Designer William McDonough has unveiled the next step in cradle-to-cradle manufacturing: The Innovation for the Circular Economy house (ICEhouse) in Davos, Switzerland. The ICEhouse aims to show the “positive design framework described in the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, and the reuse of resources implicit in the circular economy."
The house was used as a place of gathering and discussion for the World Economic Forum annual meeting. After being used for the week, the building will be disassembled and reconstructed elsewhere.
The project experimentally uses McDonough's WonderFrame™ - a simple, structural system designed to be adapted to local materials. For the ICEhouse, the Wonderframe is supplemented by LEXAN™ polycarbonate sheet and systems, and Shaw Contract Group flooring materials. Demonstrating a new development in Cradle-to-Cradle design and the Circular Economy, the whole building can be built and rebuilt in just a few days, allowing endless reuse and relocation.
After the close of the 2016 World Economic Forum, McDonough plans to locate an ICEhouse in Amsterdam, at The Valley at Schiphol Trade Park, The Netherlands’ new National Hub for the Circular Economy.
Invited by the global collaboration network Hub Culture, William McDonough and his firms William McDonough + Partners and WonderFrame LLC created the ICEhouse in “close collaboration with SABIC, and also received support from SAP.”
