Rotterdam's Hub drops a prefab apartment into empty offices in days, not years

On the second floor of an old commercial building in Rotterdam, a former office became the testing ground for the Hub — a simple square prefab kit with a built-in kitchen, shower and toilet, plus heat, a sound system and internet, designed by Rotterdam architecture firm Kraaijvanger for housing association Havensteder. Installation takes just a few days, requires nothing but access to water and electricity, and works in an office, an empty warehouse or any abandoned space; a second Hub module adds a bedroom.

The problem it attacks is Rotterdam's affordable-housing queue — around four years of waiting for the low-income residents Havensteder serves — intensified in 2016 by refugees receiving residence permits who had to leave temporary housing, and by students priced out of a tight market. Havensteder's 2015 competition on future living was won by the Hub's concept of housing that could be installed almost instantly at the point of demand.

The deeper mechanism is reversibility. Converting commercial buildings is usually so expensive that owners wait for returns, architect David Hess notes — but the Hub converts a property 'in no time without the need of a large investment', and the kit comes apart as easily as it installs, so the space can return to commercial use. Ownership follows suit: the Hub may be owned by materials suppliers and service providers, who as permanent owners keep quality high while residents rent a small space for around €500 a month.

It reverses the usual conversion economics: instead of renovating the building into apartments, the apartment becomes plug-in furniture, and the building stays untouched.

Speed is the feature — days of installation against a four-year wait makes empty offices into a strategic housing reserve the city can scale up and down.

Supplier ownership of the kit aligns incentives on durability, since the companies that own the units keep maintaining them across moves.

When conversion costs block reuse, make the dwelling the removable part: reversing which layer is temporary unlocks commercial space for housing without touching the building.

In 2016 the Hub was being tested in a former Rotterdam office, with rents projected from around €500 for a small space and the kit designed for relocation to other vacant buildings. The Fast Company piece records no figures on how many units were deployed.