European Network for Housing Research hosts webinar on adaptive reuse for affordable housing

On 25 March, the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) will hold the online seminar Adaptive Reuse for Affordable Housing: Prospects, Pitfalls and Policy Implications. The event, which will take place from 11.00 to 12.20 CET, addresses one of the key challenges of the current urban agenda: how the adaptive reuse of existing buildings can contribute to generating affordable and sustainable housing.

The Barcelona Chair of Housing Studies invites you to follow this session, which will feature experts from various European universities and offer a multidisciplinary perspective on the opportunities, challenges and policy implications of this strategy.

Programme

• 11.00 – Welcome and update from ENHR on the European Affordable Housing Plan, with special attention to recommendations on adaptive reuse. Led by Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway, President of ENHR and Co-director of the Chair.
• 11.10 – Affordable and sustainable housing via adaptive reuse: design implications for transformation projects and future newbuild. Presentation by the Architecture of Housing & Its Lived Spaces working group, featuring Gérald Ledent (UCLouvain), Anne Kockelkorn (Ghent University), Marie Stender and Lene Wiell Nordberg (Aalborg University).
• 11.30 – Planning deregulation and housing commodification: how office-to-residential conversion in London exacerbates housing precarity and inequalities. Presented by Nicolas Del Canto (University of Liverpool), finalist of the ENHR Bengt Turner Award.
• 11.50 – Collectively self-organised housing through Adaptive Reuse. Presentation by Darinka Czischke (TU Delft), based on the chapter co-authored with Gerard van Bortel in the book Adaptive Reuse for Housing (Remøy et al., 2025).
• 12.00 – Open discussion to identify good practices, challenges and implications for public policy and European funding.

The event, organised by Anita Blessing, represents an opportunity to connect with cutting-edge research at the European level and to delve deeper into strategies for transforming existing buildings as a response to the housing crisis. Dr. Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway, President of ENHR and Co-director of the Chair, notes that this event is an opportunity to connect with cutting-edge research at the European level and to delve deeper into strategies for transforming existing buildings as a response to the housing crisis.