Brightlands Circular Space comes to life

What if a building itself demonstrated how tomorrow’s technology works?

With the imminent completion of Circular House, Brightlands Circular Space is also coming to life: an open innovation centre where businesses, researchers and public authorities collaborate on the circular future of plastics.

For Broekbakema, the starting point was clear: design a building that not only provides space for innovation, but is itself part of it. A flexible and future-proof working environment where research, experimentation and collaboration come together.

A fine example of this is the use of TNO’s innovative SunSmart glass. This smart glazing reacts automatically to the outside temperature. At lower temperatures, the glass allows solar heat in, whilst from around 21 °C it reflects the sun’s heat. Without electricity, without any additional systems and without the glass changing colour. This keeps the building light and transparent, whilst at the same time contributing to lower energy consumption, a more comfortable indoor climate and reduced heat stress.

The fact that this technology has been applied on this scale for the first time in a building such as Brightlands Circular Space is significant. The building is not only a place where new solutions are developed, but also a living lab in which innovations are tested and experienced directly in practice.

Would you like more information about Circular House? View the project page here.