With Respyre, Auke Bleij is pioneering a new frontier for urban greening. At the heart of this start-up is an ingenious concrete specifically developed for spontaneous moss growth. Respyre provides simple, green solutions that can transform vastly unused urban surfaces into green infrastructure that harbours moss’s air-filtering and temperature-regulating properties. Their bio-receptive concrete can be seamlessly applied to existing surfaces or integrated into new constructions, contributing from material sciences and engineering to pressing issues linked to urbanisation and global warming. Made from up to 70% recycled cement, it cleverly repurposes a challenging waste product. Creating the conditions for moss to thrive can improve air quality, provide a habitat for insects and microorganisms, and reduce traffic noise and heat retention. By weaving the ecological value of other species, Respyre presents a nature-inclusive approach to the future city. 

Auke co-founded Respyre, driven by a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a background in civil engineering from TU/Delft. What started as the university’s research on why mosses grow on railway-adjacent surfaces has led to a pioneering approach that reconsiders the value of moss to tackle environmental and urban issues like air quality and overheating cities to offer concrete applications. Their bio-receptive concrete innovates the accessibility and scalability of green solutions, proving market-ready initiatives can be applied in unexpected locations in a seamless and affordable way.  D’Groene Citer, a renovation of social rental flats in Purmerend, is a pilot case testing their quick and simple solutions on a larger scale. Respyre is turning a facade of 300 square metres into an autonomous and natural respiratory system for the neighbourhood while researching the resilience of moss at varying heights, reaching up to 20 metres. Utilising 420 square metres of prefab concrete as part of a cutting-edge green office building, the Office building Hoex in Ooostrum is another noteworthy collaboration. The exterior layer of the building incorporates Respyre’s bio-receptive concrete to significantly reduce CO2 impact significantly, demonstrating the scalability of their solutions and the value of the right partners in testing and daring new applications that continue to lower the threshold for either small or large nature-inclusive projects.

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