curators
George Brugmans
Eva Pfannes
Thijs van Spaandonk

curator assistants
Leanne Hoogwaerts
Alexandra Sonnemans
Umut Türkmen

exhibition narrative and main texts
George Brugmans
Thijs van Spaandonk

liaison BoTu
Robbert de Vrieze

exhibition design
Eva Pfannes
Thijs van Spaandonk

graphic design
ARK
Roosje Klap
Loes Claessens
Nóra Békés

portraits
Ximena Dávalo

production and planning
Jolanda van Dinteren
Lisa Lambert
Johanna Fuhler

events
Yonca Özbilge

copy-editing and translations
InOtherWords translation & editing
D’Laine Camp
Gerda ten Cate
Maria van Tol

reception
Sandra Baptista
Radja Moelhan

construction, lighting and printing
Bart Cuppens Tentoonstellingsbouw
Bouwer Bouwer
Keilepand bv
Nicari
Quintusbelichting
Rocka Art & Sign
Veenman+

The exhibition DOWN TO EARTH: WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY? focuses on the energy transition at neighborhood level. On the energy district as an energetic district. Urgent issues converge at this scale level and large and small players –governments, companies, civil society and residents– must reach a new covenant. In and with the neighborhood, it is also possible to explore how the energy transition can be used as a lever for broader, comprehensive transformational change.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

Urgent and far-reaching
The transition to renewable energy is urgent, but also almost unimaginably far-reaching.
Urgent because the petroculture that characterizes modern civilization contributes greatly to global warming and climate change. More than a million life forms have already become extinct or are threatened with extinction. For humans, too, the Earth is becoming less and less habitable – although not as much for some as for billions of others. It is mainly the vulnerable and the weak who bear the consequences; petroculture contributes significantly to social inequality.
Far-reaching because the way we live and care, learn and live, consume and produce; because what we eat and how we eat, how we move around and how we interact with each other and with nature – in short, because how we organize our living environment and our coexistence and whether everyone has equal opportunities, is largely determined by access to and use of energy.

Energy transition and ownership
Our use of energy has an impact on our economy and our culture. But the era of petroculture, the feast of fossil expressionism, is coming to an end. The energy transition is now the elephant in the room of politics. It is therefore crucial that we reconsider ownership of the transition to a sustainable energy supply. No energy transition without a transition in ownership.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

What is our agenda?
The transition to the sustainable production of solar and wind energy is also a transition to a different energy management system, from centralized to decentralized, from extractive to circular, and therefore possibly to other forms of ownership. After all, and especially at the level of the neighborhood in which the energy is generated, stored and traded, one can ask to whom the energy actually belongs. Rather than mere consumers, neighborhood residents – especially if they cooperate – can also become producers, distributors and entrepreneurs. The neighborhood as a battery: by cleverly linking the energy system to the local economy, the energy transition can also be a social transition. In that case the issue of commoning, the securing of common ownership in such a way that citizens not only receive energy bills, but also get to actively co-own the transition and benefit from it, becomes pivotal.

Reclaiming the energy commons
Energy was once – and can again become, we believe – part of the commons: that which belongs to us all and that we take care of together. And why not, sun and wind, and soon hydrogen, belong to everyone, why not the energy that we can generate with them?
But how can this be achieved? How can citizens become the co-owners of a new energy system and what will that require? What is the relationship between the energy transition and a sustainable social agenda? How can we smartly link the energy system to the local economy?

Energy transition as leverage
Starting in 2017, IABR–Atelier Rotterdam, which was set up in 2013, conducted research by design into how the energy transition can be used as leverage for a sustainable, socially inclusive urban development.
In the exhibition, WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY? –curated by George Brugmans, Eva Pfannes and Thijs van Spaandonk–, IABR shows the interim results of that research and explores which steps to take next, towards concrete action.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

The energy transition challenge has been a common thread through the research and exhibitions of the IABR since 2014.This is not surprising, because if we want to achieve the ambitions of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and meet the Paris climate goals, we must completely change the way we use energy and land, warn scientists from all over the world.

^{IABR–Atelier Rotterdam: thermal energy from surface water in Bospolder-Tussendijken}

^{© IABR, OOZE}

From a spatial point of view, it can be said that the energy transition typically occurs at four scale levels: transnational, regional, district and building. Currently, the IABR focuses mainly on energy transition at district level, the IABR­–Atelier Rotterdam has been actively working in and with the Rotterdam Bospolder-Tussendijken district since 2017. And WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?, the second exhibition of DOWN TO EARTH, focuses entirely on the energy district. However, the IABR has also conducted intensive research at the three other scale levels, among others on the North Sea, in the province of Groningen and into new building typologies in Rotterdam.

Large-Scale Wind Energy Production on the North Sea
‘If we take the 2 ºC climate target seriously, what should we do?’ Starting from this seemingly simple question, which the Ministry of Economic Affairs put to the IABR in 2016, IABR–Atelier 2050 - An Energetic Odyssey explored the possibilities of large-scale renewable energy production on the North Sea. A knowledge consortium was formed – including Shell, Van Oord, the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Natuur & Milieu, TenneT, various Dutch ministries and of course designers – with the curators of IABR–2014 and IABR–2016, Dirk Sijmons and Maarten Hajer, at the helm.

The Atelier 2050 resulted in a large-scale installation that, including an animation that visualizes the possible future, depicts a transition leap that shows that it is possible to harvest wind energy to supply the surrounding countries on a very large scale from the relatively shallow North Sea. The 25,000 10 MW wind turbines that can cover around 90 percent of the North Sea countries’ electricity consumption by 2050 comprise the plan’s crowning touch.
The Atelier investigated what such an ambitious transition leap would involve, what infrastructure it would require, how it could be carried out without causing damage to North Sea nature, what innovations and policies it would require and what new economic dynamics it would generate, for example in the Port of Rotterdam and in the offshore sector.

Play

IABR–Atelier 2050 - An Energetic Odyssey: the video

^{© IABR, H+N+S, Tungsten}

Energy Transition in Groningen
In 2016 the IABR–Atelier Groningen presented the results of its research into how the Province of Groningen could use the energy transition, in collaboration with several cities and businesses in Eemshaven, to create new perspectives for the regional economy and for the spatial quality of the city and region. An extensive exploration of ways to switch to renewable energy over the next 15 years and ways to reap the economic benefits of that switch led to four prospects, for one Nordic City.

More about the results of the research led by Jandirk Hoekstra of H+N+S Landscape Architects, can be found in the brochure De Nordic City and in De Nordic City: de Film.

Play

The Nordic City: Energy Transition
 and the economic opportunities it offers Groningen

^10:23"

^{Commissioned by iabr/UP for IABR-2016–THE NEXT ECONOMY.
Production: Strawberry Fields
Producers: Marieke Francke and George Brugmans}

^{© iabr/UP, 2016}

Those who want to go into more depth can download the studies by Quintel Intelligence, E&E Advies, Atelier Stadsbouwmeester Groningen (with Specht Architecten, Studio MARCHA and MD landschapsarchitecten), Maat ontwerpers en Van Paridon x De Groot (met DAAD Architecten en LINT) here.

Building for the Energy Transition
In 2018, CIVIC carried out research by design into new building typologies for the energy transition for IABR–Atelier Rotterdam. Although there is a lot of expertise about energy-efficient construction, it used to be fragmented. CIVIC has brought all such knowledge together in the Lexicon Architectuur & Energie, an overview of building blocks that together lead to principles for better energy performance, a better indoor climate, and new architecture. This is a first exploration of a new architecture that both embraces the energy transition and delivers spatial and user quality. The energy transition can be used as a lever for better buildings in a better living environment.
The principles are applied to two typologies common in Rotterdam, the postwar housing association block and the new high-rise tower.The Gijslingflats in the Bospolder-Tussendijken district are exemplary of the first typology, the postwar housing association block that accounts for more than a quarter of Rotterdam’s building stock and presents the main renovation challenge.

Building for the energy transition

^{CIVIC for IABR–Atelier Rotterdam}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

From petroculture to postfossil culture
The energy transition affects every aspect of our lives: housing, working, mobility, nutrition, comfort, and culture. We are moving from a petroculture to a postfossil culture and this requires a new paradigm, new philosophies, and new ways of doing things. It’s clear that the transition cannot be made on the basis of the thinking and the doing that got us into trouble in the first place. It requires a new narrative of who we are and what we want, what we can want. More and more writers, thinkers, designers, and scientists are working on that new narrative. They are outlining a new paradigm, a different relationship with nature and the world, an economy based on other, more sustainable values that takes nature and society into account and an energy system that exists for the benefit ofthe community, that belongs to the community rather than prevails at its expense. In short, a paradigm that enables us to re-establish ourselves in the territory, and in good balance with nature: Down to Earth.

^{WHOSE ENERGY IS IT, ANYWAY?}

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

Leverage
How then can we use the energy transition as a lever to work on this alternative future? Can we make such a paradigm change conceivable at the level of the neighborhood, for example, where the community can play a key role?
We think we can and we know why we ought to: rising temperatures and sea levels, loss of biodiversity and the depletion of resources, food shortages, floods and droughts, surging migrant flows, increasingly extreme weather conditions – and the list gets longer.
And we also know what to do: switch to the sustainable energy generated by the sun, the wind and the earth as quickly as possible, to circular material flows, to smarter mobility, and to more plant-based food, to equal sharing and to more inclusivity.