Factory Zero – Affaire d'Architecture

Our existing housing stock has to transform into an energy neutral, climate and age adaptive, flexible living environment that aligns with livings standards of the coming 20 years. The value captured into our homes has become to big to massively demolish and build new. We need to retrofit more than 80% of our existing stock. 250.000 homes per year in NL only, twenty fold this number in Europe. A transformation challenge that is unprecedented. We do neither have the labour force nor the building capacity to execute in the old fashion way. A mighty challenge but also a mighty opportunity to reshape the places we call home.

credentials: VolkerWessels, Energiesprong

Targeting the affordable housing stock first, we make social tenants, normally in the back of the line, the first beneficiaries of this new technology. Creating room for a social and spacial transition in the older residential areas. To make people feel comfortable with the changes ahead, we choose to renew step-by-step; from a well-known retro image to a seamless facade.

We were asked to design a facade and its production process that fits future expectations of a net-zero retrofit: A seamless facade no longer dominated by window-frames, mad up of maximum of 3 to 4 elements. We go from architecture to industrial design.

We examine three different production methods and add a layer of technique for airshaft ventilation and make the first sketches to feel how far we can stretch the existing situation.