Energy efficiency is a priority to many cities, with programs being implemented to stimulate energy savings in the built environment. Cities aim to reduce carbon footprint, but also to cut energy costs, one of the biggest expenses of building ownership. That has led to urban renewal developments, where neighborhoods were demolished and replaced by new neighborhoods, assumingly more sustainable. Some neighborhoods built during the post-war period are now under trial for their poor materialization and energy inefficiency. Though, they are also the massive expression of a rising idealism from the 20s and 30s, where public officers and professionals, as urban planners, architects and engineers had the opportunity to give the working class a larger, healthier and greener living environment (Lörzing & Harbers, 2009). The demolition of these neighborhoods may seem to solve the problem, but also raises many other, as resources waste, social segregation and culture loss. Instead, there is great potential for achieving energy savings in the building sector, through the transformation of existing buildings (Energy DG, 2013). Energy efficiency-wise, Transformations can save not only energy costs, but also embodied energy. When it comes to heritage-designated buildings special attention can be paid to the preservation of their heritage values (Godwin, P. J. 2011; Alev et al. 2014). Their existence is not only embodied energy and carbon emissions, but the spirit and identity of a community (Godwin, P. J. 2011).
There is a growing body of knowledge on energy efficiency in the built environment, though, primarily derived from samples (Murphy, 2014), models (Melo et al., 2014), and/or buildings owned by housing associations (Nieboer et al., 2012). The private housing sector is largely understudied, as information remains either confidential, complex or costly. Consequently, there is still very little known on the energy efficiency of post-war neighbourhoods, and even less on the contribution of private efforts to raise energy savings through the transformation of their buildings. Yet, their transformation patterns can feed the debate and help determine the energy efficiency of buildings and post-war neighbourhoods in particular. A framework for energy performance certification, as the Energy label, provides information on the energy efficiency of buildings, but also enables energy savings to be determined and forecasted. It also systematically records information about the building stock and its transformation.
TU/e
Heritage, energy efficiency and dutch cities
Junior Research Assistant
There is great criticism on the reliability of the Energy label, particularly on the new process implemented in the Netherlands since January 2015. Though, being an international framework (EC, 2015), there is great potential to keep developing it into a reliable global monitoring tool, where buildings, neighbourhoods, cities and even countries could be compared on their energy efficiency, strategies to raise energy savings shared and the effectiveness globally validated.
Through this research the Energy label has been successfully used to monitor the energy performance and transformation of buildings at large scale. It enabled us to compare and distinguish cities and neighborhoods. Though, the energy label has its own limitations as reduced the scope to the transformations on certain characteristics of the building which are used as base to measuring the thermal quality of a building without taking into account user’s comfort, occupancy or embodied energy. The energy label should be seen as a potential tool, to monitoring buildings on their energy performance, determining the impact of building transformations and underline potential areas of transformation.
Post-war neighborhoods were built due to a housing shortage leading to a massive production of dwellings with similar characteristics, technical and cultural wise. Therefore, identifying the main sources of energy waste, solutions can be address at building level but applied to a bigger ensemble (block or neighbourhood), enhancing the energy performance of the whole area and preserving its identity. Lessons can be shared among the different neighborhoods in Dutch cities, but also abroad. These actions demands a closed coordination between various stakeholders such as developers, corporations and most important municipalities (Bijlsma, Bergenhenegouwen, Schluchter, & Zaaijer, 2008)
The potential of post-war buildings to raise energy savings is largely underestimated since the results shows that energetic improvements are achievable, 41% of the measures were applied to the dwellings studied, increasing their energy efficiency. Without severe actions the energy demand will increased 50% by 2050 (GNP, 2013). Therefore, urban planning and architecture should become stricter on how to best transform the built environment towards sustainability, including renovations and heritage-designated buildings, as findings showed that the transformation of dwellings is possible and happening, though with only few energy saving measures and not on their full potential.