InHabit: Integrated Housing Environments

Alcanena is currently advancing an ambitious local housing agenda, combining social housing, affordable housing and collective housing solutions, with a pipeline of more than 300 dwellings and over 40M€ in planned investment. This creates a strong policy entry point for a network focused not only on housing delivery, but on the quality of the wider living environment in which housing is embedded. In Alcanena, housing is increasingly being addressed together with urban rehabilitation, public space, environmental quality and territorial sustainability, through instruments such as the Local Housing Strategy, affordable rental policies, urban rehabilitation tools and the Municipal Climate Action Plan. 

The project idea builds on the assumption that housing quality cannot be assessed only at building level, as well as the interpretation of territories and cities as multifunctional and flexible spaces, maintaining balance between the built environment and natural ecosystems, working on the interface between then. It must then consider the relationship between homes, public space, green areas, everyday mobility, proximity services and opportunities for social interaction. In this sense, the network would explore how cities can qualify “housing environments” as integrated urban, social and ecological systems, especially in the context of public and affordable housing. 

The symbiosis between housing and other elements of the public urban ecosystem would, hence, be central, introducing concepts as “public yards” with both green spaces that represent either productive or bioclimatic gains to the urban system and modular equipment and furniture that would foster collaborative dynamics for the usage of space. 

The network would bring together cities facing different housing-related territorial challenges, both from existing public housing estates to new affordable housing developments, peri-urban residential areas or neighbourhoods requiring stronger links between housing, public space and nature. It would create a shared methodology to analyse, design and test more integrated housing environments, combining spatial diagnosis, stakeholder engagement, peer learning and local pilot actions. This would allow partner cities to adapt a common approach to different local realities while generating transferable tools, practical knowledge and replicable solutions for other European contexts. 

Its ambition is to help cities move from housing as a standalone product to housing as a living environment. Through transnational exchange and local testing, the network would support partners in designing and implementing small-scale, transferable actions that strengthen the interface between housing, nature, public space and community life, generating more liveable, inclusive and resilient residential environments.