Safety and Health Concerns for the Users of a Playground, Built with Reused Rotor Blades from a Dismantled Wind Turbine

Piero Medici, Andy van den Dobbelsteen and David Peck
Additional contact information
Piero Medici: Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands
Andy van den Dobbelsteen: Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands
David Peck: Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-25

Abstract: This paper analyses the user safety of a playground built out of reused blades from a dismantled wind turbine. Located in Rotterdam and designed by the Netherlands architecture firm Superuse Studios, the playground, called “Wikado”, represents an example of the circular economy applied to the built environment. With reused materials, Wikado represents a saving in resources and energy, when compared to a standard playground built with primary materials. Furthermore, the playground creates a unique design experience for its users, who can still recognise the original rotor blades following their transformation into slides, platforms, and tunnels. However, the safety of the playground could be questioned. This paper will analyse the materials and products used in the playground and their condition some years after opening. The analysis focuses on the risks of human health during the use of the playground. It considers the shape and the sharpness of the rotor blades, its components such as glass fibres and epoxy resin. As a result of the analysis, two risk analysis conceptual models help to assess the health concerns regarding the contact with the materials, and some yellow drops leaching from the rotor blades. This analysis informs the contemporary debate concerning the reuse of materials, and more generically, the circular economy applied to the built environment: whether it is recommended and safe to reuse materials for a different function from that which they were originally designed. This paper will explain that in the analysed case study, it can be safe to reuse materials for a different function, but only with the appropriate precautions.

Keywords: materials reuse; circular economy; wind turbine; sustainable design; circular design; sustainable architecture; human health risk assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3626/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3626/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:9:p:3626-:d:352675

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().