Is all-electric an option? About retrofitting and gentrification of pre-war tenement apartment blocks in Amsterdam

Is all-electric or zero-carbon an option in the sustainable exploitation and replacement of inexpensive natural gas use in Dutch pre-war tenement apartment blocks of housing associations? Reducing CO2 emission and the reliance on fossil-fuel-dictatorships for the housing stock is a good ambition. The recently published Woonagenda 2017-2021 speaks about CO2-neutral housing stock for all housing associations in 2050. However, in a country with cheap natural gas the transition towards all-electric exploitation of this housing stock is difficult. This article describes the renovation of eye-catching projects in Amsterdam from the archives of the NRP Gulden Feniks Award. All those projects with an integral approach of characteristic architectonic brickwork, tenants’ preferences, and sustainability led to particular results in the period 1995-2015 in Amsterdam. Finally, we describe recent developments and give an outline of a workable intervention framework to renovate this housing stock to all-electric and then we will come back to the main question.