Diane Morel is a graphic designer who's behind many of Housing Europe's publications, including all our Yearbooks for many years now. When talking to her about the production of our 2019 Yearbook, she shared her excitement of being part of a co-housing project that is currently being developed in Fay-de-Bretagne, half an hour away from Nantes. We've asked Diane to share with us her personal story of a life transition into co-housing within the CasaNoé residents' cooperative.

The issue of housing ‘affordability’ is a key part of the public discourse in most European countries today. For example, in the recent election in Ireland, 26 per cent of voters stated that housing and homelessness was their top priority when they decided how to vote, second only to healthcare. Furthermore, the Eurobarometer surveys show that concerns about housing remain elevated in many countries.

The Innovation Challenge Liveable Neighbourhoods 2018-2020 was set up to attain innovative solutions for complex quality of living issues that social housing associations in the Netherlands face. Six teams worked together on these issues for a year through design thinking methodology. All team members came from different work fields, including employees of social housing associations and healthcare facilities, scientist, residents and city council members.