Barriers to energy conservation — the case of the Netherlands social housing sector

Energy conservation policy, more than energy supply policy, poses severe problems to both policy instruments and administrative organization. Barriers to effective policy derive from inadequate control structures and rationality types, as well as from social psychological factors. This case study on the Dutch housing sector considers policy organization, regulation and finance. Main barriers to effective conservation policy were found in three areas: the centralization and prevailing decomposition of control tasks, acting as a source of ineffectivity; the predominantly substantial rationality underlying regulation; and finally, the way people involved in the building industry make their interpretations of regulations and regulatory organizations.     

Communications on energy Industrial coal use in the Netherlands

The results of a study to analyse the potential penetration of coal in the Dutch industrial sector are presented. It is concluded that coal will play a modest role both as a fuel and as a chemical feedstock. Coal input could be substantially higher if the coal is gasified first, after which the gas can be used as fuel and gas and synthesis gas. The environmental impacts of the use of coal and the proposed emission standards are described.     

荷兰埃因霍温理工大学设计学院设计教育观察

经济文化飞速发展,产业结构不断调整的今天,设计教育也面临着自我革新以适应这些变化。笔者依据自己的交换生经验和其他的资料信息,在文中通过学院培养目标定位。学院教育体系构建等各个方面详细介绍了荷兰埃因霍温理工大学设计学院的设计教育模式。他们对于自身的精准定位,教学体系的逻辑严密等方法都值得我们借鉴。     

Managing Drivers of Innovation in Construction Networks

Various drivers of construction innovation are distinguished and classified in four distinctive categories: environmental pressure, technological capability, knowledge exchange, and boundary spanning. Innovation drivers in these categories are active at the transfirm, intrafirm, and interfirm level in the network of organizations in the construction industry. Empirical research in the Dutch construction industry illustrates that the innovation drivers are used by managers of the authorities, clients, architects, consultants, and contractors to stimulate and facilitate innovation processes. It also exemplifies that driving innovation on the transfirm, intrafirm, and interfirm level in the network of organizations is an opportunity for managers of both public and private organizations to develop, improve, and renew their organizations’ positions in the market, the quality of their organizations’ projects, and the cooperative structure of the industry as a whole.     

Dreams of an Iconic Mosque: Spatial and Temporal Entanglements of a Converted Church in Amsterdam

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the making of iconicity through religious architecture in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Examining the Fatih Mosque housed in a former Catholic church in the city center, we show in what ways the efforts at making this mosque iconic are shaped by the building’s iconic field, by which we denote its entanglement with other (religious and non-religious) sites in the past and the present. This iconic field is characterized by the conversion chains that preceded the mosque, material and discursive legacies of “hiddenness” and contemporary symbolic interactions with nearby sites such as the Western Church. By developing an analysis of the mosque’s temporal and spatial entanglements in Amsterdam’s urban space, we seek to revitalize a relational and diachronic approach that has suffered from neglect, particularly in social-scientific studies of mosques in the West. Rather than looking at a singular place of worship at a particular moment in time, we draw attention to the relations between Islamic and other religious architecture and to the ways in which this mosque intersects with broader genealogies and geographies of religion, not only by association but also by actual links in relationships, politics or material culture.     

The changing effect of home ownership on residential mobility in the Netherlands, 1980–98

In most Western countries, home owners are much less likely to change residence than renters. In the last few decades, the rise in home ownership in the Netherlands has been spectacular. This would imply that the population has become less mobile, which has consequences for the functioning of the housing market—at least, if the relationship between home ownership and residential mobility has not changed. This research addresses the question of whether the effect of home ownership on the probability of residential mobility has changed over the last few decades and if so, how. Using data from the 1981–98 Netherlands Housing Demand surveys and logistic regression models, it is found that the difference between home owners and renters in residential mobility has changed over time. The results indicate a decrease in the effect of home ownership with an interruption in 1984–85. This finding might indicate stability in the effect of home ownership, except for periods of booms or busts on the housing market.     

The path to successful urban renewal: Current policy debates in the Netherlands

In Dutch urban renewal, we observe an implementation gap between dreaming and doing. Dutch national government recently proposed to focus urban renewal on more than 50 priority areas in the cities and to reduce urban renewal subsidies. It is not very likely that this policy will accelerate urban renewal. This contribution suggests a different approach: the formulation of an urban district vision shared by the sustainable stakeholders in those districts. If they can come to an agreement, they deserve housing association finance and public urban renewal support. By targeting the plans primarily on the social climbers in the urban districts involved, the city can keep their buying power within the city. Combining physical, social, economic and safety agendas and adopting a multi-functional orientation would seem to be a successful strategy.     

European policy and national housing systems

Housing policy in the European Union is the exclusive domain of national governments. European authorities, however, are using their powers in the area of competition more and more to exert a far-reaching influence on policy areas where the Member States should be autonomous.In the Netherlands the Housing Act of 1901 forms the public framework for housing associations, which combine public functions with more or less commercial activities. These hybrid organizations fulfil in the Netherlands the public function not only of housing the households with modest incomes, but also of fostering variety in the housing stock and reducing spatial segregation. Apparently the European Commission underestimates the significance and logic of hybrid organizations. It is important that Member States exercise their autonomous right to shape their own housing policies to the full. European competition policy, in itself a necessary and useful policy domain, must not be misused to thwart national housing aspirations.     

从策划到使用后评估——访谈荷兰代尔夫特理工大学Theo van der Voordt

Theo van der Voordt在建筑策划领域有着丰富的理论和实践经验,在荷兰代尔夫特理工大学建筑学院退休后又来到了人与建筑研究中心从事使用后评估的研究工作,掌握了大量一手的建筑评估资料,并基于此编纂了数本建筑策划和设计导则。通过访谈Voordt教授,对于国内尚处于探索阶段的建筑策划,特别是使用后评估反馈前期策划这一流程有着很强的借鉴意义。