HDO Group factory scales up to 1,000 biobased homes per year

HDO Group is an innovative housing factory and market leader in additions and serial industrial production of homes. HDO builds its homes from wood and biobased materials, storing CO2 instead of emitting it.

The housing shortage on the one hand and the need for sustainable and circular construction on the other come together in HDO Group's housing factory. 'We offer the solution in the form of serially produced bio-based homes,' says Jeroen Rutte, co-director of HDO Groep. 'The time is ripe to scale up now, and hence we enlarged our factory considerably. We went from 4,500 to 10,000 m2, and our goal is to produce 1,000 fully finished homes annually. This makes us the largest green housing factory in the Netherlands.' A home consists of modules that are brought directly from the factory to a location. Once they arrive at the right location, all they need to do is connect them to the utilities. The modules can be connected and/or stacked, up to seven residential floors high. In this way, a lot of living space can be realized in a short period of time. The homes are also easy to move, should the need arise.

View all steps

HDO Group literally and figuratively opened its doors on April 11. Around 250 interested parties, including representatives of municipalities, housing corporations and developers, were updated on developments and took a look around the factory. Rutte looks back with satisfaction: "It was a success. People were impressed by the size of the factory (now 10,000 m2) but also by our vision and solution.'

The production process continued as usual during the event. Visitors were able to watch all the steps and were given explanations by HDO employees, before finally being able to walk around in the final product. 'Normally, of course, the homes go out the door unfurnished,' Rutte says. 'For the occasion, we had one home completely built and furnished so that people could really experience for themselves what it's like to walk around, sit, lie in it. Because we notice quite often that people are skeptical about houses from a factory. Even the fact that a house is built from wood and other biobased materials raises question marks. When people see and feel what such a house is like, it changes their image and they are enthusiastic. We noticed that again during the opening.'

Blowing in insulation

To achieve 1,000 homes a year, the production process has been made leaner, and a new machine will blow biobased insulation materials into the walls. 'That machine was a hefty investment,' says Rutte, 'but it provides a huge time savings. We often use cellulose at the moment, but can also use flax and straw or other materials. It is of course crucial to pass all the fire tests properly, which is why we also work with Building Balance.'HDO Group is participating in the Day of Timber Construction on June 21 at the invitation of Building Balance. 'We very much believe in the power of serial industrial production of bio-based residential modules,' Rutte states. 'It is a quick and good way to reduce the housing shortage. In any case, the fact that there was a storm here at the opening tells us that we are on the right track.'