Up until 2050, there is a demand for no fewer than 1.65 million new homes in the Netherlands. Climate change and the biodiversity crisis require building homes within the city boundaries. Urban expansion areas such as Pampus in Almere and Zuiderhage in Lelystad must be nature-driven. The homes themselves should be built as biobased as possible. However, addressing housing and nature development is hard to combine. How exactly are we going to achieve this transition?
Nature-Inclusive Development
Biobased housebuilding reduces CO₂ emissions, but much remains unknown about the living experience in these homes. The skin of the buildings is increasingly coming to life through green facades, green roofs, and nesting opportunities. To strengthen biodiversity and limit the impact of weather extremes such as flooding, drought, and heat stress, a nature-rich living environment at ground level is also necessary. The development of nature-based solutions aligns with the European Nature Restoration Law, which obliges cities to ensure a larger area of greenery and more tree canopy cover after 2030.
Nature development must therefore go hand in hand with housing development and the other challenges facing the city, as we describe in our book Nature-inclusive Urban Development (2nd edition). This transition brings many social, ecological, economic, technical, and governance challenges.
Approach & collaboration
The research group, with its broad expertise in ecology, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, and business administration, is eager to commit to this alongside practical partners. They do this by sometimes playing an exploratory role in the innovation of spatial designs, and at other times by monitoring experimental urban developments for governance arrangements. This is carried out in conjunction with the existing and desired ecological, climate-adaptive, and well-being qualities. To achieve this, we use the most advanced biometric technologies, such as mobile weather stations and eye tracking, combined with proven social methods.
In our research work, we are always looking for a practical approach to major issues. Together with our partners (governments, businesses, NGOs, and universities), we directly analyse the opportunities to scale up these approaches on the path towards nature-based and healthy cities.
We support Dutch and international governments, such as Almere, Hamburg, Bremen, Bergen, and Hasselt, in the transition to nature-inclusive urban policy. We also advise construction companies such as BAM, Heijmans, Van Wijnen, and Dura Vermeer on the shift towards nature-inclusive operations. We collaborate with housing associations on researching the living experience of new (biobased) housing concepts and work closely with industry and network organisations.
Education
Based on the knowledge accumulated from its research projects, the research group has developed the minor Nature-inclusive Urban Development. This broad minor runs during the first semester of the academic year, whereby students from various degree programmes work holistically on the aforementioned challenges in area development. In addition, the research projects serve as field labs for various degree programmes, such as Earth & Climate, Applied Biology, and Geography & Data Visualisation. Several internship placements are also available for Aeres students, as well as for students from other universities and universities of applied sciences.
