People, Planet and the Built Environment: Governing District-Scale Transitions in an Uncertain World
Why this theme
Sustainability transitions in the built environment can no longer advance one building, technology or intervention at a time. Renovating housing stocks, decarbonising heating and cooling, integrating renewable energy, adapting to climate change and closing material loops all depend on one another, and on the people, markets and institutions that must carry them.
These challenges take different forms across countries and contexts, but they raise a shared question: how can built-environment transitions be governed, implemented and scaled while remaining equitable, resilient and within planetary boundaries?
Why the district
SBE27 Delft approaches the district as a critical scale of integration. It is where buildings, infrastructures, communities, markets, ecosystems and institutions interact, and where decisions taken at building, city and national levels meet in practice. The conference welcomes contributions across building, neighbourhood, city, regional and national scales, and from diverse geographical, climatic, institutional and socio-economic contexts.
What we ask
From decarbonisation, renovation and energy systems to circularity, climate adaptation, sufficiency, digitalisation, finance, behaviour, governance, health, affordability and justice, SBE27 Delft asks how the dimensions of sustainability can be brought together to enable systemic transformation.
The central challenge is not simply how to design more sustainable buildings. It is how to govern interconnected transitions under uncertainty, competing interests and constrained resources, while creating built environments that are low-carbon, resource-conscious, inclusive, healthy, affordable and resilient.
Why Delft
The Netherlands is confronting many of these challenges at an early and intensive stage: dense cities, a large social-housing sector, a neighbourhood-based heat transition and widespread grid congestion. This makes it a valuable living laboratory, and Delft a natural meeting point for exchanging, comparing and translating lessons from different parts of the world.
From local experimentation to global learning
There is no single pathway towards a sustainable built environment. Climate conditions, institutions, cultures, markets, resources and development trajectories differ substantially across regions. SBE27 Delft therefore welcomes evidence from Europe and across the world, and particularly encourages comparative research on how transition approaches can be adapted across places, and where contextual differences limit their transferability.