What are some of the benefits of residential housing built with steel?

Two of steel's greatest benefits are its lightweight and energy efficiency qualities. With the lighter weight, the foundations don't need to be reinforced and the materials required for that purpose are spared, saving on construction costs. The domino impact on the environment is exponential: less and lighter materials means they are easier to move around, which means less transportation and less fuel consumed.

As far as energy efficiency, heat radiates quickly from steel roofing, creating a cooler home environment in hot climate areas. In cold climates, double steel panel walls can be well insulated with polyurethane or rock wall, which makes for an airtight building that will better contain the heat. Steel also takes up less square footage than some materials, which allows for more living space.

For architects, steel offers more design freedom in colour, texture and shape usage and allows for broad parameters, limited only by the architect's imagination. Because it is factory finished, the final outcome is much more predictable, which reduces the architect's risk. As well, it has precise mechanical properties, and architects are able to design to those properties with repeatable, predictable outcomes.

Steel is also easier on the environment, which is a critical issue today. Recently the Banque de Lyonnais building in Paris, a 100-year-old building designed by Gustave Eiffel, was destroyed by fire. The steel beam construction was salvaged, shop-blasted and repainted, and is now being used to construct modern buildings. Sydney's Olympic Village, built using steel construction, has been dismantled, sold and is in use in other situations around the globe. It can be dismantled or circulated into the steel industry's closed-loop recycling system for melt down and repurposing. Nothing is wasted, and in fact, steel saves natural raw resources since a good portion of our new steel today is already being made from recycled steel.

How do you see Living Steel impacting the world housing situation and the steel construction market?

Today, the global population is about 6.2 billion people, and there is already a critical housing shortage. Between now and 2030, the world population will grow to about 8 billion people. Living Steel is confronting the housing shortage issue by demonstrating a better, more sensible way to house this additional 25% growth. Steel use provides an avenue to build cost-effective, sustainable housing very quickly. As an example, after the tsunami, the steel companies shipped steel framing materials to build new homes in remote areas in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. It is so transportable, that it was floated in on canoes and carried on bicycles. Houses were built on mezzanine steel platforms, high above flood waters, in a matter of days. Innovations like these can be developed for an infinite number of solutions.

What do you hope to accomplish through the Living Steel programme?

Living Steel is working to build a steel supply chain that will positively impact communities with new housing sources. Our architectural competition (see cover story) will build demonstration housing in areas where steel construction is not prevalent; our first competition will be built in locations in India and Poland. In November at our Seoul meetings, we will decide on the second series of demonstrations, potentially running six building projects around the globe at the same time. But we're not just building a house and going away. The houses are an avenue to build that supply chain of materials, design and trade skills and other resources that can deliver steel solutions to these areas long into the future.

Besides trying to impact the building paradigm, we also are trying to change the thought paradigm about steel construction. We are trying to shift consumer thinking away from the idea that steel is an industrial, unfashionable residential material. Instead we will aim to build growth opportunities by demonstrating that steel is an innovative, flexible material that presents new, cost and energy efficient design options for sustainable housing.

Source: U.S. roofing market statistics taken from U.S. research firm Freedonia Group Inc. report