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

Leo Oorschot and Thijs Asselbergs
Additional contact information
Leo Oorschot: 1M Homes Initiative, Department of Management in the Built Environment, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, 2628BL Delft, The Netherlands
Thijs Asselbergs: 1M Homes Initiative, Department of Architectural Engineering & Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, 2628BL Delft, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 24, 1-19

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.

Keywords: affordable housing; housing crisis; circular economy; energy transition; conceptual houses; modular houses; smart homes; The Netherlands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13772/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13772/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:24:p:13772-:d:701687

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().