“We’re leading the charge to change the way of construction in the Netherlands, and hopefully in Europe,” says Joziene van de Linde, managing director of modular construction company De Meeuw, which joined the Holland Metropole alliance this year.

Her mission is to change the way developers and construction companies think about modular building which, she says, offers huge advantages to traditional techniques, particularly given the pressure to build more homes at present.

“There is a housing crisis in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, and the way we have built homes for the past 100 years is not going to work anymore,” she says. “We need to build quickly and we need to reduce our impact on the environment. Prefabricated buildings, modular ones in particular, used to be considered to be cheap rubbish and were used at times of crisis. We want to show that today’s modular approach fits in upscale developments and high rise as well.”

Green advantages

Winning hearts and minds for this faster and less environmentally-taxing approach to construction led De Meeuw, part of the giant Dutch industrial group VDL, to start its own projects.

One of these is next to the company’s headquarters in Oirschot, which borders Eindhoven, and where 100 prefabricated homes are being built on the company’s own land. “We can show that we believe in the quality of our own products and that we are able to build very high-quality homes, not only social housing but high-end apartments,” says Joziene.

De Meeuw’s Oirschot factory is capable of turning out five hundred square metres of building per day using its modular construction technique, or about 12 homes.  “If you build a complex 10 or 20 storeys high in an inner city location it takes you two years of coming and going with heavy lorries,” Joziene says. “We can do it in 10, 12 weeks. We’ve done all building in our own factory and we just need to assemble it at the location, polish the façade and then we’re done.”

Cheaper and faster

There are other advantages too. “Environmental building standards, at a European level, are okay, but I believe we can do way better, specifically in the construction process and in the choice of materials,” Joziene says. “The pre-fabricated construction produces half the CO2 and 25% of the nitrogen-based pollution when compared with regular construction, which is a huge difference.”

Modular construction is also cheaper, given that the costs of engineers and architects have already been factored in through the design of turnkey modules. “Architects can put together their own design and building with our building blocks, without the need for a structural engineer. After which we can produce that building,” she points out.

The idea that modular construction produces rows of identical boxes is totally outdated, she says. “It is certainly not a one-size-fits-all all approach. One of the best compliments someone visiting one of our projects can give me is to say, ‘Oh, it’s just a home. There is nothing special about it’.”

You can meet Joziene and the rest of the De Meeuw team at the Holland Metropole stand at Expo Real from October 7 to 9. Hall 2, stand 130.

Illustration: VDL DeMeeuw’s modular housing in practice

Area development is about more than just coming up with a house or a row of houses, says Helma Born, who has just taken over as new managing director of BPD in the Netherlands.

BPD, a founding member of the Holland Metropole alliance, has been responsible for the development of almost 400,000 homes since it was founded in 1946. The company still focuses on providing sustainable, affordable housing across the country but with a wider focus, on creating neighbourhoods where people will want to live and work.

“Area development is more about determining what makes a neighbourhood a good one for people to live in, and what services are needed,” Helma says. “It’s about how people will get to the area and about healthy living. It’s about making sure there are places to enjoy the outdoors in.”

Public private partnerships, she says, are the key to achieving this. “We work with other private sector companies and local authorities on multi-year projects and you have to do it together,” she says. “It is essential. Local authorities draw up the policies and say if a project can be realized and are also responsible for making sure it fits in with what is already there. Working together is crucial. Without it, things will not go well.”

The Dutch emphasis on public private alliances may partly be down to the long-established tradition of working together which has been made necessary by the country’s small size.

In Britain and the US, for example, the division between government and private developers is much more marked.

“The tradition of planning has always been something national and local government have been good at,” she says. “We’ve had some ups and downs, and now the state is making a statement again with the new planning legislation and the publication of its vision for residential development. We are so short on space and so much needs to be done that the government has to. I hope the new minister [Mona Keijzer] will continue with the same strategy – she has already hinted that she will.” 

“We don’t need new policy,” says Helma. “If you look at sustainability and resilience, we’ve pretty much got it under control when it comes to new developments, and affordability is going well too. But we need to be faster and make sure things don’t get bogged down in procedures. We’ve masses to do, and a certain moment you just have to get on with it.”

For example, she says, why does every development have to be treated as if it is special? “Take a city, where they build 4,000 new homes a year. I think 3,000 of them, perhaps 3,500 can be built with very little discussion. But we make every development a subject for debate and this is something where we can take action, by establishing clear routes to reach our objectives.”

Expo Real, she says, is a source of energy and inspiration. “The market has been fairly cautious in the past two years, but I hope this year everyone feels that things are improving,” she says. “Private buyers are buying and I hope that investors will start to feel the same way. The previous minister said we needed to build 900,000 homes and even though we have built some in the intervening period, that is still the case. It’s a gigantic job.”

You can meet Helma and the rest of the BPD team at the Holland Metropole stand at Expo Real from October 7 to 9. Hall 2, stand 130.

“This really is the right time to step into the Netherlands as a foreign investor,” says Ronald Huikeshoven, managing director of area developer AM and new chairman of Dutch developers association NEPROM. “The government is ready, developers are ready and the councils are ready. Everyone is combining their strengths to focus on affordable, residential area development.”

The new government has adopted the previous administration’s target of building 900,000 affordable homes in the Netherlands and is ready to act to speed up the development process which is crucial, he says, to ensure enough housing is built.

Yet while it is still vital to build affordable houses and work to boost sustainability, the social impact of area development is also becoming increasingly important.

For example, he says, loneliness is one of the most important issues facing both youngsters and the elderly. “So if you can help combat that through a development that helps people meet each other and make new friends, and keep an eye on each other, then you are really having a positive impact. On top of affordability and sustainability, this is what we really need as a society.”

Combining these factors, he says, is particularly an issue in area developments in the Netherlands, partly because the country is compact and space is at a premium, and partly because of tradition. And this, he says is where the concept of public private partnerships really comes in. “You can’t do it alone,” he says. “You need each other to make these sort of projects a success, especially when there are so many different interests involved.”

Combining all these different needs is one reason why it can take years to complete residential projects in the Netherlands, which is why Ronald supports the development of a different way of planning.

Rather than draw up a plan for housing, then for the roads, the electricity supply and dealing potential hindrances such as a nearby factory, he supports a parallel planning process, where everything is done at the same time.

“To do this you need the cooperation of everyone involved and to ensure everyone is committed to drawing up the plan within a short space of time,” he says. “Then, as private and public partners, you are really a team, working together, rather than reacting to someone else’s plan for this or that.”

The procedures for protesting about plans also need reforming he says, so that the interests of people who need a house are also taken into account. “When you live in a city, you need to understand that cities change. They evolve,” he says. “And that means keeping the history alive. So you should not knock down everything. You need to keep the old buildings and find new uses for them and then combine the old and new.”

It is equally important to make sure there is space for shops and services, and even for up and coming artists who, Ronald says, bring life to new urban developments and make it interesting to live somewhere.  “Everybody likes it when there is an old building incorporated into a new project,” he says. “It provides a link with the past. I recently moved and where I live now, an old industrial building has been converted into a brewery and café. And when I come home from work and I see everyone sitting outside, then I really feel like I am coming home.”

Illustration: AM’s Eleven Square project is helping transform the area around the Arena stadium south east of Amsterdam.

The Holland Metropole region is continuing to excel in terms of connectivity and infrastructure, according to the latest research by The Business of Cities.

Air passengers are a first visible sign of how special the region is and the three main Holland Metropole airports welcoming nearly 80 million passengers in 2018. This put the region ahead of Hong Kong and Singapore, and just behind the San Francisco region, the report said.

Passenger numbers have grown faster than in other regions with a year-on-year growth of just above 4% and, the researchers say, among regions of fewer than 10 million people, Holland Metropole may become the world’s leading aviation hub in the next decade.

The region is also an important cargo hub but, the researchers say, its super- connectedness stands out most of all in its internal connectivity. ‘Its polycentric character means the region offers the unique ability to connect multiple large cities directly by rail. Other regions, by contrast, have inherited a pattern of growth around a single centre which has reduced access to jobs and other key urban assets,’ the report said.

The region boasts an average travel time between the five centres of just over 50 minutes (second only to Greater Boston) and an average speed of around 85km/h (third only to Munich Metro and the London region).

Holland Metropole’s special connectivity is also reflected in the fact that it is the only region among its peers to provide direct rail travel between all its major centres, making living in Rotterdam, working in Amsterdam and going out to the theatre in Utrecht a realistic option.

At the same time, Holland Metropole’s digital infrastructure platform remains very strong by global standards. Having a strong digital infrastructure boosts digital workforce skills, internet usage and access to smart services, so it is unsurprising, the report notes, that Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and The Hague all recently ranked in the top 20 cities in Europe for the number of people working in jobs in the ‘app economy’.

With 33 full and associate partners, and five start-ups in tow, the Holland Metropole group is out in force at this year’s Expo Real trade fair in Munich.

The Holland Metrople partners include investors, developers, architects and planners and the stand will feature a wide range of projects across all real estate sectors.

‘We have so much on offer that it might prove a squash to show off all the scale models of the projects properly,’ says Annemieke Verwoert of the project team.

The Holland Metropole stand offers plenty of space for meetings and networking, including a bar and catering unit, plus a daily schedule of seminars and workshops.

Visit the stand in hall A2, stand 230

Holland Metropole partner MRP has decided to focus on modular housing to head off the growing shortage of skilled labour in the construction sector, pointing out that 95% of Japanese housing is built using modular techniques.

‘There are so many advantages to it,’ chief executive Bart Meijer. ‘It is quicker, there is less nuisance for neighbours, we can meet energy efficiency targets easily and it is completely circular. If we want to keep meeting demand for housing, this is the direction we have to move in. Compare the cost and ease of installing 100 bathrooms in a factory with installing 100 bathrooms on site, for instance.’

In addition, he points out, using modular techniques allows developers to meet government requirements on social housing, because it is cheaper than traditional building methods. MRP hopes to have its first modular housing ready to move into in two years time.