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Policy Instruments to Improve Energy Performance of Existing Owner Occupied Dwellings: Understanding and Insight
Get PDFThe aim of this thesis is to add knowledge to the role and impact of policy instruments in meeting energy performance ambition in the existing owner occupied housing stock. The focus was instruments available in the Netherlands in 2011 and 2012. These instruments represented the ‘on the ground’ efforts to meet climate change targets and many continue to do so today in the same or slightly altered forms.
At international level there is a recognized need to keep global temperatures within the range of 1.5 - 2°C above pre-industrial levels (Carrington, 2016). At European level, the 2020 package contains a series of binding legislation to help the EU meet its more immediate climate and energy targets. 2020 targets include 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emission, 20% of EU energy obtained from renewable sources and 20% improvement in energy efficiency. 2020 targets for the Netherlands are a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 14% increase in energy generation from renewable sources (Vringer et al., 2014).
A raft of policies has been produced over the last number of decades from international to local level to orientate action towards targets. At European level the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) drives efforts at reducing energy among one of the biggest players, the building sector. By requiring a mandatory certificate at the point of sale and rent of buildings and making regulatory demands on existing buildings the EPBD upped the ante of what could be expected from the building sector, but especially the existing dwelling stock.
National governments have already been tackling existing dwellings for decades propelled by the energy crisis and later by climate change policy. Information campaigns, subsidies, energy taxes, energy loans and tailored advice are among the instruments that have been available to homeowners to carry out works on their dwellings to reduce energy consumption. In recent years, the pace of efforts has increased due to, inter alia, the realization that the revolution in energy use that must occur for climate change targets to be met means major changes in the fabric of the existing dwelling stock, dwellings constructed before building regulations demanded high energy performance standards. It is argued that the building sector, in general, and the existing dwelling stock, in particular, can contribute more cost effectively and more significantly in quality and quantity terms than any other sector (Amstalden et al., 2007; Lomas, 2010; íœrge-Vorsatz, et al., 2007). This has provoked calls for new and improved instruments to meet the energy saving potential of existing dwellings.
Despite many of the same instruments being used for decades there is little solid information on many crucial dimensions of how instruments operate and on what impact they have. The few evaluations and reviews that do take place are commonly focused on theoretical energy savings and costs and instrument strengths and weaknesses. Instruments commonly appear and disappear without undergoing improvement or change or contributing to policy learning. Many instruments are laden with assumptions about the target group that are never formally or comprehensively proved or debunked. Little theorizing takes place on the type of instruments most suited to the target group. Fundamentally, there is a serious lack of information surrounding the effectiveness of instruments assumed to be making climate change targets a reality.
It is the above mentioned information deficits that influenced the objectives and structure of this thesis. Instruments are examined from different angles and viewpoints, from experts, owner occupiers, official evaluations and front-runner countries. Assessment frameworks were developed to tease out how well instruments truly function. Households in receipt of instruments such as the EPC and energy audit were compared to households not in receipt of instruments. Moreover, the complete range of national instruments available at the time of the survey were studied to present a complete picture
Revisiting Urban Dynamics through Social Urban Data: Methods and tools for data integration, visualization, and exploratory analysis to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of human activity in cities
Get PDFThe study of dynamic spatial and social phenomena in cities has evolved rapidly in the recent years, yielding new insights into urban dynamics. This evolution is strongly related to the emergence of new sources of data for cities (e.g. sensors, mobile phones, online social media etc.), which have potential to capture dimensions of social and geographic systems that are difficult to detect in traditional urban data (e.g. census data). However, as the available sources increase in number, the produced datasets increase in diversity. Besides heterogeneity, emerging social urban data are also characterized by multidimensionality. The latter means that the information they contain may simultaneously address spatial, social, temporal, and topical attributes of people and places. Therefore, integration and geospatial (statistical) analysis of multidimensional data remain a challenge. The question which, then, arises is how to integrate heterogeneous and multidimensional social urban data into the analysis of human activity dynamics in cities?
To address the above challenge, this thesis proposes the design of a framework of novel methods and tools for the integration, visualization, and exploratory analysis of large-scale and heterogeneous social urban data to facilitate the understanding of urban dynamics. The research focuses particularly on the spatiotemporal dynamics of human activity in cities, as inferred from different sources of social urban data. The main objective is to provide new means to enable the incorporation of heterogeneous social urban data into city analytics, and to explore the influence of emerging data sources on the understanding of cities and their dynamics.
In mitigating the various heterogeneities, a methodology for the transformation of heterogeneous data for cities into multidimensional linked urban data is, therefore, designed. The methodology follows an ontology-based data integration approach and accommodates a variety of semantic (web) and linked data technologies. A use case of data interlinkage is used as a demonstrator of the proposed methodology. The use case employs nine real-world large-scale spatiotemporal data sets from three public transportation organizations, covering the entire public transport network of the city of Athens, Greece.
To further encourage the consumption of linked urban data by planners and policy-makers, a set of webbased tools for the visual representation of ontologies and linked data is designed and developed. The tools — comprising the OSMoSys framework — provide graphical user interfaces for the visual representation, browsing, and interactive exploration of both ontologies and linked urban data.
After introducing methods and tools for data integration, visual exploration of linked urban data, and derivation of various attributes of people and places from different social urban data, it is examined how they can all be combined into a single platform. To achieve this, a novel web-based system (coined SocialGlass) for the visualization and exploratory analysis of human activity dynamics is designed. The system combines data from various geo-enabled social media (i.e. Twitter, Instagram, Sina Weibo) and LBSNs (i.e. Foursquare), sensor networks (i.e. GPS trackers, Wi-Fi cameras), and conventional socioeconomic urban records, but also has the potential to employ custom datasets from other sources.
A real-world case study is used as a demonstrator of the capacities of the proposed web-based system in the study of urban dynamics. The case study explores the potential impact of a city-scale event (i.e. the Amsterdam Light festival 2015) on the activity and movement patterns of different social categories (i.e. residents, non-residents, foreign tourists), as compared to their daily and hourly routines in the periods before and after the event. The aim of the case study is twofold. First, to assess the potential and limitations of the proposed system and, second, to investigate how different sources of social urban data could influence the understanding of urban dynamics.
The contribution of this doctoral thesis is the design and development of a framework of novel methods and tools that enables the fusion of heterogeneous multidimensional data for cities. The framework could foster planners, researchers, and policy makers to capitalize on the new possibilities given by emerging social urban data. Having a deep understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of cities and, especially of the activity and movement behavior of people, is expected to play a crucial role in addressing the challenges of rapid urbanization. Overall, the framework proposed by this research has potential to open avenues of quantitative explorations of urban dynamics, contributing to the development of a new science of cities
Adaptive planning for resilient coastal waterfronts: Linking flood risk reduction with urban development in Rotterdam and New York City
Get PDFMany delta and coastal cities worldwide face increasing flood risk due to changing climate conditions and sea level rise. The question is how to develop measures and strategies for existing urban coastal areas that can anticipate these slowly changing conditions, such as gradually increasing sea levels and extreme river discharges.
There is growing recognition that the increasing vulnerability of urbanised delta and coastal cities is strongly related to urbanisation, changing socio-economic conditions and human-induced land subsidence. Consequently, in response to climate change, it is likely to be most effective to adapt existing urban environments and urban assets, and promote flood sensitive behaviour in combination with prevention based approaches, aiming to improve the whole capacity of the urban system to deal with changing and more extreme conditions in the future. This approach is known as the resilience approach. Although there is much focus on resilience in research and practice, it still lacks knowledge on the effectiveness of measures, and increasing coastal flood resilience is mostly understood in terms of risk reduction and not yet as an opportunity for change and creating liveability. In addition, it lacks knowledge on processes of urban development, management and change at the neighbourhood level as an important condition for creating coastal flood risk resilience and to create added value. The main research question of this thesis is therefore twofold: “how can we adapt existing coastal urban waterfront areas to changing climatic circumstances and how can we take this adaptation process as an opportunity for creating added value?”
When adapting urban environments three challenges can be identified. First of all, it is necessary to understand under what conditions coastal urban systems become less resilient and adaptation is needed, and what (combinations) of measures are most effective to improve resilience. Secondly, key to the successful adaptation of urban environments is effectively using moments of change in urban development and management as windows of opportunity for low-cost adaptation, and to yield additional benefits. This requires a better understanding of the opportunities to spatially and in a timely manner, synchronise adaptation measures with investments in urban development, urban management and infrastructure maintenance projects at the neighbourhood level. Changes can be both incremental, for example building renovation cycles as an opportunity for retrofitting flood resilience measures into buildings, or can be transformative, for example by using urban redevelopment projects that create new options for adaptation. Finally, a major challenge of adapting existing urban environments to the effects of climate change is that it requires anticipating long-term trends and changes that easily exceed periods of 50 to 100 years. This brings large uncertainties into the design and planning process. When facing deep uncertainty it is necessary to improve flexibility. Improving flexibility can be either tactical-operational (designed) or strategic (planned). Designed flexibility can be achieved by developing design that anticipates, or can adapt according to future conditions or functional requirements. This can be achieved by incorporating modifications in the design, through preserving space, by over-dimensioning critical elements or by built-in redundancies. On a strategic level, flexibility can be achieved by developing sequences of adaptation options that keep options open in anticipation of future conditions. Sequences of adaptation options (pathways) that are reversible and offer multiple options to adapt should be favoured over irreversible and non-flexible paths.
To answer the research question, this research applies a resilience based planning method (the Adaptive Pathways Method, or APM) to develop and assess adaptation pathways at the level of neighbourhood development in two flood prone waterfront cases in Rotterdam. APM is a structured, iterative approach based on defining the conditions under which policy objectives are no longer attainable and adaptation is required, and the assessment of sequences of adaptation actions. It enables policy makers to explore and develop adaptive strategies
The case study research in two flood prone urbanised areas in Rotterdam showed that Rotterdam’s land elevation policy for new building plots is expensive and offers no solution to reduce the flood risk of existing homes and businesses in the area. In this study, two alternative solutions (water robust and keeping water out) were developed and tested for spatial integration, (cost) effectiveness and opportunities for creating added value. The Feijenoord case shows that a district-wide flood protection strategy provides the most beneficial solution and opens up opportunities for capitalising on investments in waterfront development and improvements of the urban realm. The Noordereiland case shows a more diverse portfolio of adaptation responses, although there are only a few combinations of adaptation responses that are complementary to deal with change in the long run. A potential adaptation strategy for the Noordereiland is based on sequencing property level protection (wet-proofing and dry-proofing adaptation measures), followed by the development of a permanent or temporary floodwall strategy. However, this strategy offers few opportunities to link with spatial dynamics and to create added value.
Based on case study research, this research concludes that the APM is an effective tool to evaluate and select appropriate adaptation measures. In particular, the value of this method is that it helps to bridge the gap between highly uncertain long-term climate change effects and the short-term decision making horizons of urban planning and development. Additionally, the method helps to better grasp the timing of adaptation and develop a wide portfolio of adaptation actions, which opens up opportunities to couple adaptation measures with other planned investments, or to anticipate by developing urban design that allows for easier adaptation in the future. Both cases underline the fact that strategies to enhance the resilience of urban waterfronts must be based on a detailed assessment of local vulnerabilities, and should select sitespecific adaptation measures leading to a tailor-made portfolio of solutions.
An important element of adaptive planning is the assumption that a transfer between, or sequencing alternative interventions (and thus developing alternative pathways) is straightforward. However, in reality there is no smooth transfer between alternatives. Both cases clearly show that a change of strategy, for example from property-level to a district-wide solution, is accompanied with ‘transfer costs’ that creates an economic lock-in and is constrained by legal, financial and institutional barriers. For example, every investment to reduce a household’s sensitivity to flooding reduces the overall flood risks of the larger area and hence the benefits accruing to a wider floodwall option, making a ‘transfer’ to a district-level solution less feasible from an economic point of view. In addition, the potential loss of investments for individual homeowners caused by a change of strategy could lead to societal and political resistance to change. Overcoming the economic and political path dependencies is a major challenge and it unfortunately often needs a disaster to change the course of an adaptation path. Possibly, co-benefits and added value arising from flood protection investments (e.g. increase in real estate value) may have a positive effect on reducing the transfer costs, although the effects strongly depend on site conditions. In view of the above, it is necessary to decide early in the adaptation process on the long-term preferred strategy and to support this strategy with short-cycle, low cost incremental interventions aimed at “buying time” to increase the opportunities for creating district-wide protection at low costs.
In addition to this, there is also a second, more fundamental shortcoming of the method. Although the APM is adaptive, in the sense that it allows for uncertainties to be resolved in time, the method ignores the dynamic aspect of urban development and new opportunities for adaptation that might arise from it. For example, a redesign of industrial waterfronts to residential functions creates new financial and spatial opportunities for creating integrated flood protection at relatively low costs. Research by Design is an important tool to explore these new opportunities.
A more effective approach is to focus on interventions in the economic and institutional processes of urban development and changes that create new opportunities for adaptation. In the second part of this research an urban dynamics based adaptation method is introduced that focuses on identifying the following: adaptation intervention points, which are defined as the actual moments of change that potentially may be used for adaptation; adaptation transitions that are defined as changes in legal, institutional and financial structures that are needed to improve or unlock the full potential of adaptation intervention points; and adaptation transformations that are fundamental changes in urban form, policies, institutional arrangements and norms that could create new adaptation opportunities.
The method follows three basic steps: (1) assessing the spatial and timely synchronisation of adaptation measures with planned urban development projects and public and private infrastructure maintenance investments; (2) assessing the institutional and financial barriers to be removed in order to mainstream climate adaptation measures in these urban development processes, and (3) assessing what opportunities derived from urban development are able to ‘break through’ the path dependencies that lock-in more sustainable adaptive paths. The method is based on mapping all planned spatial investments in brownfield development, urban renovation, and maintenance projects of public and private infrastructure and assets and by assessing the effectiveness of prevailing policies. Using design research, new opportunities for adaptation are explored and assessed. The urban dynamics based adaptation pathways method is tested at two waterfront areas in Rotterdam (Feijenoord) and New York (Red Hook). Both cases show that identifying intervention opportunities and potential transitional interventions is helpful in selecting and assessing adaptive pathways. Moreover, it helps to identify legal or financial arrangements that are needed to unlock the potential of adaptation paths. One of the key findings of the case study research is that in high density urban conditions there is limited potential to build resilience from household redevelopment or renovation, even when new complementary policies and regulative instruments that support buildinglevel resilience would be developed. District-wide flood protection is effective in terms of flood risk, but requires large-scale transformations of the waterfront zone to seize opportunities to develop integrated protection at low costs. This strategy, however, needs new governance structures and financial arrangements to redistribute costs and benefits fairly among stakeholders
Smart Energy Management for Households: A practical guide for designers, HEMS developers, energy providers, and the building industry
Get PDFThe aim of the research presented in this thesis was to infer design-related insights and guidelines to improve the use and effectiveness of home energy management systems (HEMS). This was done through an empirical evaluation of the longitudinal effectiveness of these devices and an exploration of factors that influence their use and effectiveness. Three case studies executed with three different HEMS in households, a life cycle assessment (LCA) on those three HEMS, as well as a reflection on the challenges of both researching and implementing HEMS in existing housing gave a comprehensive picture of the opportunities and barriers for HEMS. The research revealed five typical use patterns that emerged amongst households. It also revealed average energy savings of 7.8%, which however decreased in the follow-up that was conducted, and factors that may influence the use and effectiveness of HEMS. Nonetheless, the LCA calculations divulged that the HEMS can achieve net energy savings when taking their embedded energy into account.
Problem statement
The goal of reducing the energy consumption of existing housing formed the basis for this research. There are many facets to this energy consumption, including the characteristics of the house, its appliances, and the behaviours of its inhabitants. Because of this complexity, addressing only one of these facets is not effective in substantially reducing the overall energy consumption of households. This called for an interdisciplinary approach, merging the domains of design for sustainability, sustainable housing transformation and environmental psychology. In this thesis, HEMS were chosen as the intervention to address the various elements that contribute to household energy consumption, thereby functioning as a pivot. By giving feedback and/or helping manage consumption they can assist households in changing their behaviour and help save energy. However, in analysing literature on HEMS, four critique points were encountered. Past research tends to be limited in the types of HEMS and energy sources studied. Furthermore, limited knowledge was available on the longitudinal effectiveness of HEMS, the large variances in achieved energy savings and use of HEMS, and factors influencing their use and effectiveness.
Conceptual framework
To address these critique points and explore the influence of the factors: user, HEMS, other people, other products, context, and time; a framework was proposed. It postulated the pivotal role of HEMS and visualized the interdependence of the different elements. This framework structured the findings of the research.
Case studies
Three case studies were conducted. The first case study with an electricity monitor revealed that the effectiveness of HEMS tends to decrease over time. The initial savings in electricity consumption of, on average, 7.8% after four months were not sustained over a period of 15 months. The participants were divided into three groups, who all had the same rate of fall-back. However, the group that had a daily habit after 15 months of checking the monitor, achieved the largest savings in comparison to the groups that did not have a daily habit after 15 months or that returned the monitor after four months. The second and third case study with a multifunctional HEMS and a energy management device revealed five distinctive use patterns: there was often one main user who varied strongly in their knowledge of, interest in, and affinity with energy and technique in general, resulting in different needs and desires concerning the HEMS. Additionally, the studies revealed that contextual factors, such as the structure of the home and its energy meters, can impede the use and implementation of HEMS.
Lifecycle assessment
The positive result of the LCA was that all three types of HEMS can theoretically achieve net energy savings (where einvested < esaved) over the course of five years in the six scenarios that were created. However, it can take up to 24 months to achieve net energy savings, depending on the scenario and type of HEMS. No HEMS achieve a positive return on investment within five years in all six scenarios.
Conclusions
This research found that the role of HEMS in reducing the energy consumption of households is constrained when not taking the factors into consideration that were distilled in the case studies. For one, human factors, such as the characteristics of the user and other household members and family dynamics, may influence the use and effectiveness. Furthermore, physical elements, such as the design of the HEMS (e.g., the type of feedback, the quality of the technique, its usability and applicability) the design and functioning of appliances and the dwelling played a role. Particularly, the interplay between people and these physical elements such as the match/mismatch or compatibility/incompatibility between HEMS, users, appliances and the dwelling were influential, in part due to the complexity of reducing energy consumption and users’ preferred type of reduction approach. Based on these factors, design guidelines where formulated for HEMS with the aim to achieve lasting energy savings and increase the usability of HEMS. Examples of these guidelines are: HEMS should not be developed as standalone interventions but should be incorporated as part of a broader, overarching change strategy; one size does not fit all; and careful trade-offs needs to be made with regard to the design of the HEMS, e.g., while a small display size is positive for the LCA, it could limit the potential to influence behaviour.
Relevance
The resulting knowledge of these studies can be employed to inspire the different domains merged within this thesis. For the HEMS industry: in striving to designing HEMS that are capable of influencing users, effective in reducing energy consumption, and easily usable and implementable in everyday life. For the building industry this research illustrated the benefit of considering the behaviour of inhabitants in achieving sustainable housing transformation. Furthermore, lessons were presented in how the building industry can contribute to increasing the ease of implementation of HEMS. HEMS researchers may assimilate knowledge for future research to deepen the knowledge on ways of increasing the effectiveness of HEMS
Building for a better hospital: Value-adding management & design of healthcare real estate
Get PDFRecent deregulation of laws on hospital real estate in the Netherlands implies that healthcare institutions have more opportunities to make independent accommodation choices, but at the same time have themselves become responsible for the risks associated with the investment. In addition, accommodation costs have become an integral part of the costs of healthcare. This sheds new light on the alignment between the organisation of healthcare and accommodation: care institutions themselves bear the risk of recouping their investment in real estate and high accommodation costs lead to higher rates for healthcare compared to competing institutions.
In this thesis, the ideas and concepts of Corporate Real Estate Management ˬ(CREM) are examined in terms of the contribution they could make to the processˬof accommodation decision by using recent cases in Dutch hospitals. CREM can be defined as the management of the real estate portfolio of a corporation by aligning the portfolio and services with the needs of the core business in order to obtain maximum added value for the business and an optimal contribution to the overall performance of the organisation. This definition assumes that accommodation can add value to the organisation and contribute to its overall achievement. Elaborating on the added value of real estate in addition to quantifying these added values and making them applicable to hospital real estate management is therefore central to this study. The added values determine the transition between the different phases in the cycle of the initiation, design, construction and occupancy of the accommodation. In addition, the added value of real estate functions as a common language between the disciplines involved in the design and construction of hospital accommodation, such as the healthcare institution, healthcare manager, real estate manager and architect.
In four sub-studies (1) Context, (2) Management, (3) Value and, (4) Design several concepts that contribute to a more informed decision-making on accommodation aligned with the organisation of healthcare are made applicable by elaboratingˬon, and connecting, existing conceptual frameworks. Conceptual models fromˬdifferent disciplines are aligned in order to achieve an integral approach by both organisation and accommodation management. In addition to the conclusions and recommendations of the separate studies (1-4), the final result is a toolbox (PART 5) that can be used to support a decision-making process that results in a better informed real estate strategy. The instruments are tested by an assessment of recently completed hospital construction projects.
The context of hospital real estate
The context in which hospitals have to make long-term decisions on their investment in accommodation is determined by political, demographic, economic, social and technological factors. Hospitals need to determine their position in relation to these environmental factors on the one hand and the interests of their internal and external stakeholders on the other. Context-mapping (Figure 2) is an instrument to analyse these stakeholder interests, the factors relating to the external environment and sector-specific trends and scenarios.
The analysis of the hospital sector shows that recent changes in the political context has led to hospitals having to determine their own strengths and opportunities, thereby also taking responsibility for the risks and threats in recouping their investment in accommodation. The transfer of responsibilities implies that the real estate-related risks are transferred too, which immediately has implications for the financial position of the organisation and the access to loans and venture capital. Organisations must maintain reasonable access to the financial markets at all times in order to be ableÀ¨to invest when necessary. Since the deregulation of investment decisions and the implementation of integrated rates in healthcare, hospitals have become more aware of their competitive position in the healthcare market as well as their position inÀ¨the region. In addition, the influence of various external stakeholders has changed.À¨The decrease of the government’s direct influence on investment decisions andÀ¨the related capacity of healthcare institutions meant an increasing influence ofÀ¨health insurance companies in purchasing healthcare (capacity) and banks in the financing of accommodation investment. Consequences of the changing context of accommodation decisions for hospitals are: a new positioning of the hospital within the community with associated location choices; need for accommodation choices that contribute to labour-saving innovations; need to add value by real estate toÀ¨the organisation and; possibilities for anticipating changes in the organisation of healthcare.
Managing hospital real estate
How hospital real estate can be optimally aligned to organisational objectives is examined by paralleling existing conceptual models of CREM models that controlÀ¨the quality of the organisational processes. The basic conceptual model for this is an abstraction of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model in four steps: (1) stakeholders’ objectives, (2) the organisation’s key issues for success, (3) managing the organisation’s structure and resources; (4) improvement of the primary process. The plan-do-check-act cycle as common ground in quality management is also included in this basic conceptual model.
The meta-model (Figure 3) shows how the parallel management of organisation and accommodation in three sequential steps (context, value and management) results in the design of a process (4) and a building (8) in four steps of alignment between:À¨(A) the outcomes for stakeholders (1) and the perspectives on real estate (5); (B) the organisation’s key issues for success (2) and the added value of real estate (6); (C) managing structure and resources (3) and managing real estate (7);À¨(D) the primary process (4), and the design of the building (8).
In the integrating framework, the steps at the level of the organisation are completed by the steps of the EFQM model. The strategic, financial, functional and physical perspectives on real estate (5) can be positioned parallel to the stakeholders’ objectives (1) that are described in the EFQM-INK model. In this way stakeholder management is part of the organisational management and is translated into real estate perspectives on CREM. The perspectives on real estate are translated into real estate added values (6) as the common language that in all phases of the real estate lifecycle can be assessed. This concept of adding value by real estate is connected to the key issues for success (2) that result from the demands and wishes of society, employees, customers and the organisation’s management at an organisational level. Both the key issues for success and the added values of real estate provide input into the change management process of the organisation (3) and its real estate (7). The organisation’s change management (3) is directed by leadership and is about policy & management of the resources, including human resources and real estate. In this part of the model, different resources for production have to be balanced against each other. This results in a process that has to be implemented in a physical environment.
In this model, the Designing an Accommodation strategy (DAS)-Frame is the basis for real estate change management (7). In an iterative process a match is made between demand and supply, now and in the future, resulting in a building which can support organisational primary processes. Paralleling the management of accommodation with organisational change thus leads logically to a step-by-step plan for the transformation of the accommodation. Both the processes and the building are compared with the stakeholder demands and related perspectives on real estate.
In addition, a five-point scale for all items in the integrating framework is developed for a triple assessment on the stage of development of the organisation andˬits accommodation decisions. This triple assessment of the organisation and accommodation shows where the organisation stands, how real estate is controlled and the pursued level of ambition with a corresponding focus on product, process, system, chain or society.
Adding value through hospital real estate
Value is defined in this study as the valued performance of a product or service that contributes to the achievement of the goals set by the stakeholders. As a consequence, value depends on the (subjective) assessment of the stakeholders. Added values of real estate have to be defined in advance (ex-ante) to pre-set the goals of the stakeholders in order to be able to test them afterwards (ex-post) in the design.
The research into the added values of hospital real estate shows that the conceptˬof adding value through real estate fits the practice of hospitals that have recently designed and constructed a new hospital building. Applying the added values of real estate from the CREM literature to the construction of new hospitals in the Netherlands has resulted in a sector-specific definition of the added values of hospital real estate and a categorisation into three clusters. The first cluster consists of user-values suchˬas the promotion of organisational culture and patient and employee satisfaction.ˬThis cluster is followed by the more tactically oriented production-values such as improving productivity, reducing accommodation costs and the flexibility to adapt the physical environment to new healthcare processes. The third cluster consists of future- values, e.g. the image of the building, sustainability, real estate related risks and the opportunities to use the financial value of real estate for financing primary processes.
In addition to defining the added values of hospital real estate, the value-impact- matrix (Table 3) has been developed that links nine types of added value (Table 2)À¨to the interests and needs of the stakeholders by four perspectives on real estate: strategic, financial, functional and physical. The value-impact-matrix was developed to support the alignment between the organisation’s key issues for success, theÀ¨added values of real estate and stakeholders different perspectives of real estate. This instrument makes it possible to highlight the added values of real estate from different perspectives on real estate (strategic, financial, functional and physical). Table 4 shows an example of possible connections between one of the values — patient satisfaction and healing environment — to four different perspectives.
Hospital real estate design assessment
Only those design decisions that are incorporated into the final design contributeˬto achieving the objectives set, so the translation of accommodation targets intoˬthe architectural design is a crucial step in achieving added value by real estate. In addition to defining these values in advance, applying added value as a framework also requires an assessment to measure these values in the design and use phase. Different analytical drawing techniques used in this part of the research show how the attainment of these values in the architectural design can be tested for different aspects of patient satisfaction. Pre-set values are visualised and different design solutions compared. In particular techniques that come from space syntax provide opportunities to study aspects of user-value in the architectural design drawings. The results are promising, despite the fact that PART 4 of the study is a first exploration of the possibilities of design-assessment. The graphs that can be produced seem to give good insight into the consequences of spatial design, although the analyses are still indicative and as yet unvalidated. More validating research is needed to examine the extent to which the results of the analyses are representative in the physicalˬbuilt environment of hospitals. This is possible by comparing the results of design assessment with measures of user experiences in actual buildings, e.g. by building-in- use studies or so-called Post-Occupancy Evaluations (POE).
Toolbox to support value adding management & design
One of the results of this research is the design of a toolbox that can contribute toˬthe decision-making regarding accommodation for hospitals. This toolbox providesˬa structure for the context, value, design and management of accommodation and is intended as a reference for the alignment between real estate and the organisationˬof healthcare. The instruments can be used independently of each other, but canˬalso be combined. As such, the toolbox provides guidelines for the distribution of responsibilities and tasks between the hospital board, real estate manager, healthcare managers and architects in various phases of occupancy, initiative and design.
Existing frameworks as the starting point
The case studies demonstrate the usefulness of the conceptual models of CREM in matching accommodation for hospitals and the organisation of healthcare. The model for context-mapping provides a starting point for getting a grip on the position of real estate in the dynamic context of hospitals. The arrangement of different conceptual models in the meta-model and the link to the EFQM model as an abstract description of the organisation results in a roadmap in which the accommodation and organisation of healthcare can be coordinated iteratively. While the meta-model at the level of the CEO provides an overview and outline of the considerations to be made, the integrating framework is a comprehensive tool for real estate managers to further elaborate on these various steps. Generic values from the literature are discussed and translated into the sector-specific added value of hospital real estate. In addition, design assessment makes it possible to test various aspects of pre-set values already before the design is actually constructed.
Transdisciplinary approach to accommodation and organisation of healthcare
Another important contribution made by this research to the scientific debate is making the link between existing CREM models and conceptual frameworks from quality management and spatial quality. The toolbox supports decisions on real estate for hospitals in making connections between existing knowledge from different disciplines. The addition to existing frameworks is therefore aimed at connecting the various disciplines, creating a new basis in which every professional such asˬreal estate managers, healthcare managers, medical specialists and the hospital board can contribute to a better balance between accommodation and healthcare.ˬOn a conceptual level common principles from real estate management and the organisation of healthcare are aligned in the meta-model in four steps (context, value, manage, design). On a practical level the added values of real estate are to be regarded as a common language between the different disciplines.
Focus on quality of organisation, accommodation and spatial design
The connection between the disciplines and conceptual models is found by lookingˬat the quality of both the organisation, accommodation management and spatial design. First, quality models are used to conceptualise, characterise and describeˬthe organisation and its processes. In addition, existing models from the CREM literature are positioned relative to each other by using two basic principles of quality management and in this way implicitly looking at the quality of the accommodation parallel to the organisation and its primary processes. How the added value of real estate can be connected to spatial quality is then examined. The classification of added value in user-value, production-value and future-value turns out to be a useful clustering. This opens a window to considering the added value of real estate as the realisation of quality, as perceived by the stakeholders. With this in mind, consciously managing and integrating the added values of real estate with a focus on the quality of the organisation, accommodation and spatial design can be seen as the answer to the main research question of this thesis.
Recommendations
In the dynamic context in which hospitals make real estate investments, theÀ¨hospital board as central stakeholder is responsible for balancing the interests of the different stakeholders; the establishment of accommodation goals; the alignment of accommodation goals to the organisation’s mission and vision; and the assessment of whether all these goals are achieved in the design of the hospital building.
An integrated development of organisational management and real estate management is recommended in order to align accommodation management to the vision, mission and goals of the hospital organisation.
Managing hospital accommodation requires a balanced analysis of the potential added value of real estate. Important values include: user-values such as improving the organisational culture and satisfaction of patients and employees; production-values such as reducing accommodation costs and increasing productivity and use-flexibility; future-values such as reducing real estate risks and increasing financial possibilities, supporting the image of the organisation and sustainability.
Managing hospital accommodation requires careful consideration of the interests, preferences and requirements of all stakeholders and perspectives on strategic choices, financial considerations, user perspective and the physical possibilities of real estate.
Achieving added value from real estate requires the ex-ante formulation of accommodation targets and ex-post assessment of whether these objectives have been met. This assessment of accommodation goals in an architectural design demands pre-construction design research by floor plan analysis in which the values are made visible and measurable and as such part of the design decision process
Negotiation and Design for the Self-Organizing City: Gaming as a method for Urban Design
Get PDFAn understanding of cities as open systems whose agents act on them simultaneously from below and above, influencing urban processes by their interaction with them and with each other, is replacing the simplistic debate on urban participation which asks whether cities should be organized bottom-up or top-down. This conceptualization of cities as complex systems calls for new collaborative city-making methods: a combination of collaborative planning (which already embraces various agencies and derives decision-making from negotiations between them) and collaborative design (existing methods rely on rule-based iterative processes which control spatial outcomes). While current collaborative planning methods are open and interactive, they fail to simulate realistic power negotiations in the evolution of the physical environments they plan; collaborative design methods fall short in modelling the decision-making mechanisms of the physical environments they control. This research is dedicated to building an open negotiation and design method for cities as self-organizing systems that bridges this gap.
Gaming as a tool for knowledge creation and negotiation serves as an interface between the more abstract decision-making and material city-making. Rarely involved in the creation of our environment, it has the unexplored potential of combining the socio-spatial dimensions of self-organizing urban processes. Diverse agents, the collaborations and conflicts within and between interest groups, and the parameters provided by topological data can all be combined in an operational form in gaming: potentially a great unifier of multiple stakeholder negotiations and individual design aspirations through which to generate popularly informed policies or design.
The simple language and rules of games will allow jargon-free communication between stakeholders, experts and non-experts alike. The interactive and iterative nature of city gaming encourages the development of collective intelligence, derived from the real lives of players to be redeployed in their real urban futures. Vitally, city gaming enables the negotiation of this future, as players with conflicting interests are given an opportunity to develop compatible, even shared, visions. By transforming serious issues into a playful and engaging (although no less serious) experience, city gaming unlocks difficult conversations and helps to build communities in the long term. The urban design, policy and action plans generated collaboratively through gaming will increase social coherence and local agency, as well as cutting costs and time in urban development processes.
This thesis proposes Generative City Gaming as an innovative urban planning and design method built on the tradition of serious gaming. Going beyond the educational scope of other serious games, the ultimate aim of city gaming is to become operational in urban processes — a goal in the process of making a reality since 2008, when Generative City Gaming was first applied to a real urban questions in the Netherlands, later expanding to Istanbul, Tirana, Brussels, and Cape Town. “Negotiation and Design for the Self-Organizing City” reports on six of the twelve city games played to date which were instrumental in the evolution of the method: Play Almere Haven tested whether a game based on self-organizing mechanisms could provide an urban order; Play Rotterdam questioned whether game-derived design could be implemented in urban renewal of a central Rotterdam neighborhood; Yap-YaÅŸa was played with real urban stakeholders for transforming Istanbul’s self-built neighbourhoods; Play Noord investigated a masterplan on hold could be fixed by unconventional stakeholders; Play Oosterwold jumped up a scale to test the rules of a flexible urban expansion plan for 4500 hectares; Play Van Gendthallen, was the first to enable stakeholders to make the leap from design to reality within the game process.
The Generative City Gaming method evolves continuously. Every new case tests and proves the applicability of city gaming to a specific urban complexity, while challenging the method to adapt itself and develop new features tailored to tackle each unique urban question. Through use, this gaming method is finding its place within existing city-making procedures in a number of countries. The next big question is whether cyclical and open-ended city gaming can move beyond being a consultancy and research tool to become the principal medium of processing and executing city planning
Performance Measurement in the Dutch Social Rented Sector
Get PDFThe contributions in 'Performance Measurement in the Dutch Social Rented Sector' address the societal and practical needs of housing associations, in order to develop better instruments for performance measurement. The provision of useful instruments allows for more transparency and thus improved external control over housing associations. At the same time these instruments should benefit the internal control and planning processes of the housing associations. The identification of Key Performance Indicators, as well as the input, throughput and output indicators that are bound up with it, facilitates the choice, implementation and (re-)shaping of policy alternatives and the justification for choosing among these alternatives. The contributions in this work do not address the overall scope of performance measurement and performance indicators reflecting the impact of housing. The range of examples covered in the book is related to the public tasks of Dutch housing association. As well as offering practical instruments for performance measurement for specific public tasks, the book ascertains a general guideline for performance management by housing associations. For this purpose the tools that are provided by the conceptual systems approach have been used as a framework. Most of the chapters are a mixture of theoretical or conceptual ideas and practical techniques
Comparing spatial features of urban housing markets: Recent evidence of submarket formation in metropolitan Helsinki and Amsterdam
Get PDFVarious location specific attributes contribute to the spatial dynamics of housing markets. This effect may partly be of a qualitative and discontinuous nature, which causes market segmentation into submarkets. The question however is, whether the most relevant partitioning criteria is directly related to the transaction price of to other, socioeconomic, demographic and physical features of the location. Two neural network techniques are used for analysing statistical house price data from Amsterdam and Helsinki. The analytic hierarchy process is used as a supporting technique. With these techniques it is possible to analyse various dimensions of housing submarket formation. The findings show that, while the price and demand factors have increased in importance, supply factors still prevail as key criteria in both cases. The outcome also indicates that the housing market structure of Amsterdam is more fragmented than that of Helsinki, and that the main discriminating housing market features, and the ways they have changed in time, are somewhat different
DASH 07 - The Eco House: Typologies of Space, Production and Lifestyles
No full textConstruction is responsible for about 20 per cent of total carbon dioxide emissions and 30 per cent of energy demand; this ranks it alongside the chemical and transport industries among the biggest polluters. Sustainability is therefore one of the most significant issues for designers and architects, as well as a challenging field for innovation and research.DASHgoes in search of the ideal eco house: from solar houses to Superuse, from Cradle-to- Cradle to support-infill systems and precise prefab-technology.
DASH The Eco House examines the history and the future of the sustainable home. This includes attention to basic principles (passive solar energy, semi-climate and ventilation) and material-use concepts. Essays by Daniel A. Barber, Machiel van Dorst, Jacques Vink, and Piet Vollaard provide not only a critical analysis of the current state of affairs, but also an inspirational exploration of possibilities for the future. Drop City pioneer Steve Baer looks back on the Construction of hisZome House and Jean-Philippe Vassal talks about his vision on architecture and sustainability. With extensive documentation of trendsetting homes by such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright, Ralph Erskine, Frei Otto, Lacaton & Vassal, Carlos Weeber, DAAD Architecten and 2012Architecten.
 
DASH 04 - The Residential Floor Plan: Standard and Ideal
No full textThis edition of DASH searches for about the best floor plan between standard and ideal. One that meets the (changing) needs of the resident, and is optimal for architects and real estate entrepreneurs. A housing that meets both individual needs, but also benefits from the production scale and technical advantages of standard housing. Is a merger of these requests possible?DASH investigates and comes up with new ideas.
Though mass customization has for some time been the magic word with which to bid farewell to the mass production of the twentieth century, it seems that standardized solutions are still the norm in everyday construction practice. In conservative construction industry, strict rules and limited budgets force architects to make the most of the available means in order to produce an ideal design.The Residential Floor Planfocuses on this dilemma faced by housing architects. The volume takes two different approaches: firstly, the quest for new typologies we are already familiar with from modern architecture and the welfare state; and second the typological invention, which by contrast proceeds from the conventions of existing practice in residential construction. The residential floor plan is the palette on which these different thrusts of development are preeminently visible.
Essays by Bart Goldhoorn, Mark Swenarton, Dorine van Hoogstraten and Dirk van den Heuvel examine the tradition of mass residential construction in the Netherlands and survey historical and current design practices in Great Britain, Eastern Europe and Russia. The plan documentation consists of a series of classic and less familiar projects from the Netherlands and beyond, including projects by Diener & Diener, Frits van Dongen, Kenneth Frampton, MVRDV, Adolf Rading, Hans Scharoun and Willem van Tijen.