Housing

Residents know exactly what their neighbourhood is like. House-seekers, on the other hand, must find out for themselves about the intangible social quality of neighbourhoods. As a simple rule of thumb, neighbourhood reputation can offer them a assessment of neighbourhood quality. In this research, regression analyses are applied to test whether neighbourhood reputations are being used as a proxy measure for neighbourhood quality in residential mobility choices and establishing the price of...

Large housing estates: for some people these three words symbolise all that is wrong in urban planning. Large is wrong, because many people prefer a living surrounding that reflects the human scale. Housing as a single function is wrong, because mixed areas are livelier. And estates are wrong, as these refer to top-down planned areas which the residents themselves have no say in.

Although many such estates function well, others have proved to be in serious problems. The question is...

West European Housing Systems in a Comparative Perspective gives an overview of the results of almost 20 years of international comparative housing research, carried out by the author and his colleagues at OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment. The articles give evidence of the transition from descriptive analysis to theoretical exploration and the growing relevance of methodology during these years.

The results provide deeper insight into comparative research...

This study discusses ways of measuring and explaining the development of house prices. The goal of the research underpinning this dissertation was to develop a methodological framework for studying these developments. This framework relates, first, to correcting for changes in the composition of dwellings and, second, to the fundamentals of the price development. Using the weighted repeat sales method and sale price appraisal ratio (SPAR) method, house price indexes were developed for the...

What is the current role of housing wealth in household retirement strategies across the European Union member states? And could this role be extended? This question is often raised by researchers and policymakers, since governments search for ways to cut pensions expenditure in response to ageing populations and the global financial crisis. Housing wealth could potentially be part of a solution as the retired are often rich in terms of housing wealth. The existing theory shows that...

This issue of A+BE focuses on area-based asset management of housing associations. In this thesis you can find out how housing associations establish coherent intentions regarding the housing stock in neighbourhoods and what planning approaches they are using. Since their independence in the nineties of the last century housing associations have developed to social enterprises that are committed to a broad field of activity.

This change allows for increased complexity of...

Woningcorporaties en vastgoedontwikkeling, dat is een logische combinatie. Tenminste, het lijkt een logische combinatie. Woningcorporaties worden niet voor niets nog steeds vaak woningbouwverenigingen genoemd. Vastgoedontwikkeling is altijd í©í©n van de activiteiten geweest waar woningcorporaties mee bezig zijn geweest: woningen ontwikkelen voor een specifieke doelgroep, woningen renoveren en sinds de jaren ‘90 ook het investeren in ander vastgoed dan alleen woningen. Het is een dynamisch...

Rapid and deep changes in society, the economy and policy over the last decades ˬare having an increasing impact on the delivery of social housing in North Western Europe. These changes are transforming the way in which social housing providers perform their task and are reshaping their relationships with the State, communities and with other market actors. The combination of continued State withdrawal from service provision, the deep and persistent effects of the global financial crisis...

‘The joint residents’ initiative aimed at renewable energy optimization has been increasing in The Netherlands. This is evident from the survey carried out for this study during 2012 of ‘renewable energy residents initiative’ in The Netherlands, as well as the changing government policy. The engineering sector is contributing to this development by introducing new types of energy systems for housing complexes with multiple households.

The underlying reasons for this change are the...

Central to this dissertation are client driven housing management from housing associations in The Netherlands and the empowerment effects this management has on its tenants. The central issue includes what client driven housing management is (definition), in which ways this can be devised, what the envisioned effects are and which effects this management successfully accomplishes. These are answered by means of seven sub questions. The focal point of this research shifts from an...

The initiative of this study derived from my concern of two critical urban issues in China today: housing and urban renewal. In the recent two decades, the Chinese urban housing stock underwent a significant, if not extreme, transformation. From 1949 to 1998, the urban housing stock in China largely depended on the public sector, and a large amount of public housing areas were developed under the socialistic public housing system in Beijing and other Chinese cities. Yet in 1998, a radical...

This publication provides an overview of TU Delft’s and Berlage’s most significant research achievements in the field of architecture and the built environment, produced over the years 2003—2009. The publication is produced in preparation for the Dutch 2010 research assessment exercise Architecture and the Built Environment.

It is the first joint publication by Architecture, OTB and Berlage and hints clearly at stronger future ties between the three institutes, which are...

European Social Housing Organisations (SHOs) are currently facing challenging times. The ageing of their housing stock and the economic crisis, which has affected both their finances and the finances of their tenants, are testing their capacity to stick to their aim of providing decent and affordable housing. Housing renovation projects offer the possibility of upgrading the health and comfort levels of their old housing stock to current standards and improve energy efficiency, and this...

Climate change can no longer be ignored. It is globally recognised that the evidence for climate change is unequivocal and that action needs to be taken in order to address its negative effects.

These effects, such as warmer and drier summers and more extreme rainfall, may threaten the quality of life of those living in urban environments. To limit these threats, a number of climate change adaptation measures can be taken to pre-empt the negative effects of climate change.

This publication provides an overview of TU Delft’s most significant research achievements in the field of architecture and the built environment during the years 2010—2012. It is the first presentation of the joint research portfolio of the Faculty of Architecture and OTB Research Institute since their integration into the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. As such the portfolio holds a strong promise for the future. In a time when the economy seems to be finally picking...

The residential neighbourhood is thought to affect residents because of presumed neighbourhood effects; the independent effects of a neighbourhood’s characteristics on the life chances of its residents. An enormous body of research has tried to measure neighbourhood effects, however, there are no clear conclusions on how much, if any, effect the neighbourhood has on its residents. There is non-random selection of people into neighbourhoods which causes a bias in the modelling of...

The aim of this thesis is to add knowledge to the role and impact of policy instruments in meeting energy performance ambition in the existing owner occupied housing stock. The focus was instruments available in the Netherlands in 2011 and 2012. These instruments represented the ‘on the ground’ efforts to meet climate change targets and many continue to do so today in the same or slightly altered forms. 

At international level there is a recognized need to...

This study aims to increase our understanding of the role of social housing organisations in neighbourhood regeneration governance networks, in order to enhance the performance and outcomes of these networks. Our understanding of how governance networks work is still limited, especially concerning the role of non-state actors like housing associations. Hierarchical government steering is increasingly mixed with market mechanisms and networked forms of decision-making. These shifts in...

The research used several large datasets, about dwellings theoretical energy performance, most of which were related to energy label certificates. All the datasets containing theoretical performance were merged with actual energy data. In addition to that, some were also enriched with socioeconomic and behaviour related data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) or from surveys which were designed for the purpose of this research. Simple descriptive statistics were used to compare average...

The economic reform in China, launched in the late 1970s, gradually promotes the free mobility of capital and labour between rural and urban areas, and between cities. The following housing market reform in the late 1990s thoroughly terminates the socialist allocation of housing and introduces market forces into the housing sector. Such institutional shifts have profound effects on the evolution of the Chinese interurban housing market. Yet, little is known about the spatial behaviour of...

Central to this PhD research was the problem of the lack of affordable housing for young starters in Malaysia. The solutions for affordable housing that are available in the market do not truly solve the problem from the customer’s point of view. Hence, it was important to analyse the contributing factors associated with the term ‘affordability’. The term touches upon interconnected elements that cover many issues ranging from demand (housing needs, demographics, household income, quality...

Over the years 2010-2015 TU Delft's Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (in Dutch: Bouwkunde or BK) made good progress with its research by:

• merging the Architecture faculty and the Built Environment research institute;
• streamlining its PhD research by setting-up a graduate school for doctoral education;
• co-founding an institute for metropolitan solutions in Amsterdam together with MIT and Wageningen University (targeted yearly budget: 25...