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Welcome to Dock, our little safe haven in the deserted city of Rotterdam! We are a collective of people, our goal is to provide a safe and social space for people to get together and provide for ourselves through the big greenhouse located in the Essenburgpark. We share all tasks of survival, and of course share all profits of that hard labor! The important part is that everyone in the community is obligated to do their part in keeping everything working right!

We are always looking to add new people in our small group, given they of course can help out. We are mostly looking for members with prior technological or ecological backgrounds, but anyone can sign up.

our goals and the future of the

TO JOIN OUR COMMUNITY?

Essenburgpark
Essenburgsingel 59, 3022 EA Rotterdam

Do you want to be part of our self-sufficient community in the historic Essenburgpark? Please contact us. We are always looking to add new people in our small group, given they of course can help out. We are mostly looking for members with prior technological or ecological backgrounds, but anyone can join our community. As long as you are willing to do the tasks and ensure the survival of everyone in the community and of course share all profits of that hard labor.

You can send us an email or come visit us in the Essenburgpark!

1. Plants make organic material (sugar) and oxygen out of water and CO2 under the influence of sunlight. This process is called Photosynthesis.
2. This organic material is transported through the whole plant.
3. A part of this material is not used by the plant, so it gets secreted through the roots.
4. Bacteria that are naturally present around the roots, break down the organic material. In that process, electrons and protons are released.
5. The electrons are caught in the anode of a battery, to be used as electricity.

So, to really summarize the process, Plant-E uses the leftover energy the plant doesn’t use and excretes through its roots to transform into energy we can use to power the lights in our greenhouse/terrarium, control the warmth, etc. The plant gives us the energy we can use to help the plant survive, it’s mutually beneficial.

Plant-E provides us with a way for the plant to help us and itself, making the plant both independent and dependent on humans.

The proces of Plant-E with the Burdock plant.

Our main source of energy in the Dock comes from the plants themselves in the form of Plant-E. This technology helps us to use leftover energy the plant excretes through their roots to transform into electricity we can use to power the lights in our greenhouse, control the warmth and use for all other buildings in the vicinity! The plant gives us the energy we can use to help both the plants and ourselves survive, so it’s a mutually beneficial process! The inner workings of Plant-E are pretty difficult to grasp, but we tried our best to explain it in easy-to-understand words;

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Kinpira Gobo a dish that's made of burdock.

A photo of Essenburgpark, Rotterdam in 2050

A drawing of the outside of the doom.

A drawing of the inside of the dome.

A photo of Essenburgpark, Rotterdam in 2021

The map of Essenburgpark in it's original state made in 2019.

Essenburgpark in the summer, photo taken in 2019.

An outside photo of the Dock.

Inside our dome where we cultivate different plants.

When the humans retreated, nature took back its land, trying to make Rotterdam a city full of plants, flowers and animals again, all living inside houses and buildings. But after 5 years, even nature couldn’t keep up and everything started dying at alarming rates because of the constant cold.

For a long time, there was nothing in the big city of Rotterdam. The ice had overtaken the buildings and made the area into a frozen city.

This was, till the year 2040. The ice age was still there in winter times, but when summer came around the sun would shine more and without thinking of the freezing temperature, the weather became quite nice.

In that summer, a small group of people started to build up their community again.

They were just trying to find out where the best possible space was to start up life again.

With some prior knowledge of plants and flowers, the name of the plant was soon discovered: The burdock.

More burdocks started to bloom. People hadn’t seen anything other than the snow and ice, so the little purple flower brought a smile to their faces. After five years of eating canned food, they found out this little plant was edible, and also really useful for medicine. Because of this little burdock, people realized life was possible in the Essenburg Park.
More people came back after hearing of this revelation, helping to build a new home. They did not want to restart the old world, since that was what started the whole ice age in the first place.

In the last few years, they did a lot of thinking about a new way of living and throwing out all the wrong elements of the old world.
After five years of eating canned food, they found out this little plant was eatable, and also really useful for medicine. Because of this little burdock, people realized life was possible in the Essenburg Park. More people came back after hearing of this revelation, helping to build a new home.
They did not want to restart the old world, since that was what started the whole ice age in the first place. In the last few years, they did a lot of thinking about a new way of living, throw out all the wrong elements of the old world, and start something new.

In the year 2042 the dome was built. The ice age had not gone away, it was still extremely cold, so people had to find a way to keep their homes warm and to make their own electricity.

In the year 2042 the dome was built. It was still extremely cold, so people had to find a way to keep their homes warm and to make their own electricity. Luckily, they came across some old research about a technology called Plant-E. It didn’t make an extreme amount of energy, but it was enough to get by with. In this new way of living, people decided they had to become equal to nature, to not repeat the mistakes of the past. So the energy the plant would give the humans would need to go to the plants survival first in the form of light and warmth. The dome provided that, giving the plants a glass roof in the middle of the Essenburg park.

In this process of the plants providing everything for themselves, and only in need of some maintenance of extra nutrients from time to time, makes the plants almost completely self-sustaining.

This way of living, where humans are equal and less is needed is one of the main goals of the Dock. In this way we preserve nature so that we can live in connection with each other and Mother Earth for many more centuries.

The Burdock is still a very important plant for the inhabitants of the Dock. Because of the burdock people discovered life was still possible in the colder climate. This name of this community also finds its origins in their name: the burDOCK. Every year, when the first flowers of the burdock begin to bloom people would celebrate inside the dome.

This year, 2050, will be the anniversary of the burdock and this community. Ten years ago, we saw the first blooming, this spring will bring a big celebration!

The Essenburg Park was always a sort of a community for people to come together, relax and take care of the park and its gardens. Located right next to the train tracks from Rotterdam to Schiedam, it was and still is a sheltered and private-feeling spot.

We wanted to maintain the communal feeling of the area which is one of the reasons why we thought this would be the perfect place for The Dock.

When the ice age began, people desperately needed a place to preserve nature, grow their food and to get together even in the middle of the freezing cold. What would be better than a place that had already for years been used for these same exact purposes?

In the past the park was used as a water reserve. Therefore it is a perfect wet and nutritious location for our greenhouse. As the train tracks north of the park are still in place today and create a sort of a high fence, they protect the area from the worst damage made by the glaciers and water.

Decades ago it was researched that global warming has an effect on the earth’s volcanic activity. When the climate is colder, there are larger glaciers putting more pressure on the earth’s surface and the magma can’t flow and surface as easily.

Therefore the continuously warming temperature was a big concern for many, as with less ice there would be less pressure on the earth. Researchers knew that sooner or later this would cause volcanic eruptions with disastrous effects.

The first dramatic eruptions happened in 2025. They erupted ash and sulfur into the atmosphere, which made the solar radiation’s warming effect on the earth notably less powerful.

Only one eruption was capable of cooling the climate of the entire planet for at least two years. So when there were multiple, powerful eruptions each year, scientists became very aware that this couldn’t lead to anything else but chaos and a dramatic drop in the temperature of the earth.

Around 2030 the damage of the volcanoes started to really appear as the temperatures became unbearable for most of the people of Rotterdam. Only then the eruptions started slowing down, but the damage caused by them would still be visible for decades to come.

We are a community who strives for creating a new way of living in which there is space for nature and humans to harmoniously co-exist.

The Dock is a safe space for everyone to come together. You can warm up, meet other people and work together on maintaining the Dock and all the nature inside of it.

It’s a place where we can learn about community living, technology, sustainable energy, plants, food and our future.

Our main goal is that we want to ensure that we as humans don’t abuse or disturb the ecological system more than we have done already. Ultimately, the nature in our dome should be able to survive on its own without the help of humans.

We therefore find it important that we do not take anything from nature that nature needs for itself.

When living in this community we ask for your contribution, in any form. We ask you to take care of the plants living in the Dock and in the surrounding park.

We grow fruits and vegetables, so these of course need to be maintained and harvested. We ask to only take what is needed. This applies for food and water, but also for the use of electricity for warmth and light.

We don’t know what the future will bring us. We may live forever, but everything is possible.

Our goal is that The Dock will be used as a place to preserve information about plants, food, medicines, energy and also about starting communities.

In this way the future generations can use The Dock as a place to gain information and the knowledge will be passed down to future generations.

We are now working on putting all the knowledge together in a smart system. This system has access to all the things that are happening in

The Dock and will save this information on different hard drives placed in the structure of The Dock itself.

Our goal for now is that every living being can live here in The Dock in harmony and happiness. Together we’re building on a positive future.

The plant produces energy through photosynthesis by using the artificial sunlight, oxygen and water. It gets water from the bottom of the terrarium as it’s located on top of the Essenburg park. One of the park’s functions is to be a water reserve, so there is enough water for the plants in the terrarium to stay naturally hydrated.

Some of the energy produced by the plant goes into the soil, in which there are conductive metal wires. These wires are further connected to boxes placed on top of the soil. These boxes gather the energy from the plants.

They are also wired to the lamps or artificial suns and keep them powered. This way the plant always gets enough warmth and light, and the suns always get enough power.

All parts of the burdock can be eaten, but the root is the most popular part for cooking.

The plant can be eaten both raw and cooked. It’s high on fibre, calcium, potassium, amino acids, B-vitamins and antioxidants to name a few.

Earlier on it has been also used as a traditional medicine as it is said to have an anti-inflammatory effect.

It’s also effective against some kinds of bacteria and fungi. On top of that it is blood purifying and protects and heals the liver.

The burdock is quite the fighter as it can live in cooler climates and the root can even survive freezing. That’s why it’s an ideal plant for The Dock.

It’s also not too picky about its surroundings and will grow on riverbanks, fields and even disturbed habitats, roadsides and waste areas.

For a long time, people knew an ice age was coming, the only unknown factor was when. In the first years, people tried to stop it, but the damage had already been done. Their efforts were too little, too late. So, when the three winters after 2030 were getting colder and colder, people knew the ice age had begun. This revelation caused a lot of chaos in the beginning, people fled their homes without knowing where to go. In 2035, only a small group of people stayed behind in the city of Rotterdam to keep it alive as much as possible.