The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector is in need of a transition towards a circular economy. This article offers an analysis of two cases with a wide variation regarding project dynamics in the Netherlands. Alignments and misalignments were analyzed between practices concerning seven design strategies for circular design based on social practice theory and concepts from the multi-level perspective. Results show that many misalignments still hinder the transition, mostly concerning the use of secondary resources, such as notions regarding quality, beauty, and safety among project team members or rapid decision-making processes of the municipality that misalign with the uptake of design with secondary resources. This article offers directions for reconfiguration, such as better tuning between project planning and urban planning and taking up a more flexible stance regarding the function of the building. This research is interesting for practitioners and researchers focusing on the transition towards a circular economy in the AEC sector.

Om een transformatieproject te realiseren, is kennis van investeren, financieren en bekostigen onontbeerlijk. We kunnen immers mooie plannen bedenken, maar zonder een deugdelijke financiële onderbouwing komt niets van de grond. Wat zijn de (on)mogelijkheden voor het financieel haalbaar maken van gebiedstransformaties? We benaderen het vraagstuk vanuit de waardeketen rond gebiedstransformaties, behandelen financieringsvormen en onrendabele toppen en gaan in op gemeentelijke bekostigingsstrategieën.

Despite growing government and market interest to use Circular Building Hubs for reusing construction components, few academic articles have been written about them. We know little about the potential of hubs to answer to the challenges of reuse in the present and future, and their potential to drive systemic changes towards a circular economy. Using various qualitative research methods, this article aims to respond to this research gap by applying social practice theory and the multilevel perspective on past and future practice reconfigurations within the system-of-practices in which these hubs reside. Results show that within hubs reconfiguration from demolition to deconstruction and repair and refurbishment practices have been developed. However, selling components remains challenging, and procurement for reuse and design skill remain underdeveloped. Practitioners expect the system-of-practices to professionalize in the coming years, resulting in market growth for secondary components. Long term, practitioners expect hubs to shrink or disappear because the balance between supply and demand will be controlled digitally. Hubs are therefore a driver for the transition, but only as intermediate step, not as solution for a circular economy. This article is particularly interesting for academics studying CE and transitions, and policy makers interested in developing Circular Building Hubs.

Bij het herontwikkelen van plekken groeit onder publieke en private partijen het besef dat het hierbij niet alleen om de financiële winst gaat. Ook allerlei andere waarden moeten onderdeel zijn van gebiedstransformaties. Soms levert het bijdragen aan maatschappelijke waarden uiteindelijk ook geld op, of worden kosten bespaard – elders of later. Welk breder investeringsperspectief helpt om voorbij de traditionele ‘smalle’ businesscase van gebiedstransformatie te kijken? We onderzoeken de mogelijkheden vanuit het concept van ‘meervoudige waardecreatie’.

Najaar 2023 gingen 20 professionals uit de Nederlandse ruimtelijke ontwikkelingspraktijk op studiereis naar New York. Een geliefde stad voor een onvergetelijke citytrip, maar wat levert zo’n studiereis op aan nieuwe inzichten voor gebiedsontwikkeling? Céline Janssen, Erwin Heurkens en Tom Daamen doen verslag.

Researchers employ many different approaches to study transitions towards more sustainable futures, of which Sustainability Transitions Research and Social Practice Theory are often used. These approaches offer complementary concepts that are helpful to analyse, explain, forecast, and drive sustainability transitions, e.g. heuristics on changing institutions (Sustainability Transitions Research) or dynamics to change behaviour through practice development (Social Practice Theory). However, despite first attempts, it remains unclear how the approaches can be used together. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to expose crossover frameworks in which these approaches are used together, elaborating on conditions that make this possible, and the strengths and weaknesses of specific crossover frameworks. A systematic literature review has been conducted, investigating the potentials and the limitations for crossovers between Social Practice Theory and Sustainability Transitions Research by analysing the approaches according to the different ontologies and theories and then analysing frameworks that have been created so far. This research elaborates on six crossover frameworks that have been created that all have diverse strengths, such as the ability to conceptualize early transitional changes or finding points of resistance in transitions. All the found crossover frameworks made use of either the multilevel perspective or transition management. Other frameworks of transition research have not been found. This research shows that there has been surprisingly little research to crossover frameworks that incorporate an element of time. The exposition following from this study is interesting for researchers and policymakers working on sustainability transitions and sets an agenda for further framework development.

Gebiedstransformaties hebben als algemeen kenmerk dat bestaande kantoor-, bedrijven-, winkel- of industriegebieden worden getransformeerd naar gebieden waarin de woonfunctie aan aandeel wint. Gebouwtransformaties vinden uiteraard ook plaats binnen zo’n gebiedstransformatie. Op gebiedsniveau vinden er echter vaak (andere) gebouw- en kaveloverstijgende afwegingen plaats die ook van belang kunnen zijn voor het realiseren van gebouwtransformaties naar wonen. Zeer kenmerkend voor deze gebiedstransformaties is het grote aantal uiteenlopende partijen die onderling in meer of mindere mate samenwerken aan de transformatie van een gebied. In dit hoofdstuk behandelen we de betrokken partijen, een specifieke samenwerkingsvorm (‘Developing Apart Together’) en de partnerselectiemethode die van belang zijn voor een effectieve en duurzame samenwerking bij gebiedstransformaties naar wonen.

Real estate practice is subject to constant changes due to related economic, societal and environmental transitions, such as circular economy, sustainable mobility and renewable energy, that need to be taken into account when shaping the built environment. As a result, there is a growing need among public and private real estate professionals to understand the wickedness of the challenges ahead, and to develop leadership skills and appropriate courses of action to realize resilient urban real estate projects. For professional organizations and individual practitioners it increasingly becomes evident that lifelong learning is an much needed investment and effective strategy to obtain state-of-the-art knowledge and to create transdisciplinary learning experiences enabling them to adapt to the changing circumstances and to create positive societal impact. Real estate educators increasingly will face the challenge to accommodate life learning needs and extend the traditional bachelor and master course with a variety of courses aimed at educating professionals.

This paper addresses the substantive and didactic principles applied in the curriculum renewal of a Dutch post-master program Master City Developer (MCD), aimed at educating planning and real estate practitioners for the challenging job ahead. This two-year professional education program is organized by Erasmus University Rotterdam and Delft University of Technology with the aim to educate practitioners to strategically lead urban development projects. The current 20th course has seen a substantial curriculum change as part of an externally financed renewal project. The renewed course structure is based on ten consecutive modules, focusing on economy, transitions, governance, investment and finance, strategy and design, transformation, law, international development, research methods, and thesis. A major content shift involves the introduction of the urban transitions module, focusing on understanding spatial-economic implications of the mobility and energy transition within various scenarios. Moreover two new modules are added. The urban transformation module support students to understand, create and apply integrative strategies to complex inner-city transformation projects. The urban law module deepens the student’s knowledge on contemporary spatial legislation and contractual law methods that assist them to effectively collaborate on planning and realizing urban projects.

Besides the substantive change, various didactic principles and learning methods are introduced resonating with the latest academic insights on lifelong professional education: blended-learning, case-based learning, student-centred learning. Blended-learning involves purposely linking the weekly interactive face-to-face meetings with student flexible self-study preparations via diverse online learning materials including theme-based videos, self-assessment, and peer-to-peer assignments. Case-based learning evolves around studying one critical urban development case per module from specific theoretical perspectives, aimed at enhancing the student’s ability to critically compare practices in order to construct and apply management concepts and strategies for their own job. Student-centred earning factors in the growing need among professionals for relevant personal leadership skills, which is given shape by a personal development trajectory aimed at individual and collective reflective learning at the intersection of study and practice.

Sinds 2005 heeft de Rijksoverheid de transformatie van bestaande gebouwen op de agenda staan. In die tijd werd namelijk duidelijk dat de kantorenleegstand was opgelopen tot problematische proporties, en liep tegelijkertijd de woningbouwproductie achter op de beleidsdoelstelling. De productie van woningen door transformatie werd voor het eerst in diverse beleidsnotities onderschreven. Enerzijds om de woningproductie te verhogen, anderzijds om verloedering en leegstand in steden tegen te gaan. Een duurzame transformatie van gebouwen is bovendien een strategie die bijvoorbeeld sociaal-demografische veranderingen opvangt, de economische basis van steden ondersteunt en de stedelijke kwaliteit verbetert. In 2022 werd door minister Hugo de Jonge van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties het doel geformuleerd om jaarlijks 15.000 woningen te realiseren door transformatie (zie ‘1. De markt voor transformatie naar woningen’). Om de doelstellingen te behalen, is ook een hervorming van vastgoedmarkten nodig, waarbij instellingen en organisaties de voorkeur geven aan transformatie boven sloop en nieuwbouw. Dit vereist echter het gebruik van publieke beleidsinstrumenten die aansluiten bij de veranderende eisen van de vastgoedmarkt en de behoeften van marktactoren. Dit hoofdstuk illustreert dat om bestaand vastgoed te transformeren naar woningen een effectieve mix van beleidsinstrumenten en activiteiten vereist is die is afgestemd op de marktbehoeften op zowel stedelijk als lokaal niveau. Achtereenvolgens wordt het overheidsbeleid ten aanzien van de transformatie naar wonen uiteengezet en gecategoriseerd teneinde een beeld te schetsen van de veelheid en mogelijke effectiviteit van dat beleid.

De tweede editie van de GO Barometer is uit! De Stichting Kennis Gebiedsontwikkeling (SKG) brengt ook dit jaar de stand van zaken binnen het vakgebied van gebiedsontwikkeling in kaart. Gebiedsontwikkeling is een zaak van lange adem, dus er zijn veel overeenkomsten met 2022 – maar toch ook enkele opvallende verschillen. Vooral het stijgende onderlinge wantrouwen tussen partijen is opvallend. Daarnaast zet onvoldoende personele capaciteit de uitvoering van uitdagende ruimtelijke projecten verder onder druk.

It goes without saying that cities of tomorrow face numerous challenges that will change their appearance drastically. We only now begin to notice a gradual change towards climate-adaptive cities, inner-city renewable energy production, and more healthy urban environments by re-naturing our public realm and buildings as well as accommodating societal initiatives within urban neighbourhoods. Such sustainability transitions within the built environment unfold in front of our eyes and are as appealing as urgently needed to make our cities liveable and thrive. Nonetheless, the physical transformations that come with such changes are also driven by economic factors and conditioned by financial aspects less visible and tangible. Yet, unquestionably, they help drive and support such sustainability transitions and built environment transformations. So how can we conceive of the economic factors shaping the city of the future?

Purpose – The Delft University of Technology adapted their sustainable mission and wants to apply it also to the corporate real estate management. To allow decision making based upon a more integral approach in a long term perspective a choice is made for total cost of ownership. The benevolent project managers, asset managers, facility managers and financial account managers then ask for data, where they actually need a compass to interpret that data. The purpose of this paper is to find that compass. Design/methodology/approach – A theory-practice oriented approach is followed. Literature review is conducted to identify the need for a new economy that distances itself from the outdated neo-liberal models and gives space to a material-driven circular economy on the one hand and the more pragmatic life-cycle cost (total cost of ownership) approach on the other. Findings – It seems that the donut economy offers the compass that the practice currently needs. It offers scope for making assumptions in a period in which people know which way things are going and at the same time want to have 'hard data'. Quality/value – The study has the potential to support the university real estate management in its aim to meet their sustainable mission and to set a general approach. It will contribute to a larger research on this topic.

Private investment in and management of public urban space has been a subject of practice and debate in real estate studies and industry in recent years (De Magelhães & Freire Trigo, 2017; Le Clercq et al., 2020). Such mainly Anglo-Saxon endeavours can be explained by an continuous austerity era of government retrenchments in urban planning and expanding private sector-led urban development practices (Heurkens, 2012). Moreover, real estate developers and investors are increasingly aware of the economic added value of attractive public space for their assets and the potential benefits of public space investment and management (Urban Land Institute, 2018). Whilst previous studies focused on the implications of private investment for public space governance arrangements, publicness safeguarding mechanisms, or private sector business benefits, little research has been conducted on the actual reasons for real estate developers and investors to pay for the public realm. Therefore, this research (Van de Gaar, 2023) aims to explore the possibilities of extra voluntarily private investment in the public space of urban regeneration projects, by studying the main conditions and motivations. In order to do so, we conducted a literature review resulting in an adapted conceptual framework from De Magelhães & Freire Trigo (2017) which we specifically applied to the Dutch real estate practice. Based on two qualitative research methods, semi-structured interviews with eighteen real estate professionals and an expert panel validation session, the following results are distilled.

In terms of motivations, our study reveals that the location and immediate surrounding is decisive for real estate companies’ willingness to extra invest in public space, as these investments do not pay off as much everywhere and are conditioned by the financial viability of urban regeneration project itself. Additionally, real estate companies indicate that ESG business objectives are increasingly important in investment decisions, with public space functioning as potential tangible means and proof. In terms of conditions, real estate developers and investors indicate that control over assigning rights, distributing responsibilities and shaping characteristics of the investment in public space is decisive. They want to be able control how extra investments are spent to ensure that their own company vision and the development concept for the project is realised to a sufficient degree. The biggest challenge in making public-private agreements about the extra investments are local authority public space standardisation regulations that hinder customization. Additionally, the lack of proven private management instruments for the use phase currently directs Dutch developers and investors to full legal ownership of public space as the only (limited) solution.

Based on the above empirical findings, this research illustrates that it is not possible to determine an ‘ideal framework’ for the distribution of roles and responsibilities for private public space investment and subsequently the management thereof, as public space is non-generic in nature. Nevertheless this research indicates possible conditions under which real estate companies are willing and able to extra invest in public space, thereby seeking collaborations with the public sector and establishing attractive public spaces to the potential benefit of both organisations and users alike. Scientifically, our study adds new insights about the importance of private sector investment considerations into public-private agreements besides those that safeguard the publicness of urban spaces. Research limitations include the external validity (generalisability) of the findings beyond the Dutch institutional real estate practice, and the internal validity due to the limited triangulation and qualitative nature of methods used.

Comprehensive understanding of the merits of bottom-up urban development is lacking, thus hampering and complicating associated collaborative processes. Therefore, and given the assumed relevancies, we mapped the social, environmental and economic values generated by bottom-up developments in two Dutch urban areas, using theory-based evaluation principles. These evaluations raised insights into the values, beneficiaries and path dependencies between successive values, confirming the assumed effect of placemaking accelerating further spatial developments. It also revealed broader impacts of bottom-up endeavors, such as influences on local policies and innovations in urban development.

Makkelijk te kwantificeren is het niet, de kosten en baten van omgevingsparticipatie door ontwikkelaars. Onderzoek van Erwin Heurkens en Wouter Jan Verheul (TU Delft) laat niettemin wél zien dat de potentie groot is.

Construction sectors have a long way to go to realize a circular economy. Many organizational barriers and institutional characteristics inhibit the sector’s transition to circular practices. Nevertheless, within this early phase of the transition, several building projects were realized. This research aims to learn from these frontrunners, in order to distill insights on how to improve conditions at project level. Drawing on ecological systems metaphor, circular building projects in this research are regarded as a system of multiple actors that each perform one or multiple functions: these functions together make up the functional diversity of circular building project. The sum of these functions produces a system service (i.e. circular building elements). Using this perspective to analyze four circular cases, we uncovered five functions that are crucial to realize circular buildings: 1) connecting though vision; 2) matching supply and demand; 3) providing used materials; 4) constructing circular building elements and 5) controlling safety and quality. The functional diversity perspective reveals that functions are to large extent interchangeable between actors. Further applications of the functional diversity perspective could reveal its relevance to support the transition to a circular construction practice and possibly other transition themes.

Met de eerste editie van de GO Barometer bracht de SKG dit voorjaar in kaart wat de stand van zaken is in het vakgebied van gebiedsontwikkeling. In dit artikel bespreken we de vijf belangrijkste inzichten uit de barometer en de discussie daarover tijdens het SKG Jaarcongres eind maart.

TU Delft-onderzoekers Wouter Jan Verheul en Erwin Heurkens deden onderzoek naar privaat georganiseerde participatie. Zij onderscheiden vijf beweegredenen voor marktpartijen om hier werk van te maken, variërend van draagvlak creëren tot dure rechtszaken voorkomen.

De huidige opgaven van gebiedstransformaties zijn onderling zo afhankelijk dat betrokken partijen niet zonder elkaar kunnen, ook wat betreft de financiering. We zoeken daarom naar nieuwe financieringsarrangementen waarbij publieke waarden met privaat rendement worden gecombineerd. Hoewel we moeten oppassen met te hoge verwachtingen, zijn experimenten met innovatieve financieringsarrangementen als revolverende fondsen en gebiedsinvesteringszones aan te bevelen.

In current European practices, actors in real estate and urban transformation are highly dependent on one another. Contemporary inner-city transformation projects are particularly challenging in terms of collaboration and financing, as they need to address the need for housing as well as new demands in mobility, health, energy, climate adaptation and other sectors. Among other things, such cross-sectoral projects need to allocate funding from multiple public and private sources in a timely fashion, which is a challenge in its own right. Moreover, long-term urban transformation projects require large sums of up-front financing due to high land assembly, site preparation and real estate construction costs. Such financing is usually difficult to obtain. Project proposals face strict conditions from private lenders and investors, and limited availability of government funding, value capturing, and legal co-financing possibilities (Daamen et al., 2020). In many countries, these and other trends have spurred a quest for innovative financing instruments for real estate development (e.g. Squires et al., 2015). The Netherlands is a case in point. Here, innovative financing arrangements that combine the realization of public values and private return are believed to offer great potential for inner-city transformation projects. As part of a study funded by a Dutch government-industry coalition, we identified and assessed two of such innovative financing arrangements: Revolving Funds and Area Improvement Districts (Heurkens et al., 2020). The essence of the Revolving Fund is that public bodies – once private finance due to estimated risks in unavailable – pre-finance the realization of local public amenities and/or private real estate investments with sustainability objectives such as energy transition or shared mobility solutions. Such pre-financing has the precondition that the loan is repaid (with interest) to the fund, thus making it available for reinvestment—hence its revolving nature. The idea of an Area Improvement Districts is based on the financing mechanism behind Business Improvement Districts practiced in the US. These are aimed at obtaining a proportional financial contribution from property owners, investors and (potentially) developers for collective amenities or infrastructures in the area. These contributions are based on the expected increase in real estate value and the social impact of investments, which are pre-financed from a privately managed fund. Both innovative financing arrangements provide possible answers to, and might reinforce, increasing interdependencies between the public and private sector in urban planning and development (Heurkens et al., 2015). In addition, they aim to arrange and designate finance collectively in order to synthesize public and private values in the built environment. Potentially, they could prove to be beneficial for financing specific urban transformation projects with innovative sustainability solutions that have not yet proven to generate satisfactory returns. Nonetheless, both arrangements might also involve institutional changes – ranging from adapting government legislation, rethinking real estate financing structures, or changing actor behaviors and cultures – that prohibit a widespread adoption in practice. Moreover, one might ask whether such hybrid financing arrangements, and associated interdependencies such as shared risks, are desirable from a political and financial risk management point of view. Therefore, further research necessitates a closer examination of the features of, conditions for and effects of applications of innovative financing arrangements in urban transformation practices. References Daamen, T., Verheul. W.J., & Heurkens, E. (2020). GebiedsInvesteringsZone: Naar een praktijkexperiment [Area Improvement Districts: Towards a practice experiment]. TU Delft, commissioned by Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. Heurkens, E. Adams, D., & Hobma, F. (2015). Planners as market actors: The role of local authorities in UK’s urban regeneration practice. Town Planning Review, 86(6), 625-650. Heurkens, E., Hobma, F., Verheul, W.J., & Daamen, T. (2020). Financiering van gebiedstransformatie: Strategieën voor het toepassen van verschillende financieringsvormen bij binnenstedelijke gebiedsontwikkeling [Financing urban transformation: Strategies for the application of various forms of financing in inner-city urban development projects]. TU Delft, commissioned by Platform 31 programme Urban Transformation. Squires, G., Hutchinson, N., Adair, A., Berry, J., McGreal, S., & Organ, S. (2015). Innovative finance for real estate development in Pan-European regeneration. London: RICS.