2019| 5 Comments »

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Photo: Mevan Babakar
Years ago, a 5-year-old Kurdish refugee received a bike from a kind man in the Netherlands. Recently, Mevan Babakar, now an adult, tracked down the man known only as Egbert to express her lasting gratitude.

As we break our hearts over what is happening to today’s Kurdish refugees, it may be time for a story about the beauty that can occur when refugees are treated with respect and compassion. The story is also about the good side of social media.

Megan Specia reported at the New York Times in August, “Memories of a brand new bicycle — and the mystery man who gave it to her when she was a 5-year-old in a Dutch refugee center — have played out as vignettes in Mevan Babakar’s mind for most of her life.

“Ms. Babakar, now 29, said the generous gift from a man whose name she couldn’t remember had shaped her childhood. On Tuesday, she suddenly found herself reunited with the man whose face had flickered through her memories for more than two decades.

“And it all began on Twitter.

“ ‘I was a refugee for 5 yrs in the 90s and this man, who worked at a refugee camp near Zwolle in the Netherlands, out of the kindness of his own heart bought me a bike. My five year old heart exploded with joy,’ Ms. Babakar wrote in a post on Twitter, before pleading with the internet to help her track him down.

“The photo she shared — a fading snapshot of the man that her mother had kept — was among a handful of belongings they had from that time. When he gave her the bike, she said, it made a lasting impact.

‘I remember feeling so special. I remember thinking that this is such a big thing to receive, am I even worthy of this big thing?’ Ms. Babakar said. ‘This feeling kind of became the basis of my self-worth growing up.’

“She and her parents fled Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s brutal crackdown on the Kurdish population in the early 1990s, which included a gas attack on a village near their home. Their journey took them to Turkey, Azerbaijan and Russia — where her father stayed behind to work for the next four years — and eventually to the Netherlands. …

“Ms. Babakar took a sabbatical from her technology job in London this summer to retrace the journey, and visited Zwolle to spend a few days attempting to piece together her scattered impressions of her time there. … While there, she wrote a Twitter post that she described as a ‘last-ditch attempt’ to learn more about the man who had struck up a friendship with her and her mother, and gave her the bike.

“Within hours, Arjen van der Zee, who volunteers for a nonprofit news site in Zwolle, saw the photo and recognized the man.

“ ‘I looked at the picture and immediately knew this guy who I had worked with in my early twenties,’ said Mr. van der Zee. … Mr. van der Zee made contact with the man’s family on social media, and they put the two in touch.

“ ‘He started to tell me that he remembered Mevan and her mother,’ Mr. van der Zee said. ‘He said he always told his wife, if there were people he wanted to see again in his life it was Mevan and her mother.’

“They quickly scrambled to arrange a meeting with Ms. Babakar, who was due to travel back to London in the coming days. …

“ ‘He was, I guess, equally overwhelmed,’ Ms. Babakar said. ‘It was like seeing a family member that you hadn’t seen in a long time. It was really lovely.’ …

“Ms. Babakar was ‘incredibly humbled’ that her story had resonated with so many people around the world — both fellow refugees and those who just felt touched by the tale. … ‘I think it’s really easy for people to forget or to feel really powerless in the face of these big, abstract problems that we hear about all the time,’ she said. “It’s really a comfort to remember we are all very powerful in the way that we treat others. Especially in the small acts, we are powerful.’ ”

More here.

 

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