1/3 Dirk van den Tilelaar of housing corporation Area (photo: Jos Verkuijlen).
In the coming years, 1000 social rental houses will be built of wood in our province. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s still special. The housing corporations in Brabant are the frontrunners in the Netherlands. They see building with wood as the future. “The raw materials are running out and the production of concrete and steel causes a lot of CO2 emissions,” says Jurgen Arts of Houtbouw Lente.
Housing corporation Area 40 is having houses built in the De Bogerd district of Uden. Yes, there are some bricks to be seen. Yet a very large part of such a building is made of wood and other so-called biobased stuff. “These are materials made from natural, renewable raw materials,” project leader Dirk van den Tilelaar of Area immediately explains.
“You sow a plant, you harvest it and you make building materials from it. That can be insulation or, for example, sheet material,” he says. Van den Tilelaar walks to one of the wooden walls. At least it looks like wood. “These walls are made of bamboo. That is harvested and shredded. Binder is added and you then press planks from it.”
“A roof full of plants.”
Behind that facade is a wooden skeleton. “The roof is a sedum roof. It is made from plants,” explains Van den Tilelaar. “They also ensure that there are more insects.” These houses are partly built from renewable materials. But not completely. There are still some stone walls and part of the construction is made of concrete.
Eight Brabant housing associations started working together two years ago to build more houses made of wood and other renewable materials. Now there are about 20 construction projects across the province. Together they are good for 1000 houses.
“There are quite a lot,” says Jurgen Arts of Houtbouw Lente. That is the name of the club of housing associations in which they work together to build more of wood. In the Netherlands as a whole, only two percent of newly built houses are made of wood. “That is even less for housing associations,” says Arts. “In Brabant we are going to make more than ten percent of the new social rental houses from wood.”
“The raw materials are running out.”
Doctor points across the street to a row of stone houses. “That’s how we’ve always made it,” he says. “It has long been the well-known mix of masonry, concrete and steel. They want to change that.” According to Arts, this is badly needed. “The raw materials are running out and the production of concrete and steel causes a lot of CO2 emissions.”
There are big plans on the table. Arts: “We are now starting with a thousand houses here. But I think there will be many more in ten years’ time. Then the standard is: ‘we build with wood, unless’ instead of ‘we build in concrete, unless’.”