Building in a climate-adaptive way as the new standard in the province of Utrecht

Project description

Climate adaptation concerns us all, and building in a climate-adaptive way is, therefore, only possible in collaboration. For the province of Utrecht (the Netherlands), TAUW together with &Flux supervised a process with public and private construction partners to develop agreements, goals and performance requirements for climate-adaptive construction in residential buildings, existing buildings and industrial estates.
 

How did the cooperation with the client go? 

&Flux and TAUW cooperated closely as one project team throughout the project. We conducted forty interviews with public and private parties – including project developers, state forestry authorities, municipalities and water boards – in order to gain clear insight into everyone's interests and needs. Subsequently, the agreements, goals and requirements were formulated into various digital work sessions with dozens of attendees.

The results

The main conclusion from this collaboration is that designing and building in a climate-adaptive way is achievable and should become the standard. Goals and performance requirements for heat resistance, limiting drought (impact), preventing flooding and limiting the consequences of large-scale flooding have been developed. In addition, together with the parties involved, we have consciously chosen to encourage nature-inclusive construction and biodiversity. Throughout the process, there was regular contact with the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and the provinces of Zuid-Holland and Gelderland to ensure the same structure of agreements, goals and requirements in these regions, where TAUW and &Flux are also working. In the meantime, dozens of public and private parties in the Utrecht region have already indicated that they will sign the letter of intent for the agreements.

“TAUW was able to make climate-adaptive construction in the province of Utrecht a reality and to translate it into performance requirements that have the support of a broad group of builders, municipalities and other chain partners in the construction industry" - Wietse Visser, client Province of Utrecht