CATEGORY

Sustainable Buildings

Renovating Makes Cents: How to Retrofit on a Budget

Realistically, for a shot at halting climate change, we need to make buildings more efficient, big time, with widespread retrofit rollouts in the next few years! Regardless of good intentions, that’s not easy without...

Housing in Barcelona: Multiple Issues, Multiple Solutions!

Barcelona has long been plagued by housing issues. Now the city is fighting back. Equipped with an extensive plan, Barcelona wants to tackle a multitude of challenges. We sat down with the city’s housing...

Modern Methods of Construction: Common Challenges and Solutions

If the question is ‘how do we build enough to house our growing populations?’, some espouse modern methods of construction as the answer. Although MMC promises cleaner construction and improved comfort for residents, uptake...

How to Green and Maintain Your Sustainable Roof

Wouldn’t it be nice to go on your roof on a hot summer’s day, bringing a book and fresh lemonade with you, lying back in a deckchair and enjoying the sunny day – without...

Toronto: Diverse Residents in Complete Communities

Accommodating diverse groups of people within the same city poses a challenge. Toronto has managed to overcome it and continues to strive for a more inclusive and affordable housing market. We caught up with...

Recycling Construction and Demolition Waste with SeRaMCo

Is there a market for recycled concrete? This was such a sizeable question that the EU part-funded a multi-million-Euro project to find out. Leading SeRaMCo, Christian Glock set out to ascertain how construction and...

A Touch of Dutch: Cohousing Advice from Vrijburcht

The cohousing project Vrijburcht in Amsterdam was built almost two decades ago. Despite the many difficulties that have cropped up along the way, Vrijburcht has stood the test of time and – over the...

CityChanger Trina Chakravarti: Champion of Modern Methods of Construction

Traditional construction practices are emission-heavy. Switching to modern methods of construction (MMC) can help mitigate our impact on climate change, but what does that look like exactly? We turned to CityChanger Trina Chakravarti, Project...

Green Gentrification: Why, How & Who?

Lately, it seems ‘climate justice’, ‘eco-gentrification’, and ‘green gentrification’ are the most used terms in the realm of sustainability. Whatever the phrase, gentrification is not an easy matter for discussion. Why that is the...

CityChanger Jennifer Keesmaat: An Unconventional Urban Planner

What do a liberal arts degree, a congested street, and the City of Toronto have in common? They all link back to our CityChanger Jennifer Keesmaat, an unconventional urban planner. We sat down with...

How to Motivate the Transition to Community Energy

Community energy is an agent of decarbonisation. Transition in the sector is gaining momentum. How can we motivate people to get involved and maintain that trajectory? We asked Éva Goudouneix, Community Development Manager with...

CityChanger Eef Tanghe: Fulfilling Cohousing Dreams

Have you ever heard of cohousing? This alternative living model promises to combine privacy and community, use space efficiently, and provide plenty of greenery. Eef Tanghe, CityChanger and founder of Cohousing Projects, makes the case...

Reviving Thriving Communities Through Meanwhile Housing

We’re in the midst of a housing crisis: too few affordable homes for our growing population. Quick wins are usually synonymous with shoddy quality, but meanwhile housing bucks that trend. We spoke with Lorna...

Recycling Concrete: Can We Really Reuse Construction and Demolition Waste?

Concrete. As a staple of construction, it’s everywhere in our cities. What happens when a building has served its purpose? Could we recover, recycle, and rebuild with construction and demolition waste material? Would that...

Notable City Skellefteå: The Sky’s the Limit… in Wood

One city in Sweden has been getting a lot of attention. The 20-storey plyscraper Sara kulturhus is one example of how notable city Skellefteå is pioneering the realms of wooden construction, but there’s a...

Cutting Back on Construction Traffic: How to Get Started

Construction traffic is costly, dangerous and awfully polluting. A promising tool to radically reduce traffic are construction consolidation centres (CCC) or urban logistics hubs. At CCCs, construction materials are stored, traffic in and out...

Community Land Trusts: Guaranteed Housing Affordability

Everyday people can make a difference in their communities. This is the vision that Community Land Trusts (CLTs) build upon. They are groups of local people who create community assets. And they provide an...

Safety in Green Areas: It’s About People

Green areas are great; they have the potential to attract a city’s residents to enjoy nature, relax, and get some much-needed fresh air. Safety, though, is a large element of that enjoyment; so how...