088 HOUSING


where renting is the norm, and most enlightened countries operate some kind of rent control, the system is in urgent need of shaking up.


Robert Winkel, director of Rotterdam based Mei Architects and Planners, has taken a 50 per cent stake in Nice Developers who will fund a block of eco-homes he has designed in Rotterdam, using building techniques that make this project truly circular – repurposing


materials and creating a structure that can be demounted and repurposed itself (see SAWA case study). He is putting his money where his mouth is, because, he tells me: ‘We know about the importance of biodiversity and being carbon neutral. But if you want to maximise your profit, you can’t spend your money on those things. It’s “shareholder value” vs shared values. Tat’s the whole problem: you don’t get points or money for reducing embodied


carbon or improving biodiversity in Holland now.’ As he says, we need to expand our values from the current norm, where, as he says: ‘To earn a lot of money that’s encouraged, everyone wants to be rich.’


With SAWA, he is still able to make a profit, but just slightly less profit. ‘SAWA has 700m planters,’ he says. ‘When I don’t make them, I don’t make extra points, but 1 per cent extra profit. When I design a building out of


All images Kaolin Court by Stolon Studio is designed as a sociable and community oriented cluster of rental apartments and includes the practice’s own studio


RIGHT AND FAR RIGHT: EDMUND SUMNER MIDDLE RIGHT: MATT ROWE


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