What would your city look like if it used the best ideas available today? What would your organization look like? What effect would a policy change bring in the lives of everyone around you?
An inspiring vision brings energy, commitment and dedication. Except has over 10 years of experience in developing inspiring visions of sustainable futures, and we love doing it. In co-creation with your team, we develop tangible future visions, which cross the divide between ambition and realism.
Developing a future vision is the first step in discovering new directions for the issues we deal with today. Our team of experts on the built environment, industry, business, trends and policy work with you to create viable visions that are carried by stakeholders and inspires for years to come.
Choosing the right way to express a vision is an important part of achieving positive results. Visions can be developed in the form of documents, imagery, movies, websites and stories, and we work together with you to choose the right medium.
A vision can only truly inspire if it has a chance of becoming reality, otherwise it's just a pipe dream. That's why we think a vision is not something you develop simply by fantasizing, but by using selections of the best new developments that are currently taking place, combining them with expert knowledge and a critical eye, and extrapolating them to future scenario's.
A vision is the first step, after which various options can be explored to realize it. Part of our visioning process is developing a pathway from where we are now, so that future visions can become tomorrow's reality. This can include business modeling, strategy, stakeholder involvement, engineering, design and custom research.
The world is changing rapidly. What could your business look like in 10, 20 or 50 years when you optimally adapt to the revolutions of today?
Explore the pathways to resilient and profitable business, while contributing to a sustainable society.
Our communities are alive, adapting to changes in society rapidly, making new living environments possible. What would your city or community look like if it would use the best ideas available?
Explore smart and sustainable communities and create an inspiring vision for people to believe in.
The world of stuff is changing: closed loops, supply chain interactions, new technologies, restrictions on facilities and new market opportunities.
How will your industry change to adapt to the challenges that await us? And how can you adapt to take the lead?
In times of need, people look to government and institutions for answers. The world of policy is increasinly complex, while in need of new ideas and new directions on how to move forward for long term benefit.
Developing a future vision for policy development creates clarity, understanding and support for strong policy ideas.
Read more about sustainability challenges facing organizations.
Polydome is a revolutionary approach to greenhouse agriculture that offers the possibility of commercial scale, net-zero-impact food production. The Polydome system strategically interweaves a wide variety of crops and animals, taking advantage of every inch of the greenhouse while eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Polydome is an answer to a part of the world food crisis. With its high yields (60 – 90 kg per square meter), and diverse outputs (over 50 crops, two mushroom varieties, chickens, eggs, fish, and honey), even a small Polydome system can sustainably provide a varied food supply for a large population. Scalable. Profitable.
Polydome has been extensively researched by Except and over 12 partners in the industry. Concept overview and technical details are published in a free open source book, downloadable below.
This masterplan transforms downtown Shanghai into a fully sustainable community, in energy, food, water, and jobs, designed for Expo 2013. The plan strategically interweaves sustainable innovation with exciting urban design, and making it run with urban agriculture, sustainable technologies and vertical farms. The result is a valuable and beautiful urban community, an emergent circular economy, and a future-proof investment.
The Shanghai urban master plan demonstrates the Urban Renaissance approach on a specific site adjacent to Nanjing road, incorportating a historic Lilong housing district.
The Hortus Celestia is a vertical farm tower, designed for Naaldwijk, the Netherlands. The tower rises 28 stories high above the greenhouse-filled landscape, offering 14 farming floors with embedded expo centers.
The tower functions as a demonstration center for innovative Dutch greenhouse industry partners, and attracts international visitors from around the globe.
This project researches a sustainable district heating system in the Dutch city of Tilburg, developed with our consortium partners.
The vision includes both ecological and social sustainability, and functions as the starting point for all parties involved to cooperate toward a sustainable and carbon neutral heat provision.
How can public transportation contribute to resilient and sustainable cities and communities?
With a team of Public Transportation stakeholders and experts in the city region of Rotterdam we developed a vision on how this can be done. The vision came into being through several intense collaborative sessions, and is used to engage new stakeholders and move the agenda forward towards the most sustainable public transport system in the world.
Download the vision booklet below (sorry, only in Dutch).
“Zevenkamp through our eyes: a story of three students and one neighborhood” is an urban transformation project by Except Academy, a learning platform for interns at Except. We developed an inspiration book which tells the story of our journey and experiences while investigating Zevenkamp, the second largest post-war neighborhood in the Netherlands.
The purpose of the book is to inspire and share our vision of Zevenkamp’s future. It has practical examples of opportunities for the neighborhood to become flourishing and resilient with the help of its residents and stakeholders.
For Staatsbosbeheer (the Dutch nature management agency), Flevoland Province, and the municipalities of Almere and Lelystad, we developed a vision document for the future development of Oostvaardersplassen National Park in the Netherlands. The document offers a vision, mission, performance goals, and principles for a national park that will be internationally acclaimed by 2030 for its ecological sustainability, societal value, and economic resilience. A accompanying Inspiration Booklet introduces interesting practices from around the world to offer inspiration and specific ideas for actions to realize the formulated perfromance goals.
Tom Bosschaert
Director