These five wind turbine blades retired after 15 years in the Netherlands. Today, it serves as a children’s playground in Rotterdam

What happens to a giant wind turbine blade after it has finished generating electricity? In Rotterdam, the answer was surprisingly playful. Instead of treating five decommissioned blades as waste, Dutch designers cut, positioned and transformed them into towers, tunnels and other structures where children could climb, slide and play. The result was Wikado, a 1,200-square-metre playground created by Dutch architecture firm Superuse Studios for Kinderparadijs Meidoorn. Completed in October 2008, the project offered an early glimpse of how enormous pieces of renewable-energy infrastructure could find a second life.

Five old blades from wind turbines became a children's playground

The original playground was in poor condition and needed renovation. Rather than rebuilding everything with new materials, Superuse examined what could be retained and brought in five decommissioned wind turbine blades. The blades were arranged around an existing concrete area to form a maze-like environment. Their wide bases became four towers, while cut sections were positioned throughout the playground to connect different areas. A climbing net was suspended between the towers, and existing elements including slides and paving stones were also reused. The unusual shapes also became part of the attraction. Superuse says children can imagine the structures as everything from ships to castles and burrows.

From generating electricity to slides and tunnels

A peer-reviewed study by researchers at TU Delft, published in Sustainability in 2020, provides another look at the transformation. Researchers described Wikado as an example of the circular economy in the built environment, noting that children could still recognise the original turbine blades even after they had been transformed into “slides, platforms, and tunnels.” The Guardian also highlighted Superuse's work in 2013, describing decommissioned rotor blades as a recurring material in the firm's projects, where they had been turned into maze-like arrangements of playground tunnels and towers.

Designers say reuse cut the project's carbon footprint

There was an environmental benefit beyond keeping the blades in use. Superuse estimates that reusing existing materials for its Blade-Made playgrounds reduces carbon emissions by roughly 90% compared with conventionally built playgrounds. The TU Delft researchers similarly concluded that Wikado saved resources and embodied energy compared with a playground constructed using new materials.

A second life far removed from the wind farm

Wind turbine blades are built to survive years of demanding conditions, but that durability can make dealing with them after retirement challenging. Wikado turned that problem into an experiment in reuse. Five structures that once rotated high above the ground ended up at children's height, becoming tunnels, towers and slides instead of immediately becoming waste. More than a decade later, the Rotterdam playground remains an intriguing example of a simple circular-economy idea: when something reaches the end of its first job, that doesn't necessarily mean it has reached the end of its useful life.