Projects per year
Abstract
In addition to the environmental burden of its construction and demolition activities, the Flemish housing market faces a structural affordability challenge. As one possible answer, this research explores the potential of so-called expandable houses, being built increasingly often. Through specific design choices that enable the disassembly and future reuse of individual components and so align with the idea of a circular economy, expandable houses promise to provide ever-changing homes with a smaller impact on the environment and at a lower cost for clients. In this paper, an expandable house suitable for various housing needs is conceived through a scenario-based research-by-design approach and compared to a reference house for Flanders. Subsequently, for both houses the life cycle costs are calculated and compared. The results of this exploration support the proposition that designing expandable houses can be a catalyst for sustainable, circular housing development and that households could benefit from its social, economic and ecological qualities. It requires, however, a dynamic perspective on evaluating their life-cycle impact.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 6974 |
Number of pages | 30 |
Journal | Sustainability |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2 Jun 2021 |
Keywords
- Design for Change
- Housing
- Life cycle costing
- Adaptable building
- Sustainable building
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Expandable Houses: An Explorative Life Cycle Cost Analysis'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
-
FWOSB41: Feasibility assessment method: Development of a method to contextually assess the architectural feasibility of preassembled transformable façade systems
Cambier, C. & De Temmerman, N.
1/01/18 → 31/12/21
Project: Fundamental