The built environment consumes 50% of all raw materials, 40% of the total energy and 30% of the total water, in the Netherlands. As climate change looms over and threatens our physical environment, the EU and consequently the Dutch government has proposed multiple stringent regulations to curb our unsustainable resource consumption habits and create a circular economy for the future. The realization of such an economy is currently hindered by the lack of availability of standardized design strategies and assessment methods. In comparison, a high energy performing building can be designed, assessed and operated by following the closely monitored Energy performance building directive initiated by the EU. The directive lays down stringent goals to be achieved in the built environment every few years. This imbalance leads to the development of a fast-paced energy efficient building stock with circular economy ambitions lagging behind. Addressing this gap, this research focuses on creating and testing an assessment method that measures the energy performance and circularity of a building in an integrated manner, to ensure the equal development of both aspects. In this process, data on new buildings are gathered using which the circular intentions and consequent measures incorporated in these buildings to meet the current building regulations are tracked, resulting in a set of design guidelines for improving the combined energetic and circular performance of a building. ... Read more

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake had a devastating impact on the town of Otsuchi in Iwate Prefecture, resulting in 1,234 immediate deaths and 59.6% of residential houses being fully damaged amongst other severe consequences. The post-disaster Reconstruction Plan (2011-2018) of this town focused on rebuilding the previously existing town with large-scale engineered interventions, resulting in a fragmented set of spatial interventions which solve problems in a single faceted way. The management of a post-tsunami reconstruction process should represent a resilient design for the future. This paper demonstrates that a modified land use design, developed and achieved through an interdisciplinary approach, represents a holistic solution to the drawbacks of the reconstruction plan. Through an iterative framework, site-specific strategies are developed at the urban and the building scale that combine safety and livability by finding synergies among disciplinary fields in an integrated manner. The result of this paper is a quantified evaluation of the reduction in flood risk achieved with a new design, making spatially evident the areas in which a refinement is required to mitigate flood damage.
Subject: tsunami; interdisciplinary; resilience; spatial planning; strategy
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