Connect SME: Cross-border collaboration

Connect SME: Cross-border collaboration

What does ConnectSME stand for?

Brainport Smart District is one of the six testing grounds in the Netherlands and Flanders that participate in ConnectSME. The aim is to stimulate innovation trajectories of SMEs and SMEs to bring their innovations to the market faster and thus maximize CO2 reductions.

In order to achieve the European climate targets, it is important that sustainable technological innovations find their way to the market more quickly. For many SMEs and SMEs developing sustainable technologies in Flanders and the Netherlands, it is difficult to bridge the so-called ‘Vallei of Death’. A significant amount of capital is often required to bring the innovative product to commercial scale, while potential customers do not yet dare to invest in the innovative products. In addition, it is important to select the right technologies that will maximize CO2 reductions in the long term.

How does it work?

With a consortium of six living labs and two clusters, the ConnectSME project facilitates demonstration projects for sustainable technological innovations in Flanders and the South of the Netherlands. The living labs provide a development and demonstration environment for innovative technologies, according to a user-oriented, open innovation ecosystem.

Selected SMEs and SMEs receive vouchers with which they receive advice and the opportunity to demonstrate and develop their innovation in this physical test environment. By removing barriers to cross-border cooperation, ConnectSME wants to improve the market introduction opportunities of innovative technologies in the border region of Flanders-Netherlands.

Who can participate?

The ConnectSME project focuses on Flemish and Dutch SMEs and SMEs.

Do you recognize yourself in the points below?

Then be sure to register:

  • You are active in the border region. More information at www.grensregio.eu
  • You develop technology that promotes CO2 reduction and climate objectives
  • With your technology you focus on energy or is related to it
  • You have already developed your innovation and are looking for a way to scale it
  • Your innovation is new in the border region

Read more?

Download the flyer about ConnectSME with more information or contact Martijn de Kort

EIGENAAR PROJECT

ConnectSME

PARTNERS

Thorsite (VITO), Snowball en Green Energy Park in Vlaanderen

The Green Village (TU Delft), Future Energy Lab Metalot (TU Eindhoven) en Brainport Smart District in Nederland

PROGRAMMALIJNEN

Wijk met energie

Modular and sustainable homes in Telkesveld

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Modular and sustainable homes in Telkesveld

The district of the future welcomed its first residents in spring 2022. Developer mHome is building a total of 52 homes in Telkesveld. These are modular, sustainable and comfortable 3-room homes, suitable for 1 or 2-person households. The prefabricated rental homes are made exclusively of sustainable and natural materials. The starting point is to develop buildings that are circular, energy-efficient and comfortable. As a result, an ‘mHome’ has a healthy indoor climate and a direct positive impact on both the mental and physical health of its occupants.

Social innovation

When it comes to the development of the Telkesveld neighborhood, everything revolves around the residents. Indeed, everyone is welcome and residents can add something to the community in their own way. Examples include maintaining a communal garden, doing chores for neighbors and contributing ideas on the layout of the communal space located in the neighborhood. Together with the residents, mHome builds a neighborhood in which local residents seek each other out to shape their living environment and bring it to life. This ensures that the Telkesveld project fits in very well with The district of the future.

Modular building method

The nonsubsidised rental homes come in two housing layout types. Both types have an area of about 52 square meters. Only the layout differs, as the homes are built stepwise with the modules placed on top of each other. The homes are modular and easy to link together, similar to building with Lego bricks. A high degree of standardization is combined with flexibility and creativity. In addition, the mHomes are easily repositionable and reusable, so a unit that first functions as a visitor center, for example, can later be used as a home or a home can be converted into an office.


For more information about the homes and registrations, visit the Telkesveld website.

OWNER PROJECT

mHome

PARTNERS

ORO | Twinstone

PROGRAMME LINES

Participation | Circular district

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Circular mixed sustainable district

Circular mixed sustainable district

Circular mixed sustainable district

The DGVGroupconsortium contributes with a sustainable smart circular district integrated in a high-quality landscape and in food-providing nature.

The district is designed in order to make optimum use of natural conditions, such as solar rotation in summer and winter, wind directions, north and south side of the home, soil condition, etc. Through smart design and process management an optimum combination of lowtech and hightech solutions is created: with the best from the past, the comfort of the present and readiness for the future.

Disruptive project development, sustainable architecture, choice of materials, circular design of infrastructure, energy balancing, use of water, local food production and circular use of (organic) waste. The DGVGroup team has developed these for ReGen Villages and other projects. The district we will be building in Brainport Smart District is energy-generating, reduces the CO2 footprint and contributes to the health and welfare of its residents. We will create jointly with the residents and collaboration partners ‘the Blossom of Brainport’, a circular integrated district with functions for food production, water purification and circular infrastructure that extend beyond the area itself.

The feasibility of the proposal is currently being investigated. If the outcome is positive, the proposal may well become a reality.

OWNER PROJECT

DGVGroup

PARTNERS

Natrufied architecture | Weever bouw | Biopolus | Duurzame Kost | NTP

PROGRAMME LINES

circular district | participation | social and safe district | healthy district | digital district | mobile district | district with energy

FOR MORE INFORMATION

CASA students build experimental house

CASA 1.0

CASA 1.0: Innovation galore in social housing

CASA 1.0 is the first building to be built and delivered in The district of the future (2021). The complex consists of three innovative and social rental apartments. CASA stands for Comfortable, Affordable, Sustainable Alternative and was developed by a team of students from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). The students set the ambition of realizing a comfortable, affordable and sustainable alternative to social housing. The idea came from Antoine Post, a physics student. Despite hearing a lot about sustainable developments, he did not see this reflected in average housing. Together with other students, he decided to give shape to the ideas of designing a sustainable home. They founded the student team CASA and developed and built CASA 1.0 together with the Eindhoven construction company Hurks and housing corporation Woonbedrijf.

Preventing peak loads

The concrete-free complex – made of steel and fully reusable wood – has an innovative climate system. The secret behind this can be found under the house: namely a 104-cubic-metre water basin. The heat pump extracts heat from the house in summer, which is then used to heat the basin under the house. That heat is then used in the cold winter months to heat the entire house. Thanks to this system, there is no excess energy in summer or shortage in winter. Peak load on the electricity grid is thus prevented. The energy used by the heat pump comes from the energy roof, which generates both electricity and heat via a solar panel and solar water heater. CASA 1.0 thus effectively consists of three zero-meg houses.

The service core

The heating and various technologies come together in the heart of the house: the service core. To allow all systems to communicate and control each other, Team CASA designed its own control technology. CASA 1.0 consists of modular units with a minimal use of glue. This minimizes demolition costs and optimizes the re-use of materials. Concrete is deliberately not used because of its environmental impact. Thanks to the Smart Construction principle, material consumption, waste, and CO2 emissions during construction have been reduced.

Continuation in The district of the future

The concept of CASA 1.0 is now being further developed by Integer Technologies, a start-up by former students of the Eindhoven University of Technology. Woonbedrijf wants to realize several ‘CASA complexes’ in The district of the future.

 

More info on the home and technology can be found on the site of Integer Technologies.

You can also visit the site of Team CASA to see what projects the students are working on now.

OWNER PROJECT

Team CASA

PARTNERS

among the partners municipality of Helmond, ZonMw, and many others

PROGRAMME LINES

Circular district | digital district | district with energy

Urban vision UNStudio

Urban vision UNStudio

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The urban vision developed by UNStudio features a number of strips running from north to south that divide the area into several zones, each with a different building density. Shared facilities can be created in the district, such as kitchens, gardens, reading rooms and gyms. There will also be a mix of residential and work, with decentralised business space with offices and shared work spaces aimed at innovative collaborations. In the heart of the district will be a park of some 12 hectares with gardens, natural landscape and sports grounds. The park will be collectively owned by the users: everybody can become a member. At the fringes of the districts there will be 80 hectares for growing food (high-tech agriculture), water storage, nature and energy generation. Read the urban vision here (pdf).See our 3D visualisation here.

Read the urban vision here

See our  3D-visualisation.

OWNER PROJECT

UNStudio

PARTNERS

UNStudio, Felixx Landscape Architects & Planners, Metabolic, UNSense, Habidatum

PROGRAMME LINES

Digital district | circular district |district with energy | participation | mobile district| healthy district

FOR MORE INFORMATION

PLOTS LAB

PLOTS LAB

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Residents draw up joint plan for forty plots

In the autumn of 2018 we started looking for our first residents by calling for DIY plot pioneers to come forward. In this first ‘living lab’ 31 households are currently co-creating the first BSD district. They have found a location where they want to live together. The size of the plots is matched to the personal and shared (living) wishes of the future group of residents and their budgets. The plots project offers future residents a great deal of freedom, but we also expect them to take responsibility. The residents themselves are the initiators and therefore responsible for the realisation of their individual .collective dream spaces. This means they will have to think about and deal with water storage, energy-generating homes and public or shared green spaces. Watch our video

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OWNER PROJECT

Brainport Smart District

PARTNERS

PROGRAMME LINES

Digital district | circular district |district with energy | social and safe district |participation| mobile district| healthy district

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Only for participants more information is available.