Focus Group Meeting in Almere

On the 16th of May, a H4.0E focus group meeting will be held in Almere. The aim of this focus group is to identify and analyse institutional, legal, financial and technical obstacles and barriers that might get in the way of the project’s successful implementation.

Background

In the Netherlands, the housing sector is facing a serious and contradictory dilemna where middle income households are considered too wealthy to qualify for social housing, but are also not able to afford homes of their own. Therefore, these middle income households are stuck in the unregulated renting sector where prices do not necessarily match quality. For this reason, the Dutch Housing 4.0 Energy pilot aims to fulfil the needs of the middle-income group by finding an affordable, zero energy dwelling design through the digital platform with the potential to be self-built. This results in a target group that consists of people who are willing to be actively involved in the design of their low carbon homes. By dividing the design and construction of the 28 dwellings into two phases, the Dutch pilot will test and improve the Wikihouse concept for upscaling through digitisation. The owners of the dwellings will be the end users themselves and they will be assisted by the City of Almere, who will provide guidance throughout the implementation of the homes. After recruiting the self-builders, workshops will be organised by the Municipality of Almere (Gemeente Almere) to help with the proper and efficient use of the digital platform.

The modular and low carbon WikiHouse concept will be tested and improved for upscaling through digitisation in the Dutch H4.0E pilot.

Focus group

Within this context, the aim of this focus group is to identify and analyse institutional, legal, financial, and technical obstacles and barriers that might get in the way of the project’s successful implementation. Additionally, the focus group will explore policies, laws and regulations that could help in achieving the project’s goals. For this purpose, the discussion will be divided into three parts, investigating three different scenarios or cases.

The first case focuses on the current situation and the actual design and construction of the pilot in Almere.

The second case considers the upscaling of the pilot within the Netherlands. In other words, the dwellings characteristics remain the same but the location changes.

The third case considers upscaling in a broader sense. This is investigated not only in a different physical location, but also within a different sector, targeting a wider group of people with different levels of income and so on.

Those who will be present at the focus group meeting include: 

• Housing Policy Advisor, Municipality of Almere
• Project Manager of Development, Municipality of Almere
• Energy Programme Manager, Municipality of Almere
• Project Manager, Dutch Central Government Real Estate Agency
• Project Manager(s), Woningbouwatelier (international hotspot for experiments and innovations in housing)
• Programme Manager, Woningbouwatelier
• Housing associations
• Architect(s), WikiHouse 
• Researchers, Technical University Delft (TU Delft)