From a sustainable material management perspective, vacant houses represent material stock and still have potential in the circular economy. This article addresses two aspects of understanding and managing vacant houses: the difficulty of understanding their spatial and temporal patterns and the management of the social costs behind the phenomenon of vacant houses. These aspects are approached by combining a 4D GIS analysis with expert interviews and additional qualitative tools to assess the spatial and temporal dimension of vacant houses. Furthermore, this manuscript presents a tool to estimate the obsolete dwelling material stock distribution within a city. The case of the city of Kitakyushu demonstrates the relationship that exists between the historical trajectories of housing norms and standards, such as comfort, cleanliness, safety, and convenience, and the dynamics of the built material stock and demography for three selected neighbourhoods. The results show that the more locked-in a district is in terms of “obsolete norms and codes”, the more likely it is that the obsolete stock is dead, and consequently, urban mining should be considered. The article concludes that a revisiting of the norms and standards of convenience and other domains is one of the prerequisites of the transition toward a circular built environment and the prevention of obsolete stock accumulation.

中文翻译：

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了解和管理空置房屋以支持物质库存型社会——以日本北九州为例

从可持续材料管理的角度来看，空置房屋代表材料库存，在循环经济中仍有潜力。本文从两个方面来理解和管理空置房屋：理解空置房屋的时空格局的难度和空置房屋现象背后的社会成本的管理。这些方面是通过将 4D GIS 分析与专家访谈和其他定性工具相结合来评估空置房屋的空间和时间维度。此外，这份手稿提供了一种估计城市内过时住宅材料库存分布的工具。北九州市的案例展示了住房规范和标准的历史轨迹之间存在的关系，例如舒适性、清洁度、安全性、和便利性，以及三个选定社区的建筑材料库存和人口动态。结果表明，越是在“陈旧规范和规范”方面被锁定的地区，陈旧库存就越有可能死亡，因此应考虑城市采矿。文章的结论是，重新审视便利和其他领域的规范和标准是向循环建筑环境过渡和防止过时库存积累的先决条件之一。