Ever wandered if just having fun and working on a better environment can be combined? Look no further! Now there is “Sustainable dance club”. This unique concept consists of technology that produces energy by dancing people. The dance floor produces energy from the movements of dancing people.
The Sustainable Dance Club is a concept of two organizations: Enviu – innovators in sustainability and the architecture firm Döll – Atelier voor Bouwkunst.
Enviu - inovators in sustainability is an international organization by young professionals and students with a focus on sustainable entrepreneurship and developing profitable solutions for environmental and social issues. The foundation facilitates young entrepreneurial people in starting up and scaling up their sustainable activities. Enviu operates in the Netherlands and medium income countries .
Döll - Atelier voor Bouwkunst is an architecture firm based in Rotterdam. Besides the core business the firm develops innovative concepts and strategies to address social issues from an architectural point of view. The research part Döll LAB is responsible for these developments. Döll – Atelier voor Bouwkunst was founded in 2003 by architect Henk Döll, who worked for 20 years as founding-partner at Mecanoo architects. The office consists of an international team of 30 highly staff working on a variety of Dutch and international projects on architecture, urban planning and interior design.
The Sustainable Dance Club incorporates innovations in the field of sustainable design and applied techniques with social responsibilities in attractive club surroundings. The electricity generating dance floor will generate electricity from the movements of dancing people. The electricity will be used for the LED lighting in the club. The human powered floor is now being developed in cooperation with the Technical University in Delft and will most likely be the projects’ piece de la résistance.
Professor Han Brezet of Delft University of Technology, who is acting as technical adviser to the Sustainable Dance Club, told BBC World Service's Culture Shock programme that he had been overwhelmed by the interest when the plans were announced at a ‘premiere’ event. Brezet: "When we had the premiere of the dance club, we expected 200 people to come - but we had to close the door early. I'm surprised, but here in Rotterdam a new movement is coming up. It's the creative city, involving a sub-culture wanting to be sustainable but in a practical way."
How the dancefloor will ultimately work is yet to be decided, professor Brezet added, although he stressed it has attracted a great deal of interest. "[It could be] to dance on the floor and you energise an electrical generator - but it could also be pneumatic, where you dance on some fabric and the air is pumped out and back again, like a pair of bellows," he said. "Later on, you can use the pressurised air for micro-turbine and micro-generators." But he added that in the long term, the club would have a special floor surface made of crystals that generate electricity in response to being stepped on - known as piezoelectricity. "Mainly we are looking at how people are dancing - so it's about human power, human weight - to try to energise the floor and get electricity out of that," according to Brezet. "We will also look to other devices which are related to a dance floor, like the lighting and sound systems. A design for efficient acoustics could reduce the power needed on stage even more than using efficient LED-lighting."
The dance club “Nighttown” in Rotterdam will be the first club to have this new technology. Currently the club is closed because they are building the dance floor. The club will open in 2008 with a new name; “MyTown”.
The launching of the idea of The Sustainable Dance Club concept took place in Off_Corso at the 14th of October. This first sustainable club evening was called The Critical Mass and was with 1.400 visitors sold out. The bookers of CrimeJazz and Sound Architecture had compiled the program of The Critical Mass with the best soul, funk and electro. Clubbers enjoyed the visuals of Urbi et Orbi and the innovative design of Döll and were able to customize their clothing by the honest fashion brand Kuyichi (http://www.kuyichi.com). Responsible beer from the province of Limburg and ready-to-pick Oké fruit in The Garden of Delight for cocktails gave the evening a green touch too. The energy efficient LED-wall from Philips lighted the dance floor.
Most likely the dance floors will be only used for dance clubs that play music with lots of BPM’s. I doubt if slow-dances and walses will produce enough energy ;)
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