Innovation In Amsterdam: Buildings, Beer And Blue Jeans

Take a trip to the Dutch capital and, once you get beyond the 18th-century landmarks such as windmills and flowers and quaint canals, you will find the city that earned itself the accolade of “The European Capital of Innovation” from the European Commission this year.

Taken together, you begin to see how concerted public policy working in cooperation with private enterprise can garner results. To wit: the Netherlands’ ranking as number 4 in Europe in the Compass survey of the Global Startup Eco System – and number 19 in the world. Less than two years ago, the country wasn’t on the startup radar. But there’s more.

There’s The Edge, the quintessential smart building, recently given a 98.4% sustainability rating by British rating agency BREEAM - its highest score ever awarded. Created starting in 2010 by Dutch real estate developer OVG for a small handful of tenants such as Deloitte and ABN Amro, the building boasts solar panels and state of the art “IoT” features such as LED lighting throughout – each installation with its own IP address. A smartphone app developed by Deloitte for tenant use can check your appointments for the day, find a parking place for your car and assign you to a desk for the day – a concept called “hot-desking” as there are no offices permanently designated to any one person. The Dutch say The Edge actually creates new way of working.

Another building that’s a center for creative and innovative types is the Pakhuis De Zwijger, a former refrigerated warehouse built in 1934 – today renovated and, under the cultural direction of the visionary Egbert Fransen, home to meeting halls, radio and TV stations, a concert hall (seating up to 600 people),  and an exhibition space.

Business travelers and global nomads will be interested in the fleet of Tesla taxis running on electricity servicing the city, as well as the loft-concept modular hotel ZOKU, which this year won the hospitality industry’s Radical Innovation Award. On the culinary front, you can try beer made from rainwater at Café Mojo, and at the restaurant InStock, you will find the ever-changing daily menu based on the “food surplus” of the day – those speckled bananas, for example, that fail the food markets’ beauty contest.

And if you want to add a bit of innovation to your own charisma – man or woman - for an evening out in Amsterdam, there’s the new “green” perfume “Eau d’Amsterdam,” which smells like the city’s famous elm trees. And if you’re looking for something to wear with that perfume, he boutique retail chain Scotch and Soda is fast-becoming the leading purveyor internationally (France, U.S. and more) of the city’s famous casual-chic-edgy look.

Denim Designers On The Cutting Edge

Being a dyed-in-the-wool fashionista, my own favorite in Amsterdam’s long list of innovative projects has to do with the city’s denim fashion industry – namely, its Global Denim Awards, now in its third year, which puts together mills and budding young designers to create new and sustainable fabrics and designs exclusively for denim.

With its sponsoring partner e3Cotton and organizers HTNK (fashion industry recruitment agency), Kingpins Show (for fabrics) and House of Denim (design and sustainability center), and supported by an international fashion jury, the events gives 10,000-Euros (approx. $11,000) to the winning designer-mills combo, then takes them on a whirlwind tour with Kingpins in New York and Hong Kong.

This year’s winners – designer Anbasja Blanken and the ITV Denim mill won the top award for their fanciful designs with an Eastern flair. (see photo below) My own personal favorite – and that which resonated with French friends in Paris – were the designs of young Turkish Designer Deniz Gur with Kipas Denim. Gur also designed wooden jewelry and flat shoes to complement her designs. (see photo below).

And beyond fashion, Amsterdam’s denim industry is also exploring news ways to reduce the amount of water necessary to create blue jeans, as well as reducing the toxicity of the famous blue-denim dye – somehow fitting for the city where the average dweller owns nine pairs of jeans and the world’s largest jean brands (such as Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, ad G-Star Raw) do business.

Could be another Dutch “golden age” on the horizon…For more. head to www.iamsterdam.com.