One Belgian and two Dutch designers are given the honor of designing a waste cathedral in the municipality of De Wolden. After the summer they will come up with a final sketch for the structure, which will be built later this year.
Theater group Peergroup wants to organize performances, lectures and exhibitions in the building. It will be located in De Wolden because the municipality has been designated as a cultural municipality for the year 2023/2024. So it is now up to the Dutch Atelier Tomas Dirrix and Studio ACTE and the Belgian Bollinger Grohman to come up with a design.
The designers came out of the box in a competition of the Peergroup and the Northern Innovation Lab Circular Economy (NICE). With the waste cathedral, the theater group is aiming for a major theater spectacle next year. With the waste cathedral, the Peergroup wants to emphasize the importance of reusing materials and at the same time address the theme of ‘how do we treat the earth’.
The cathedral will therefore be made from discarded materials. “We need to think about how we as humans interact with our living environment, why we consume, pollute and destroy it, and what is required of us to break this pattern,” writes NICE.
Residents of De Wolden can, if they want, help with the construction of the cathedral.
The Peergroup has a location in Koekangerveld for the Waste Cathedral in mind. It concerns a piece of meadow on a dead end part of the Meester J. De Blieckweg. Only that is not yet in cans and jugs. The permit has yet to be granted and that takes a lot of work, according to a spokesperson.
Local residents have been informed about the plans and, according to the theater company, have not submitted any objections.