The book ‘Co-creating Solidary Mobile Housing’ is the result of the first three years of participatory action research within the framework of the ‘Solidary Mobile Housing‘ project. SMH is an experimental venture into potentially innovative resilient housing models. Considering that for many vulnerable citizens, stable and quality housing is the first step towards recovery, SMH aims at co-creating a new model in a living environment with real users and trace the social and spatial impact of this practice.
Including the users in every step of the conceptualisation and the construction of their own houses, SMH empowers the future inhabitants to incrementally co-create a solidary living community in interaction with the surrounding neighbourhood. A parallel aim of the SMH is to envision alternative modalities of appropriation of underused spaces.
Together with the future inhabitants, the non-profit organizations; Samenlevingsopbouw Brussels and Centrum Algemeen Welzijnswerk (CAW) Brussels, the students and Professors from the Faculty of Architecture of KU Leuven reframed a Waiting Space in Esseghem, Brussels as a ‘place of negotiation’ and transformed it into a project through which questions about the city are raised, a place where experimentation and innovation take place. The project was funded by INNOVIRIS Co-create program.
Editors: Aurelie De Smet, Burak Pak, Yves Schoonjans, Geraldine Bruyneel, Tineke Van Heesvelde
Author website: https://solidairmobielwonen.be/.
The book can be previewed and ordered via this link or ordered from the editors.
- The book launch will take place (via Zoom) on 29 June 2021 from 10 am to 12 pm. You can register for this event soon via https://solidhomes.be/?p=1
- During the month of June, site visits are organized on the site in Jette. More info can be found at https://fb.me/e/DeuApU82. These site visits also accompany a small exhibition on the site, as well as online: https://solidhomes.be/ (the website for this exhibition was created in collaboration with Viviana Rea Doričić, student of the 1st Master of Architecture, in the context of of the Service-learning course: Altering Practices for Urban Inclusion ELB1)