Design and Circularity for the Brussels Housing Stock Extensions

Samenvatting

Real-estate prices in Belgium are continuously rising, and more families are struggling to find affordable housing. This is causing pressure on conventional housing aid programs. In the Brussels Region, especially, the need for affordable housing is still increasing due to the scarcity of space and the fast increase in population. Due to the inability of the government to solve the shortage of affordable housing, there is a need for innovative housing designs that satisfy the quality of comfort required by households.
Two innovative trends that can solve the shortage of affordable housing are circular construction and housing extensions. Extensions can provide a remedy to the shortage of housing in a city by utilizing urban voids that are usually left unused, while circularity can help reduce the costs of housing construction and adaptation in the long term by introducing a set of strategies such as recycling and reuse. However, the application of circularity in housing extensions remains vague.
Therefore, the main goal of this thesis is to investigate and illustrate the potential of applying circular strategies in the design of housing extensions.
This study explores, through research by design, the potential of adopting extensions for the different housing typologies in Brussels. For every typology, suitable extension designs are explored. The target is to design extensions that can help solve current societal challenges in the households of the Brussels Capital Region and adapt to the continuous changing lifestyles of the population. The proposed designs are not intended to only focus on the densification of row houses, but also on introducing circularity. With the movement towards circular economy in society, the role of engineers and architects should also shift towards applying more circular strategies in construction to improve the environmental impact of their designs.
To do so, an exploration of recent circularity strategies and extension projects is done. Followed by a collection of the row house typologies present in the Brussels Capital Region. The first phase of this research focuses on analyzing existing extension projects to better understand the reasons that drive households to build extensions and to serve as an inspiration for the research by design process.
From the collected circular guidelines and the case studies a qualification system is proposed to qualify the generated designs. Four designs are proposed for every typology based on four user stories. Finally, a re-evaluation of the qualification system is conducted. This re-evaluation allows to pinpoint the specific strengths and principles that support the design process. This will generate the outcome of the thesis: circular design guidelines to be used by architects when proposing housing extensions for row house typologies.

Datum prijs	sep. 2022
Originele taal	English
Begeleider	Waldo Galle (Promotor), Niels De Temmerman (Promotor), Margaux Jeanne P Lespagnard (Advisor), Ahmed Zaib Khan (Jury) & Hera Van Sande (Jury)