Driving social housing circularity

Martin Huiskes: Circularity and sustainability are much more than trends; they’re at the heart of our mission to create environments ready for tomorrow’s challenges. As an architectural firm, we believe it’s our role to inspire and challenge our clients in the areas of sustainability and circularity. We believe we shouldn’t build more than necessary and that what we build should be as compact and circular as possible.

Martin Huiskes: We were aiming for the lowest environmental impact possible, which is why we chose ClickBrick. A traditional brick façade still has a higher impact than what we were aiming for. ClickBrick is a demountable façade system that retains the aesthetics and low-maintenance quality of brick, but with a much higher residual value and ease of detachment. The facing bricks are mounted without mortar, so that they can easily be reused later. 

Martin Huiskes: To be able to apply the ClickBrick, the façade needs to be carefully worked out. We did this using a Building Information Model (BIM). With input from wienerberger, we model the façades in a way that saw waste is minimised while ensuring the design remains technically feasible. The engineering and execution required careful preparation, but thanks to the excellent collaboration with wienerberger, the process went very smoothly.

Martin Huiskes: The bricks in the ClickBrick range are very attractive, and there is still room to grow. In my view, this is only the beginning, with opportunities for much greater variety ahead. The next logical step would be to make it standard practice and to use demountable systems only.

Martin Huiskes: Beauty protects a building from demolition. The value and importance that people attach to a building ensures its preservation. That’s true sustainability. This is more powerful than any energy performance measure, but it’s also less controllable and kind of arbitrary, because it is a matter of emotion. In our quest for ultimate sustainability, emotional motivations always prove to be the guiding principle.

Martin Huiskes: The original buildings consisted of single-storey houses with a pitched roof. In the new situation, we’ve retained that shape and character and wanted to give it a modern twist. The large, warm orange roof and the projecting wooden façade elements give the street a new character. Combined with the warm brick tones of Menton HV ClickBrick und Blauwrood Genuanceerd HV ClickBrick, it creates a familiar look that blends seamlessly with the surroundings.

Martin Huiskes: We have worked with this ceramic roof tile before. The main advantage of this tile is its size, which makes it particularly well-suited for large roof surfaces. Fewer tiles are needed to cover the same area, reducing labour and allowing the roof to be tiled more quickly. These roof tyles are, of course, fully demountable and retain a high residual value.

Martin Huiskes: But of course. We need to build in a way that allows materials to be used for as long as possible. This can be achieved by designing with beauty in mind, using demountable elements that retain their value and that are made from raw materials with the lowest possible environmental impact.