Marthijn Pool

Marthijn Pool is co-founder of Space&Matter which is an impact driven Spatial Design Agency. And he is Co-founder of CommonCity Development which is a real estate developer with a Holistic approach.

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By developing Circular Neighbourhoods we believe we can have a positive impact on the built environment. Our LIFE oriented approach makes our projects nature inclusive as well as socially inclusive. Maximising the implementation of renewable materials enables us to have a minimal environmental impact, we rather shift towards positive environmental impact by developing projects which are Carbon Negative.

Contemporary challenges in Society can be tackled by an Alternative approach. The built environment is being developed along the lines of competitive solutions. We believe that an integrated approach provides synergies and maximum performance. System thinking and building Spatial Configurations that act like Eco-Systems is a fast forward to meet our Climate, Energy, Carbon and Societal Demands. We see the Neighborhood as the perfect project scale. On a neighborhood level there’s enough critical mass to implement decentralised, self-supportive systems. Smart grids for local energy production and consumption, decentralized sanitation, shared Electrical Mobility and even inner City Urban Farming.

Nature itself is a beautiful Operating system that shows us examples. Closed Loops and reciprocal transactions, zero-waste and well-balanced. This complex system is fascinating!

The Century of the Cities is the 21st century. Yet we have to reinvent the way they operate. Creatives, Designers, Researchers and Developers can use their imaginative powers to forecast future models of urban living that act like self-supportive Eco-Systems. Our powerful imagination and capacity to translate and visualize these, will help to make a future scenario tangible and implementable. We develop realistic future projections which can be implemented today.