Like other (Northern European) countries, Belgium experiences a significant shortage of social and affordable housing. To provide extra social housing, our cities will have a key role in the upcoming years. Often building extra housing is seen as a solution to the housing crisis. However, to ensure the quality of the neighbourhood it is important to preserve the existing open space.
In the past decennia, a trend of reconversion projects has emerged. Vacant office buildings are being reconverted to housing in large numbers. This trend will only grow post-covid. Past research has shown that the realization of such projects causes high construction costs and high production of waste.
Circular design strategies cannot only avoid building waste now as in the future. Through choices that enhance the maintenance and future alterations, circularity could make the reconversion more affordable in the long run. Yet, the implementation of circular design choices is slowed down by the lack of knowledge about the exact contribution of these choices to the affordability of the project.
This research proposal will create concrete insight into how circular design choices increases the affordability of reconversion projects and lead to more social housing. These insights will be translated into design instruments to guide governments, policy makers, clients, architects and general contractors in making better-informed choices, and illustrate those by various case studies.