The Generational Thinkers: Melle Smets

We enter the corner building on the Rotterdam market square with some uncertainty. This must be it, the House of the Future. “Judging by the looks on your faces, this is your first time here,” says a friendly yet serious man. We feel busted, although as Rotterdammers we’ve often heard about this leading project in Bospolder-Tussendijken and even mentioned it in our own circles as something special, we had indeed never set foot inside. “You’re here to speak to Melle? Yes, there he is.” We meet Melle Smets amidst a group about to start a tour. “Maybe you’d like to join in?” Smets asks.

At the back of the corner building, a door opens onto a large green courtyard, surrounded by an apartment block that’s slowly being vacated. Where there were once homes, a diverse selection of initiatives, designers, and makers—direct partners of the House of the Future—are now moving in. And where there used to be a fence or bush between gardens, we now walk straight through, past small greenhouses and piles of tiles, alongside ground that has clearly just seen the light of day again, waiting for a new purpose.

Loitering for Science

“The starting point of my work is always reading the environment. In addition to meetings with agendas, I hang around a bit, looking for courtyards, people, biotopes, what’s happening and what’s not…” When it came to this neighbourhood, Bospolder-Tussendijken in Rotterdam, the client’s request was to do something about poverty, a characteristic challenge in the area. Meanwhile, major investments are being made here for the energy transition, such as installing a district heating network. “With that contradiction in mind, I went into the neighbourhood. I spent an evening drinking with the local drunk. The bike thief took me to where he sells his bikes, leading me into his entire network of hustlers. Many people falter in this society and then try to make do with each other. In fact, this district has become a collection of people who already live very sustainably, albeit due to circumstances.” Smets believes that in this sense, this neighbourhood could serve as a sustainable guide district, in contrast to all modern interventions. The solution is practically right in the streets.

For example: increasing excise duties on Buta gas bottles should discourage people from cooking on them in their apartments. And so a couple of boys from the neighbourhood have fitted an LPG valve on the Buta gas bottles. They now simply walk to the gas station to refill their cylinders. Smets often visits them. “And every time I hang out there for an afternoon, I hear all sorts of ideas like this. This know-how is exactly what we need. This example alone is useful for designing a low-tech, smart kitchen,” says Smets.

We’re walking through the former homes. One of them is becoming a workshop. Further along, a cheesemaker has moved into what was once a bedroom. At the central point of the courtyard is the house that has been converted into a kitchen. You’ll also find less conventional residents here, like ‘the Soul’—where a network of Shamans gathers—or an African library. “By increasingly taking over the plinth here, informal communities are becoming visible. They can’t ignore us anymore. We want to show that we deserve a voice in the neighbourhood and its developments.” The House of the Future aims to be part of the plan for the building currently under consideration by a developer.

The Wedding Chest

We’ve settled in the public space of the House of the Future (HvdT), where the intern not only serves a cup of tea but also hands out the HvdT monthly magazine. “Hot off the press! I just took them off the drying rack. And would you like to take some cheese with you as well?” she says. It’s a small grasp from the collection of lovingly made products that come from here… This place is an example of how we can use centuries-old knowledge and skills to live energy-efficient, connected, and future-proof, though this is rarely seen as innovative. Innovation is bombastic, technology-driven, nuclear power plants, district heating, electric cars. “Belief in technology is a very dangerous headlight,” says Smets. “What we’re up against here is that we’re promoting something that people recognise from their early lives in villages with poverty and hunger. They often came here with the dream of a big car, a house with a garden, and a ski vacation. And then we tell them that a shared oven is the future; it doesn’t feel like progress.” Smets also mentions how they’ve often been dismissed for an innovation grant. “We are not going to sit around doing lacework” Smets says in the tone the committee must have used when they saw their proposal. “To give our story a place, we have to prove a lot.”

From A to A and a Half

Melle Smets was trained as an artist for public space, originally a training in ornamentation such as stained glass and equestrian statues on pedestals. In the 20th century, environmental art became a permanent part of spatial planning in the Netherlands. Shortly after his graduation, the study was discontinued because the Netherlands was as good as finished. This can be seen in the modern public space, where ‘decoration’ seems to have become a dirty word. You might even wonder if public space is still meant for people or just for their cars and cube-shaped buildings, where lights brightly illuminate the asphalt at night. “We build worlds that no longer have context,” says Smets. “No one lives there, and no one comes from there. It’s a parallel world.” In that parallel world, Smets has been guiding people in creative and confrontational ways since the early 2000s, right after his studies. These were called P-reizen (P-trips). For instance, a grandstand was set up along the A12, where people were invited to watch the parallel world of people stuck in traffic—on their way to work in distribution centers and other places managing things that are also on the move—while enjoying caviar. You could say we travel from A to A and a half, and then back again. Is B an illusion? “Our world is biting its own tail. There’s an enormous effort being made to serve a complex system that doesn’t actually take you anywhere. You have to choose which cog you want to be in the system. I find that a terrifying world and at the same time very fascinating.”

Smets: “And how does the other side of the world experience our industrial complex? The rubble lies in Africa. In the future, these will be heaps of e-waste and the death knell for Africa. They have no use for electric cars without charging stations.” Phasing out, designing the de-growth, that’s our big challenge, according to Smets. And what does the Netherlands of the future look like, we ask him. “Then the highway network will be a ruin. Look, this is where everyone stood still for half their lives—they’ll say,” Smets replies.

Two boys run in through the front of the HvdT door to escape the rain. “Hey guys. It’s great you’re here. Would you like something to drink?” They nod. Smets offers them the choice of Rotterdam tap water or cold tea and tells them they need to help out as well. With a glass in one hand and a soccer ball in the other, the conversation quickly turns to their favorite car: a Tesla. 

As the boys kick the ball around in the room next to us, Melle turns back to us. “If I may leave something behind in my life, it’s new ways to be a community, to create space for others. Like for these children, who have no framework or examples, or a place to practice. I look forward to them coming in later to help with carpentry.”

Human Power Plant

It doesn’t happen on its own: building a community around “old” knowledge, keeping boys who dream of a Tesla engaged, and fostering a desire for less. Smets says, “My great fortune lies in the fact that nothing is impossible. My life path is a series of events that demonstrate this. I learn by doing, which I find very natural and incredibly inspiring.” For example, you discover that a bicycle-powered washing machine is still not more efficient than a simple basin with a scrubber. It requires less effort, is faster, and better. Even in low-tech, you can go too far with technology, and simple techniques are not universal without reason. “You can often understand things technically, but that doesn’t always resonate with reality. Technologies we may have had for a long time are often much better and more sustainable,” Smets confirms.

Together with Kris De Decker, Melle Smets made this energy concept tangible through the Human Power Plant, a research project into a human-powered society. Each project begins with a site-specific human power scenario, from which prototypes for human power plants are developed that involve the community. The first scenario was a student housing project on the Utrecht University campus. “Site-specific work means that we consider what is abundant at each location; in this case: students. From there, we look at how this can form a driving force. As far as we’re concerned, this approach can be applied to all of society’s Achilles’ heels.” On the campus of Utrecht we worked out a scenario for a student flat. 700 residents could produce enough electricity and heat with two hours of energy chores per day in the gym to lead a modern and luxurious life. A test setup was on campus for several months. All the fitness machines produced a unique sound during exercise. As a result, each time the Human Power Plant was in operation, a work song was composed.

Cathedrals of the Here and Then

In this residential block in the middle of the neighbourhood, living has made way for a breeding ground for the community. The building now carries a new story, which may also be temporary. “I find it liberating to think that we are capable of reconsidering meaning. Just as cathedrals once purely stood for Catholicism—that was the general belief in the world—we have managed to break away from that. Now that cathedral is a monument. It reminds us of history and has evolved into something else along that line,” says Smets. Smets believes that within every culture, and every cathedral that belongs to it, a new generation must internalize or reject that heritage.

The legacy of a society or a way of thinking is not always easily recognizable. “In many parts of the world, we live in walled-up cities without reference to our distant history; the permanent now. And the permanent now is very forgetful. Here, everything revolves around the self,” says Smets. “The connection with the here and then, or a memory of a long line, isn’t always found in manmade things. The memory of the here and then can still be found in grand natural phenomena,” Smets adds, “like the Grand Canyon, as natural monuments of origin, as cathedrals of the natural landscape.”