37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 1006Demolition in Europe; volume, motives and research approach(1) André Thomsen and (2) Kees van der Flier(1)OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology, NLA.F.Thomsen@tudelft.nl(2) Faculty of Architecture, Dept. Real Estate & Housing, Delft University of Technology, NLC.L.vanderFlier@tudelft.nlKeywords: demolition, dwellings, life cycle, life span, housing management, decision making,motives, comparative research, Netherlands, EuropeAbstractWhat determines the life span of dwellings?Much is known about the initial phase ofbuildings. The vast majority of scientific knowledge is concentrated on the building initiative,the programming, design and in particular the construction. Knowledge about the utilizationphase, including management, transformation and redesign is growing. But applicableknowledge about the end of life is still scarce.As the housing is ageing and the deliberation between life cycle extension or demolition isgetting more and more important, knowledge about demolition, the decisive motives, the proand cons and the consequences is getting just as necessary as the initial phase.In the last decade we did a series of surveys on demolition in the Netherlands, directed at thesocial rented as well as the private stock. Based on these surveys we developed a conceptualmodel of demolition and underlying decisive motives. In search to what extend our findingsare also viable in a broader area, we also looked at demolition data in other EU countries andfound similarities as well as differences.Underlying an emerging European research cooperation, the paper explains the relevancy of aEurope wide survey, defines the research objectives, problem definition and main researchquestions, and proposes a conceptual model and an outline for a broad comparative research.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 338