Living in a wind turbine
(Photo: Vattenfall)
October 19, 2024 – Living in a wind turbine? As of today that’s possible. Vattenfall and design studio Superuse converted a nacelle, the top part of a wind turbine, into a tiny house. This nacelle is four metres wide, ten metres long and three metres high and comes from a turbine that stood in Austria for 20 years. With the tiny house, Vattenfall demonstrates how materials can be reused in innovative ways. The tiny house is on prominent display during Dutch Design Week from 19 to 27 October.
In the coming decades, thousands of wind turbines will be demolished or replaced. Most parts of a wind turbine – the foundation, tower, gearbox parts and generator – are made of metal or concrete and therefore easily recyclable. Steel, for instance, can be melted down and reused, but the downside is that this takes a lot of energy and creates emissions. It would be better if the materials could be reused with as little processing as possible. Last year, Vattenfall invited four design firms to think about a second life for wind turbines that have reached the end of their working life.
