Off grid energy and water installations enable us to function on temporary plots where it is difficult to connect to the city utilities. This makes us to learn about local resource cycles and how to invest wisely in closing them.
Lack of housing and workspace is an urgent problem in Amsterdam. Even more so for local civil organisations and neighbourhood centres that want to support the neighbourhood in this economic and climate crisis. But we observe at the same time that there are lots of land and water not used and unattended for years.
Offgrid technology is also a huge opportunity in helping out the problem of over-demanded regional energy and water networks. With the present state of technology it is more efficient and ecological to introduce or expand local energy, water, food and sewage networks than increase the capacity of regional networks. We want to use the vacant lots in the city for experimenting in this kind of more autonomous and self-sufficient ways of living.
The KasKantine is like a self-sustainable ship that can land anywhere with a surface of 10x30m2! You can see and participate in our designing on our open source ENA platform (Experimental Network Autonomy)
Building materials
The architecture of the KasKantine depends on what building materials are available, as waste, like pavements, insulation material and iron, or on the second hand market, like greenhouses and containers, or as abundant local natural resource, like maintenance wood, polder clay and sand. You can see the greenhouse design in detail on our ENA platform!