Decarbonizing the housing stock is one of the largest challenges in the built environment today, and is getting attention not only from policymakers, but also from social housing corporations, financial and tenants’ organisations. In line with the international Paris-Climate-Change-Conference 2015, Dutch cities and housing associations have embraced this challenge with the ambitions to become carbon neutral in 2050. To reach such ambitious goals, both the rate and depth of renovation need to increase significantly. In the Netherlands, the Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth, indicates that 300.000 dwellings have to be renovated annually, in accordance with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive adopted by the European Union, to improve the Dutch building stock towards energy neutrality. Several technical solutions to eliminate the energy demand in dwelling have been developed and tested. Nevertheless, the intake rate of deep retrofitting is low. Currently, most improvements in residential buildings consist of basic maintenance and shallow renovation, but broader or deeper energy renovation measures are required. Despite more recent developments, there are still significant barriers related to financing, lack of information, and user acceptance. Complex technical characteristics are not always taken into account by tenants; the focus is usually on the ease of use, comfort and living expenses.

To this end, the present study sets of to investigate the relationship between energy efficiency upgrade measures and cost of living. Focusing on the post-war, multi-family social housing in the Netherlands, a framework of refurbishment measures that affect the energy efficiency were identified, and their performance was simulated. The variations refer to the façade design, thermal envelope upgrade, winter-garden addition and reviewable energy. The energy efficiency indicator is the energy cost reduction, as well as the carbon footprint of the energy use. Furthermore, the rental price adjustment was estimated, taking into account the refurbishment investment and the operation cost of the renovated dwellings. All tested combination of variables resulted in significant energy savings, up to 70%, while energy generation was proven to be cost-effective, as it has a considerable positive effect on the energy use and the energy cost, without increasing the rental price.

The results aim at supporting the decision-making discussion between the stakeholders, primarily housing associations and tenants. The relation between the energy consumption and rental price for the different options identifies the effect of design variation and demonstrated the attractive solutions that the tenants are more likely to accept, taking into account the overall cost of living and sustainability benefits.

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The purpose of the architectural design studio is that students learn to think and act like designers. However, communication between teachers and students seems to be problem- atic. Teachers barely seem to explain how designers work, which may be confusing for stu- dents. To learn professional reasoning processes and strategies, different teaching activi- ties are involved, such as modelling, coaching, scaffolding, reflection, exploration and artic- ulation. In the design studio it seems tradition that teachers only ask questions, while not articulating the design process. This paper focuses on the research question of whether teachers in architectural design education articulate the main ‘designerly’ actions and skills, performed by expert design- ers, and if so, to what extent and in which manner? To answer these questions video-re- cordings of 13 tutorial sessions are analysed with the help of an educational framework of five generic elements. The framework consists of the basic design process actions and skills, and is specifically developed as a vocabulary for making the design process explicit and to train students in the design process elements. The main conclusion is that teachers refer to the design product in an implicit way. They leave it to the students to discover the structure and components of the design process more or less by themselves.@en

This video allows anybody to teach or practice designing for values in a financially and professionally responsible manner. Creative professionals focusing on designing for client and stakeholder values often struggle to transform their work into sustainable business models that are aligned with their professional identity. Exploiting the results and toolkit of the FuturA project, the video aims to facilitate students and professionals in uncovering, visualizing and reconciling conflicts between creating value and capturing value in their daily work. The tutorial and accompanying Project Value Modelling Blueprint can easily be incorporated into courses or be used by professionals to design and assess their business model for a creative project. @en

Increasing energy efficiency of the housing stock is one of the largest challenges in the built environment today. In line with the international Paris-Climate-Change-Conference 2015, Dutch municipalities and housing associations have embraced the ambition to achieve carbon neutrality for their social housing stock by 2050. However, most deep renovation designs for increasing the energy efficiency of dwellings focus on the relatively easy portion of the housing stock: postwar row housing. Furthermore, such design solutions are mostly produced without much care for architectural quality and cultural heritage, nor for testing for consumer preferences. Yet, such aspects are of major importance in tenement housing, particularly regarding the architectural quality of the huge numbers of walk-up apartment buildings from the inter- and postwar periods owned by housing associations in the larger cities. Renovation of buildings of this typology is more complex because of, among others, technical, social, and heritage factors. To support decisions in this complex context, a General Transformation Framework and a Roadmap has been developed for generating design solutions for deep renovation of representative parts of postwar walk-up apartment buildings with the aim to increase energy efficiency; retain its architectural legibility and cultural heritage value; and allow for the presentation of (end) users, with various options for adaptation to assess their preferences.@en

A fascinating and rich landscape of personal views and approaches can be seen in architectural design and in architectural design education. This variation may be confusing for students. This paper focuses on the question: is the framework of generic elements that we developed for explicating the design process helpful to compare the differences in architectural design approaches? The results of interviewing a variety of 15 architectural, urban and landscape designers show all kinds of personal approaches that have a set of five underlying generic elements in common. Therefore, the framework may be helpful for teachers and students to describe these personal approaches and may help students in understanding differences and similarities and in finding out what their own personal approach may be.@en