Once a great seafaring nation, when the shipbuilding industries declined, the Netherlands were left with large swathes of industrial land, abandoned factories and warehouses. In Amsterdam, much of this old industrial land has been sold off for housing. However, there are some motions for exploration and investigation on previous manufacturing land.

We went to Amsterdam Noord to visit the site of a former shipbuilding yard on the Johan Van Hasselt canal, and to see the urban experiments at De Ceuval and Schoonschip (Space & Matter).

In De Ceuvel, old houseboats are placed amidst a small portion of the former shipyard. De Ceuval is an innovative hub with creative workspaces, a cafe, a cultural hub, and a floating bed and breakfast. The houseboats are outfitted with clean technologies, there is a material lab that promotes recycling and sustainability, there are experiments with soil-remediating plants, and there is a community that desires a greener way of living.

Located close to De Ceuvel, Schoonschip is a neighbourhood of approximately thirty floating houses, all of which are stabilized by poles sunk deep into the ground. Experimenting with strategies for dealing with climate change and rising sea levels, Schoonschip is now considered a reference project for future large-scale floating islands in the Baltic Sea and the Maldives.