Towards Stewardship of the Built Environment : Navigating the Deep Renovation Landscape of Detached Single-Family Houses in Sweden

Sammanfattning

This thesis responds to an identified need for applied case studies that employ hybrid methodologies to investigate the negotiation between top-down scientifically grounded carbon budgets and the bottom-up practical contingencies of building execution in the context of deep renovation in Sweden. Using a single-case study of a 1947 detached single-family house in Roslagen undergoing an actual renovation, the research adopts the lens of the “reflective practitioner” to operationalize this negotiation in practice, while tracking building’s material resource use and associated carbon impacts. The analysis is structured through two complementary frameworks: a chronological reconstruction of the renovation process and a post-hoc evaluation of renovation outcomes using broader set of performance indicators including life cycle assessment. The study illustrates that the interaction between design intent and physical implementation operates as an “adaptive cycle” rather than a linear progression. This recursive dynamic arises from uncertainties inherent to deep renovation, suggesting that successful outcomes depend not on the elimination of uncertainty, but on the capacity of the design to accommodate and respond to it. The analysis reveals that alignment between final outcomes and initial targets is closely linked to the robustness of the design framework. A well-defined renovation blueprint - grounded in thorough survey data, a coherent strategy, and systemic thinking - enables the project to absorb contingencies and maintain performance levels. In parallel, incremental deep renovation emerges as a methodological response to precarity, uncertainty, and practical limitations. By phasing renovation, this approach introduces temporal flexibility and reduces immediate pressure on the client, which opens possibilities for interventions where standard linear models are ineffective, ultimately leading to lower energy demand and reduced carbon intensity within our environment. The thesis situates the renovation outcomes between the relative performance caps proposed by Swedish Housing Agency (Boverket) and the more stringent absolute targets defined by the Swedish Reduction Roadmap. While Boverket’s values represent legislative thresholds based on current technical feasibility and construction practices, the national roadmap establishes scientifically grounded limits derived from planetary boundaries and absolute carbon budgets, revealing a substantial gap between regulatory compliance and the deeper decarbonization required to maintain Earth-system stability. The thesis concludes that accelerating progress toward 2050 climate targets requires a shift from fragmented compliance toward a framework of “institutionalised stewardship.” This entails leveraging professional expertise to bridge critical knowledge gaps, which may, in turn, help address the high heterogeneity of individual dwellings and mitigate other barriers that continue to suppress renovation rates in this segment.