Dutch balconies

Dutch balconies 

Two Dutch news items on balconies in two days - that must mean something. First, we had a reasonable recommendation to make balconies compulsory for health reasons (https://nos.nl/artikel/2239652-verplicht-balkon-in-zorgwoning-beter-voor-de-gezondheid.html). Then yet another balcony collapsed (https://nos.nl/artikel/2239824-balkon-valt-van-appartement-in-groningen.html).

Neither surprised me: balconies are a luxury item in Dutch architecture (the climate doesn't really favour them but if the weather it's nice ...), therefore are both highly prized and among the stuff that gets easily economized; and if one has seen how balconies are attached to the façade of Dutch buildings (to avoid thermal bridges), it's a miracle that any of them stay up.

The combination is arguably indicative of the inability to achieve the functional and technical performance required in today's society. On the one hand, lifestyle quality has added to the requirements on a building. It's not enough to provide a roof over people's heads; the cost and impact of that roof and the rest that goes with it are such that people rightly ask for better and more. On the other hand, the established solutions may not be good enough: in order to improve thermal performance, stability is jeopardized. Rather than relying on the daily dynamics of temperature change to reduce thermal bridges, architecture seems to have adopted a static, questionable approach.

So, what can one expect from the proposed proliferation of balconies? More disasters? There is a fundamental conflict that remains to be solved.