New Housing Concepts: Modular, Circular, Biobased, Reproducible, and Affordable

Leo Oorschot,Thijs Asselbergs

doi:10.3390/su132413772

Abstract

For a moment, it seemed that the architect had disappeared from the construction supply chain for sustainable and affordable housing provided by Dutch housing associations. Large contractors were making direct agreements with housing associations and wanted to scale up production with their housing factories. However, with the ‘So You Think You Can BUILD’ challenge, architects, consultancies, and contractors reinvented themselves within the construction supply chain and acquired a position as providers of circular building concepts. The aim of this challenge is to stimulate providers of homes to design and produce (in great numbers) affordable and sustainable houses. This not only scales up building production in empty fields but also within difficult and dense build urban areas. A whole new generation of Dutch architects, consultancies, and contractors working in collaboration are now intensively involved with circular and biobased residential buildings, innovative materials and production processes. They are managing to provide attractive products for housing associations and other clients. In the first part of 2021, ‘So You Think You Can BUILD’ challenged teams of designers, engineers and contractors to develop new concepts, with the three winners applying the principles of the ‘passive house’, which is modular and circular, as well as a smart building skin and smart core with open floor space in between.

Highlights

Many entrants in the challenge mentioned the environmental performance of buildings without including the service systems or technical building equipment, or they offered different service system options
Service systems with a positive effect on energy performance are responsible for about 30% of the total environmental impact of multi-storey apartment buildings
The biggest challenge is to find a balance between the energy performance of buildings, the environmental performance of buildings and a healthy indoor climate during the lifecycle of a multi-storey apartment building

Summary

Introduction

The idea behind the So You Think You Can BUILD [1] competition was to challenge providers of homes to come up with a sustainable, circular, affordable housing concept that could supply housing in great numbers for one or two people and improve the total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) over 50 years for the housing association. This was in the context of a shortage of dwellings in the Netherlands and the government’s intention in its ‘National Strategy on Spatial Planning and the Environment’ (‘Nationale Omgevingsvisie’, NOVI,) to create one million new sustainable homes by 2030 [2]

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Discussion

Conclusion