Organisations engaged in supporting collaborative housing in European cities.

  • Buurthuis Bonnevie
  • Brussels - Belgium
  • Bonnevie community center is a non-profit organization, founded in 1977 following the massive demolition for the construction of the subway in the heart of Molenbeek.

    Since then, Bonnevie develops a neighborhood based program in this area. This old working-class neighborhood near the canal is one of the poorest in the country. It is characterized by high unemployment rates and poor housing conditions.

    The housing issue is central to our operation. It includes both housing in the broader sense (the coexistence of different communities in the neighborhood, the quality of public space) and the access to affordable, quality housing. Bonnevie is open to all residents of the neighborhood, giving priority to the poorest.

    Throughout its operation, the community center combines a highly accessible reception, social services, educational activities, and community building. It aims social change and innovation, through an operation which is carried along by the public.

    The housing activities in the community center started in1996. Currently, this operation is carried out by a team composed of 2 architects, 2 people with technical skills(assisted by two construction workers who get an on the job training) and 4 social workers. The basic operation consists of a number of services to the neighborhood: social permanence for tenants,renovation advice for house owners, handyman service, lending of construction tools. The overall objective of these services is the realization of the right to housing for all residents.

    From the finding that these services, due to the ever increasing housing crisis in Brussels, are far from sufficient to achieve this goal, a number of new initiative grew, looking for structural solutions to the encountered problems.

    For a dozen years now, Bonnevie has policy of innovation in terms of housing. One of the main achievements in this field is the project "l'Espoir" a housing project in rue Fin. The community center took the initiative in 2004, after they realized that, due to the housing crisis, it was no longer possible to find decent and affordable housing for large families. Bonnevie established a partnership with the Fonds du Logement, CIRE and 14 families in housing need. From the start, great importance was attached to the participation of these families in the realization of the project. Bonnevie was responsible for the framework for this participation. This innovative approach led to a number of groundbreaking solutions.

    For example, l’Espoir will be the first social passive building in Belgium. Also in other areas, sustainable options were chosen. During the whole process, from specification to delivery, the partners sought for innovative solutions. Different elements of this the project, which was completed in June 2010, grew into an example for others. The building was elected a model building by the Ministry of Environment, and could finally count on a lot of attention from various politicians, social organizations and builders, in Brussels and beyond.

    The experiences of this project gave Bonnevie a  valuable experience regarding the participation of disadvantaged residents in the realization of a construction project.

    From the positive experience of l’Espoir, Bonnevie’s team went on the lookout for new formulas enabling them to reproduce it. This led them to Community Land Trusts. It brought them into contact with other Brussels organizations who also were interested in the formula. After a study visit to the usa in September 2009, Bonnevie is one of the lead organisations in spreading the CLTmodel in Belgium.

     

  • id22: Institute for Creative Sustainability e.V.
  • Berlin - Germany
  • id22: Institute for Creative Sustainability (Institut für kreative Nachhaltigkeit) is a non-profit, civil society-based organisation supporting innovative, sustainable housing and urban development. id22 assists and publicises housing projects, organises networking events, produces publications, operates internet portals and works with media partners to improve the living environment in cities confronted with diversifying populations and challenging economies. id22 has been working for many years with the City of Berlin, as well as networks and civil society foundations from the local to the international levels.
  • Initiative für gemeinschaftliches Bauen und Wohnen
  • Vienna - Austria
  • The Initiative for Collaborative Building and Housing (Initiative für gemeinschaftliches Bauen und Wohnen / IgBW) works to develop the legal, organisational and economic conditions to allow and encourage people to organise and build their own collaborative housing projects. Among these conditions are networking, consulting and information, adaptation of funding requirements, new financing and credit models, know-how transfer and, above all, the tendering of affordable building parcels for collaborative housing projects by public owners.

    Our objective is not to realise a certain co-housing project but to establish a “Co-Housing-Culture” as part of the housing policy in Austria. That means that we want to improve the general conditions so that it becomes easier to initiate a project and to successfully realise it.


  • Kollektivhus NU
  • Stockholm - Sweden
  • Kollektivhus NU (Cohousing Now) is a politically and religiously independent Swedish association working to promote collaborative housing and other innovative ways of living. The association supports existing cohousing associations as well as groups intending to build new communities. Originally formed in 1981, it has recently been revitalised with the purpose to inform the public about cohousing as an alternative, and to influence authorities to facilitate the creation and operation of such projects, which currently are concentrated in the main urban centres. Kollektivhus NU works to influence the public debate to focus more on the need for community, neighbourly cooperation and sustainable lifestyles in housing and planning policies in Sweden.
  • Koti kaupungissa - Hem i stan
  • Helsinki - Finland

  • European cities have traditionally been both workplace and residence. The urban city centre of the 2000s needs alternative multi-storey housing blocks, where urban lifestyles for both families and senior citizens can find a sustainable quality of life. Members of the housing society plan and operate their own environment, an extended family of active, urbanites, fulfilling their own destiny. The “Home in the city” concept empowers members to arrange their own type and quality of lifestyle.

  • laBOMBAstudios
  • Bucharest - Romania
  • laBOMBA is a multi-cultural organisation supporting active community citizenship and sustainability. The centre aims to encourage values such as self-organisation through volunteer practices and community self-representation in the area. Representatives of the centre participate regularly in events and conferences concerning sustainable development both locally and internationally.

    laBOMBA encourages artistic creation generated by professional or amateur artists who work with the Rahova-Uranus community, a mostly Roma area of Bucharest currently experiencing complications regarding gentrification. laBOMBA's goal is to create a community of creators which will include the experts of daily life and artists involved in the centre's programmes and projects. Through the activities it organises, such as concerts, exhibitions, public readings, plays, video projections and debates, laBOMBA mediates the acceptance of culture by the community as something positive.
  • National Taiwan University, Graduate Institute of Building and Planning
  • Taipei - Taiwan

  • The Graduate Institute of Building and Planning is a unique academic platform which bridges social-and-spatial theories and actions through required practicum courses and engaging in advocacy discourses. The praxis-based core values in building and planning have cast a long-lasting impact on social activism of the democratized society and thus established strong links with several radical and grassroots organizations in Taiwan (particularly OURs - Organization of Urban Re-s, Tsuei-Ma-Ma Foundation for Housing and Community Services, and Community Empowering Society Taiwan) which all sustain the grassroots movements and continue to bring community participation into public policy and planning process. With emphases on social justice, urban conservation, social housing, environmental sustainability, and community empowerment, the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning often organizes conferences (is expected to co-host a couple of housing conferences in 2011) and policy-making symposiums to install overlooked social and environmental values on the capitalistic public sector, and in the meanwhile collaborates with autonomous or disadvantaged communities and NGOs to initiate progressive planning and spatial actions.


  • Politecnico di Milano
  • Milan - Italy
  • Politecnico di Milano and in particular dep.INDACO (department of Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication) will collaborate on this project through DIS (Design and Innovation for Sustainability). DIS is a research unit led by Prof. Ezio Manzini.  In addition to didactic activities, DIS is actively involved in basic and applied research concerning sustainable living and housing. DIS has been working closely and regularly with several organisations, including cohousing.it, providing them with strategic design, scenario building, and management of innovation. Other research activities include collecting, organising and visualising best practices on an online platform (www.sustainable-everyday.net), in exhibitions and in publications, thereby triggering social conversation and stimulating pollination.
  • Quatorze
  • Paris - France
  • Quatorze is a collective of architects, landscape designers, designers and visual artists who are dedicated to produce active art so as to improve the quality of daily life in Paris. We aim at drawing a line between the world of universities and the professional scene by creating opportunities to work together while gathering people around a project. 
    Students are sensitive to most contemporary preoccupations, especially when it comes to fair trading and social ecology. Therefore, we're aiming at creating a "third place" between those two sides of the same worlds in order to creatively build it together. This 3rd place might take the shape of a temporary atelier for artists, students and others. We also carry the Speranza! project benefiting homeless people and some displaced members of the Roma community ; we've been actives members of the Marquise, a squart that use to be located in the city center of Paris, in which we built a minimum of facilities in order to open them to populations who could not afford to have a place to practice their art. 
    We do promote a cheeky, engaged use of public or vacant space with hospitality as a leitmotiv. 
  • Stiftung trias
  • Hattingen (Ruhr) - Germany
  • The Stiftung trias is a non-profit foundation supporting cooperative and ecological housing projects as well as reforms concerning ownership of ground and property. trias studies, finances and networks collaborative housing across Germany, focusing on self-organised projects including ecological building methods.
    The Foundation has been working closely since 2002 with organisations like id22 and experimentcity locally and nationally to not only gain attention for community-orientated housing but support housing. Projects in a general way. Activities include a wide range of events and seminars, relevant publications and an online database documenting such housing projects across the country. Please see: www.wohnprojekte-portal.de
  • Stroud Common Wealth Co Ltd
  • Stroud - United Kingdom

  • Stroud Common Wealth Company Ltd (SCW) is a non-profit company operating since 1999 as a vehicle to (1) own and develop property for community benefit and (2) to enable social enterprise development. 

    It has achieved local and national prominence by enabling, assisting and contributing towards the success of a wide range of innovative projects including setting up Gloucestershire Land For People, a pioneering community land trust, Land for People (Wales), Stroud Woodland Co-op, and  enabling land trust and community asset development projects across the country such as the Fordhall Farm community buy out. 

    SCW also contributes to action research with New Economics Foundation (NEF), The University of Salford Community Finance Solutions, The University of Wales in Cardiff Co-op Research Centre and Terre de Liens. 

    Social and Co-op business development has resulted in developing a number of best practice examples such as Stroud CSA, (Community Supported Agriculture), Stroud FM, The Space Theatre, and The Exchange-for co-op business workspace.

    Martin Large's 2010 book, Common Wealth for a free, equal, mutual and sustainable society, includes many case studies from SCW's work, including a Chapter 10 on land and housing called, 'Land for People, Housing and Communities." 

  • Town of Gdynia, Poland
  • Gdynia - Poland