Linking the European housing demand to sustainable wood construction materials : Wooden Housing Prototype
This research is part of the project Negative GHG emissions and long-time sequestration through the development of new C-based product (KB-34-012-001/KB-3D-1) which focuses on long-term storage of carbon in bio-products (>25 years) and substitution of fossil-based products, with the aim to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration and contribute to fight against climate change. This report also adds to the research developed for assessing the GHG balances and potential impacts for long lifespan products for a forestry case study where structural timber is used as construction material. Literature review was done to have a better understanding on the kind of housing needed to develop the prototype house. Information was gathered on the European residential floor standards, size of housing and household size, household composition, housing demand and supply, and on wooden housing and its function as carbon sink. Based on the secondary data findings, a housing prototype has been developed to estimate the m3 of structural wood that might be required per housing unit. The housing prototype is a step towards the evaluation for structural timber used in European housing systems as means to store carbon and foster wood as a sustainable construction material. This housing prototype is based on a wooden or timber building design, which is fundamentally different from those buildings designed with steel and/or concrete materials on their structural and spatial layout. The following assumptions were considered for the design, dimensions and materials of the housing prototype using the data found from the Netherlands (2020) as a reference point: i) the model meets the dimensions for social housing taking the average floor space of 104 m2 where 96 m2 are constructed area and 8 m2 of veranda; ii) the average household size considered is 2.1 persons; iii) the targeted households are: single-person household, (married/unmarried) couples without children, (married/unmarried) couples with one child, and single-parent households; iv) the design takes into account the traditional European construction methods of a log cabin which meets the technical building regulations in European Union (EU) countries; v) the typology could be used for detached and semi-detached dwellings; vi) the wall insulation considers the dimensions needed for the miscanthus in insulation panels (as thermal insulation); the European wood/timber materials (softwood and hardwood) are included and vii) to support on the carbon storage function provided by wooden buildings, the prototype includes a higher volume of wood per area compared to other types of buildings that contain more concrete and steel instead. The European Social, Cooperative and Public Housing providers aim at building and refurbishing 400,000 homes per year or 4 million homes between 2020 and 2030. It was estimated that around of 1.8 million (1,795,630) of new social housing was completed in the period 2013-2020 in Europe with an average European percentage of total social housing of 13%. With this information an estimation of a total European housing demand was made. The hypothetic housing supply is 3.1 million houses per year in the coming 10 years resulting in a total number of 31 million houses by 2030.This information drops a hypothetic increase of 78.21% of new social housing to be built or refurbished every year in Europe. Another interesting finding is that approximately 17.8 m3 of timber is needed to build a prototype wooden house using European wood such as pine, oak, or beech. The future increase on the demand of wood in Europe as construction material, raises concerns regarding legal and illegal deforestation. Therefore, it is important to regulate the production and extraction of timber to ensure that it is sourced from responsibly managed forests.
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | External research report biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wageningen Food & Biobased Research
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| Subjects: | Life Science, |
| Online Access: | https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/linking-the-european-housing-demand-to-sustainable-wood-construct |
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