On Thursday 2 September 2021, the KD Lab in the Kabeldistrict was officially opened by councillors Stephan Brandligt and Bas Vollebregt from the municipality of Delft. The KD Lab is a place where high-tech start-ups and scale-ups can work in shared business premises.
A new location for the high-tech manufacturing industry
The KD Campus, which is for student teams affiliated to the TU Delft, also opened on the same site at the beginning of 2021. There they can develop and construct various prototypes of hydrogen cars, solar-powered racing cars or boats which go on to compete in competitions all over the world. The KD Lab was constructed in the Kabeldistrict as part of the ‘Schieoevers, Maakstad aan de Schie’ development. It is a new part of town where people can live and work on innovative solutions. In the coming years, between 3,200 and 3,500 properties and more than 1,000 jobs are to be created in the Kabeldistrict by the development consortium made up of Amvest and KondorWessels Vastgoed (part of VolkerWessels).
The KD Lab was developed in cooperation with No.ARCH and Respace. No.Arch is responsible for the architectural design.
Respace then developed this design into a customised building package in their box-in-box construction system and assembled it on location. The added spaces in the hall have been built in an entirely circular fashion. After a certain period of time the KD Lab can be fully dismantled and the construction system can then be moved to a new location. The KD Lab was officially opened on Thursday 2 September. The first few companies, such as Turff, MRT engineering eand SDC engineering, have since moved into the KD Lab.
‘The KD Lab fits in well with the development of the Kabeldistrict and Schieoevers Noord areas. Here we want to continue encouraging the innovative high-tech manufacturing industry for which the city of Delft is already so famous. This is one of the locations where development is feasible. The twenty box-in-box units which have now been constructed will, in principle, be here for 10 years’, explains Thomas Piekhaar, KD Lab project leader on behalf of the Kabeldistrict.
Delft High-Tech Capital
In the coming years, the Kabeldistrict is going to be transformed into a lively, productive urban district where working, living, learning and creating come together. It will include homes, facilities and commercial spaces. An area covering a total of 70,000 m² has been included in the plan for commercial spaces and commercial and social real estate. Half of this has been reserved for innovative manufacturing companies which are primarily involved in the design and production of high-tech innovation prototypes.
In addition, a quarter of the area has been earmarked for vocational education in the fields of engineering and technology. After all, high-tech means jobs at every level, from senior secondary vocational education (mbo) to university. The idea is to make it possible for ideas that originate at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) to be developed, constructed and maintained there as well. In this way, the Kabeldistrict will contribute to the profiling of Delft as the High-Tech Capital of the Netherlands.