200 wind turbine rotor blades go to the scrapheap in the Netherlands every year, just because they have tiny fissures. When Rotterdam-based 2012 Architects, specialized in re-use projects, found out about this, they thought that there must be some way to give the unwanted polyester blades a second life.

In October their first rotor-blade project was finished: a playground in the north of Rotterdam. It consists of five old rotor blades, neatly sawn into pieces by a ship builder, decorated with colourful stripes and finished off with two F16-bomber cockpits. The blades create a graphic pattern and also form borders between different areas of the playground. Around an existing football pitch, the architects placed four little towers made from the fat ends of the blades: there’s a slide tower, a look-out tower (with the cockpits as lantern room) and a tower incorporating a little windmill, which generates energy for a water pump.

Before the turbine-playground, 2012 Architects designed e.g. a rooftop extension in Amsterdam made from old sinks, a shoe-shop in The Hague, furnished with scrap wood benches and a shelving system made from car windshields, and a coffee-bar for TU Delft made from the front panels of washing machines.

Photos: Allard van der Hoek

Posted by: architour