intervention strategies for renovation of social housing estates

Approaches to renovation interventions in the Netherlands, proposals for Rome chapter 4
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Clearly, all the approaches should be investigated to a greater extent. For what concerns the
REproject proposal for example, aspects like technical feasibility (structural aspects or
integration of renewable energy sources) and design of new floor plans by combination of
dwellings could be explored further. Moreover other building typologies and case studies, like
towers blocks, could be investigated.
In a sense, these studies might encourage again the distinctive experimental approach of
ATER Rome undertaken from the late-post WWII (see Chapter 3). Nevertheless, the most
important issue is that alternative approaches to major maintenance interventions have to
be urgently explored to satisfy the changing housing demand, new formed groups and
coming energy regulations (EU). In such a context, the role of the housing association is
crucial. The following questions are important:
- To what extend high-levels of renovation could be implemented by ATER Roma?
- What might be conditions for effective management of renovation processes?
According to the conclusion in Chapter 3 and the investigation presented in section, the most
relevant conclusion is that, despite considerable investments on the long term, such
experiments could be realized provided that the housing organization is in the financial
position and managerial conditions to plan and manage those interventions.
CONCLUSIONS
The Netherlands is among European countries with a long tradition in social housing (housing
association introduced in the middle of the nineteenth century, Ouwehand and van Daalen
2002), a large share of social housing sector (the highest in Europe. In 2001 2,6 million
dwellings, VROM 2007), a considerable transformation of the existing stock (restructuring of
deprived neighborhood is on the agenda of the government till 2011, VROM 2007), and large
investments of housing associations (Ouwehand and van Daalen 2002). Therefore, it
experienced the right conditions to develop good examples of renovation for deprived large
social housing estates.
The site of the National Renovation Prize (NRP), a well-known prize awarding best practice of
renovation in the Netherlands, provides an overview of the many projects realized in the
recent years. However, the ten examples showed in this chapter do not aim at describing the
Dutch renovation practice on the whole. Two conclusions can be drawn:
1) Renovation approach by means of the building envelope is not very common in the
Netherlands. There are exceptions in which the building envelope has been adapted or
completely changed, like in the case of the De Leeuw van Vlaanderen and the Osdorperhof
(both in Amsterdam), to improve the quality and the identity of the building. However, this
approach does not represent the actual practice. Renovation, in fact, is typically dominated
by interventions improving the quality of the estate, meanwhile preserving the initial
architecture appearance by conserving its relevant characteristics (like Enschedelaan, in Den
Haag and most of the projects designed by van Schagen architecten). Clearly, this is not to
say that such an approach is wrong or limited. Rather, that it is the only experiment so far
and that other approaches, like radical transformations aiming at change substantially the
initial look of the block, remains on paper (like in the case of the Gigantic).
2) Energy saving in renovation is not very much implemented. Few examples are strongly
driven by kind of ‘sustainable approach to renovation’. This is quite surprising in the view of
the European energy regulations like the EPDB.
For these two motivations it might be argued that there are some aspects of Dutch
renovation that should deserve more attention.
Elaborating on the Dutch approaches to renovation, investigations were done in Rome. In the
previous chapter it has already discussed that to develop renovation, as it is implemented for
example in the Netherlands, substantial changes need to be done in the model of the
housing association (ATER) and local regulations. In this chapter it emerged that renovation
aiming at improving energy performance of an existing building might be an effective
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