Realistically, for a shot at halting climate change, we need to make buildings more efficient, big time, with widespread retrofit rollouts in the next few years! Regardless of good intentions, that’s not easy without...
Barcelona has long been plagued by housing issues. Now the city is fighting back. Equipped with an extensive plan, Barcelona wants to tackle a multitude of challenges. We sat down with the city’s housing...
If the question is ‘how do we build enough to house our growing populations?’, some espouse modern methods of construction as the answer. Although MMC promises cleaner construction and improved comfort for residents, uptake...
Wouldn’t it be nice to go on your roof on a hot summer’s day, bringing a book and fresh lemonade with you, lying back in a deckchair and enjoying the sunny day – without...
Accommodating diverse groups of people within the same city poses a challenge. Toronto has managed to overcome it and continues to strive for a more inclusive and affordable housing market. We caught up with...
Is there a market for recycled concrete? This was such a sizeable question that the EU part-funded a multi-million-Euro project to find out. Leading SeRaMCo, Christian Glock set out to ascertain how construction and...
The cohousing project Vrijburcht in Amsterdam was built almost two decades ago. Despite the many difficulties that have cropped up along the way, Vrijburcht has stood the test of time and – over the...
Traditional construction practices are emission-heavy. Switching to modern methods of construction (MMC) can help mitigate our impact on climate change, but what does that look like exactly? We turned to CityChanger Trina Chakravarti, Project...
Lately, it seems ‘climate justice’, ‘eco-gentrification’, and ‘green gentrification’ are the most used terms in the realm of sustainability. Whatever the phrase, gentrification is not an easy matter for discussion. Why that is the...
What do a liberal arts degree, a congested street, and the City of Toronto have in common? They all link back to our CityChanger Jennifer Keesmaat, an unconventional urban planner. We sat down with...
Community energy is an agent of decarbonisation. Transition in the sector is gaining momentum. How can we motivate people to get involved and maintain that trajectory? We asked Éva Goudouneix, Community Development Manager with...
Have you ever heard of cohousing? This alternative living model promises to combine privacy and community, use space efficiently, and provide plenty of greenery. Eef Tanghe, CityChanger and founder of Cohousing Projects, makes the case...
We’re in the midst of a housing crisis: too few affordable homes for our growing population. Quick wins are usually synonymous with shoddy quality, but meanwhile housing bucks that trend. We spoke with Lorna...
Concrete. As a staple of construction, it’s everywhere in our cities. What happens when a building has served its purpose? Could we recover, recycle, and rebuild with construction and demolition waste material? Would that...
One city in Sweden has been getting a lot of attention. The 20-storey plyscraper Sara kulturhus is one example of how notable city Skellefteå is pioneering the realms of wooden construction, but there’s a...
Construction traffic is costly, dangerous and awfully polluting. A promising tool to radically reduce traffic are construction consolidation centres (CCC) or urban logistics hubs. At CCCs, construction materials are stored, traffic in and out...
Everyday people can make a difference in their communities. This is the vision that Community Land Trusts (CLTs) build upon. They are groups of local people who create community assets. And they provide an...
Green areas are great; they have the potential to attract a city’s residents to enjoy nature, relax, and get some much-needed fresh air. Safety, though, is a large element of that enjoyment; so how...