Bouwhuiscafé: Klimaatbestendig bouwen

Architecture Centre Bouwhuis is organizing a new edition of the Bouwhuis Café at ACEC on Tuesday, September 22. The theme of the evening: Climate-resilient building is building strong communities. The Bouwhuis Café will be hosted by architect Tom Bergevoet of Temp.architecture.urbanism. Recently, all residents of Apeldoorn received a leaflet in their letterboxes. It states that the government cannot offer us assistance for the first three days in the event of a major disaster. The leaflet is full of tips on how to take care of ourselves: purchasing a flashlight, having banknotes ready, and buying extra food and water. In passing, the leaflet suggests that we can listen to the radio at our neighbors’. But will the pathways through our neighborhoods be sufficiently laid out to allow us to knock on neighbors’ doors? Many towns and cities in the Netherlands trace their origins to the collective struggle against water. For centuries, the structures used to tame the water also formed the social heart of the community. Public amenities were given a prominent place in the central open space. In the twentieth century, when the battle against water had more or less been won, influential urban planners such as Berlage and Bakema continued to search for ways to shape the community. It was not until the 1990s, when individualization and market forces emerged in society, that designers distanced themselves from community thinking. While it is perfectly possible to live well in today’s new housing developments, private comfort takes precedence. And because our social life no longer takes place outdoors, but primarily online, we seem to have unlearned how to shape communities on a larger scale over the past decades. Although a counter-movement of collective housing forms has emerged, such as ‘knarrenhofjes’ (senior housing complexes), Collective Private Commissioning (CPO), and housing cooperatives, these focus mainly on small-scale communities. Yet examples show that communities actually become resilient through diversity. Climate-proof building is building strong communities. Creating a spatially cohesive yet programmatically varied community is also the starting point for Seestadt Aspern. With 25,000 inhabitants, this new urban district near Vienna is one of the largest new housing developments in Europe. All the ingredients of a modern urban neighborhood have been deployed here to contribute to a sense of community. To anchor diversity, the neighborhood consists of a fine-grained mix of living, working, and amenities. The living spaces are organized around inner courtyards with collective facilities such as a park, a playground, and a swimming pool. However inspiring this may be, most challenges today are no longer large-scale and outside the city, but rather small-scale, involving infill development or densification of existing neighborhoods. If we truly want to make our country climate-resilient, we must not only raise the dikes and keep the polders dry. We must also build stronger communities. Using examples, architect Tom Bergevoet (Temp.architecture.urbanism) shows us that the challenge of climate-resilient construction actually offers opportunities to do just that. Bouwhuis Café Event: Climate-resilient building is building strong communities Date & time: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 from 8:00 PM (doors open at 7:30 PM) Location: ACEC Café, Roggestraat 44, 7311CD Apeldoorn Admission: Free, register via info@architectuurcentrumbouwhuis.nl Architecture Centre Bouwhuis Architecture Centre Bouwhuis is the information centre for built post-war heritage. Bouwhuis focuses on architecture and urban planning in Apeldoorn and the surrounding area. With the Bouwhuis Café, it aims to broaden support for architecture.