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This special issue, edited by Tom Broes and Michiel Dehaene, investigates how construction is conditioned by historically constructed forms of availability—materials, labor, logistics—rather than by technology alone. Availability is not a natural or fixed state; it is shaped by social, economic, and institutional choices over time. Through case studies from Belgium and the Netherlands, the issue examines how these dynamics influenced twentieth-century building practices and continue to frame today’s sustainability challenges.

The contributions address two major omissions in current debates on material use: first, the lack of historical context in discussions about alternative materials; second, the tendency to treat availability as an absolute, natural condition rather than a socially engineered one. By reframing availability as relational and contingent, the issue opens new perspectives on how construction regimes emerge and persist.

Jesse Foster Honsa explores the critical role of skilled labor in enabling housing systems and the imbalance between workers’ wages and the homes they built. Tom Broes analyzes how Belgium’s cement industry orchestrated an overabundance of ready-mix concrete through a nationwide logistics network, embedding a lasting “cement addiction” in construction culture. Arne Vande Capelle and Lionel Devlieger examine salvage architecture and the fragile networks behind reuse, while Chiara Pradel introduces the concept of “material gardens” as urban infrastructures for circularity.

Together, these studies show that building materials only underpin operational building regimes when supported by standards, skilled labor, consumer demand, logistical systems, etc. Understanding these interdependencies, including interdependencies among different material flows and regimes, is essential for imagining sustainable futures. The issue argues that systemic change will require new socio-cultural infrastructures, values, and processes that make alternative practices structurally feasible within the constraints of planetary boundaries.