Housing affordability remains one of the challenges that European policies struggle to translate into concrete action on the ground. To address it, HARMONIA has been launched: a new project funded by the European Commission under Horizon Europe and the New European Bauhaus Facility, which officially kicked off last week with a meeting hosted by the University of Bologna, the project coordinator. Near is part of the consortium.

HARMONIA starts from a simple question: how can cities renovate and expand their housing stock while keeping costs sustainable for residents, respecting environmental limits, and creating places where people want to live? To answer it, over the next four years the project will deploy different solutions in three European countries: in Belgium through a deep renovation, in Greece with a new build aligned with climate goals, and in Italy with a hybrid approach in which the development of new volumes is linked to the restoration of existing buildings, with no additional land consumption and without recourse to public funds.