Acronym: Upcycling Trust
Title: Upcycling substandard buildings into affordable housing with Community Land Trusts
Call: INTERREG
EU nr: NWE0200273
Period: 1/12/2023-30/11/2028
Budget : total budget : €3,123,919.57; VUB budget: € 458,596.56
Contacts: Prof. Niels De Temmerman, Prof. Waldo Galle, Prof. Nele Aernouts, and Prof. Michael Ryckewaert
https://www.vub.be/arch/people/niels-de-temmerman
https://www.vub.be/arch/people/waldo-galle
At ERIS we got a chance to talk to Niels and Waldo and asked them 2 questions:
What is ‘Upcycling Trust’ about?
With the Upcycling Trust project, the consortium aims to put forward a Community Land Trust (CLT) model which offers an innovative, hybrid form of ownership suitable for such an approach. Although more and more CLTs are emerging in the region, they have so far mainly focused on new construction. With the CLT model, Upcycling Trust wants to test a new upcycling strategy, focused on buying the land of existing social and owner-occupied housing units and using a circular approach to the renovation. The consortium will set up 5 pilots with CLTs where legal, organisational, technical and financial strategies will be developed, and the first homes will be upcycled.
In practice, the project will involve 5 pilot cities allowing 150 low-income families to be able to live in these homes, while saving-expressed in monetary terms according to the Belgian MMG and TOTEM method- €745.000 of environmental impact. Based on the experiences of these pilots, and by involving local and regional authorities as well as academic partners, the consortium will use their findings to develop a new urban policy and a just urban transition.
Why is it important for VUB?
With the use of validated design frameworks, environmental impact assessment methods, and life cycle costing the VUB Architectural Engineering, will support the consortium partners of each demonstration project to kick-start their sustainable and affordable renovations plans. Focus will be on the environmental impact, in particular with an energy and circularity result. VUB Cosmopolis will measure the social impact of the project, starting from a transnational overview on the opportunities, obstacles and impediments that exist in applying the upcycling program, from the viewpoint of the variety of actors involved.
On top, the VUB has also experience in collecting the resulting findings in engaging and inspiring design guides directed towards building clients (including local governments and other CLT’s) and towards design teams (including architects and contractors). These will be communicated through the Upcycling Trust network.
Project details
Start & end date
December 2023 - November 2028
People
Margaux Lespagnard
Waldo Galle
Niels De Temmerman
Collaborators
Jeanne Mosseray
Nele Aernouts
Michael Ryckewaert
Partners
Ville de Lille
Community Land Trust Brussels ASBL
Community Land Trust Ghent
Metropole of Lille Housing
Habitat2030
Rennes Metropolis
Self Organised Architecture Research CLG
Lille Européen Metropolis
Cork City Council
Public Interest Foundation CLTB
Project objectives
The housing crisis affecting many cities in the region is calling for the production of more affordable housing. Building new housing is often in conflict with many cities' circular strategies, including the preservation of existing open space, and the reduction of building resources. In parallel, the need for renovation of the housing stock to meet climate targets is both a challenge and an opportunity.
With the Upcycling Trust project, we want to explore how the combination of (1) a thorough, circular renovation approach and (2) the decomodification of housing (taking housing off the market so that it cannot be sold at a profit) can lead to more sustainable and affordable cities in a structural way.
Moreover, by putting local communities at the heart of the system, we aim to contribute to the resilience of cities.
This project is co-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the program INTERREG NWE for an amount of €3.123.919,57, for which the consortium is grateful.
