DenCity: Zero Energy Lightweight Construction Households for Urban Densification

Belgium, like many European Countries, has a serious challenge in the housing sector. The Federal planning bureau estimates the increase of the population by one million inhabitants by 2030, which represent 600,000 additional family requiring accesses to new housing facilities. There is a significant housing shortage for individual, single parent families, seniors and students. Population ageing (mainly due to increase life expectancy) combined with a constant grow rate of individuals living in collective households, leads to a substantial increase of demand of collective households. Furthermore, the stringent European performance environmental regulations for the building sector require that by 2020, all new construction are zero or nearly zero energy, (equivalent to 15 kWh/m2/year), with 60% efficient on-site coverage by renewable energy. The shortage of vacant land and the increasing energy performance requirements is pushing the idea of urban densification and zero energy construction households.