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(RE)Using Empty Buildings: Adaptive Architectural Types as an Instrument of Social Inclusion for Youth Homeless

Project description

Bridging Europe’s housing divide

Millions of buildings lie unused across Europe, where nearly 700 000 young people sleep rough or in emergency shelters every night. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the ReYouth_Types project tackles this paradox by exploring how vacant spaces can be transformed into supportive homes for homeless youth. Through in-depth research at the Politecnico di Milano and partnerships with institutions in the Netherlands and beyond, the project examines innovative housing examples from Poland, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands. Combining archival studies, interviews, and co-design, it aims to create a toolkit for architects, policymakers, and communities. This toolkit will guide the adaptive reuse of empty buildings, fostering inclusive, collective living environments that offer stability, training, and hope to vulnerable youth across Europe.

Objective

In 2020, the OECD estimated that circa 38 million buildings in Europe were empty, exposing underlying governance weaknesses for adapting and reusing empty buildings. This needs to be put into perspective with circa 700,000 homeless youth living rough or in emergency lodging each night in Europe. An obvious societal paradox, therefore, exists between the high availability of empty buildings and youth homelessness, calling for a more inclusive and cohesive social dwelling model.

These challenges are not new, and architecture has long attempted to solve them through, for example, segregated clustering of architectural types-buildings such as Montagu Burgoyne youth pastoral colony (1829, Potton, UK). My research project, however, aims to critically compare successful contemporary architectural types-buildings of So Stay Hotel (2016, Gdańsk, Poland), Intersectional City House (2016, Wien, Austria), Rukkila (2008, Helsinki, Finland) and Pieter de Raadtstraat 35 & 37 (2014, Rotterdam, Netherlands), their morphologies, programmes of activities, design processes, experiences, ownership structures, governances offering novel socially inclusive collective dwelling-work-trainings models for homeless youth through the use of empty buildings.

Through a 2-year fellowship at Polimi - under the supervision of Prof Carolina Pacchi, a leading expert in European cities’ development, a 3-month secondment at TU Delft and a 4-month non-academic placement with ‘Avanzi’ - involving on-site archival research, post-occupancy, semi-structured qualitative interview and co-design methods, I intend to conceive a theoretical framework on ‘ReYouth Types’ and to implement ‘ReYouth Types toolkit’, a new set of design principles. Thus, I will provide European educators, urban and architectural designers, local authorities and civil society with a research and design instrument to reduce the social exclusion of homeless youth while increasing awareness through the adaptive reuse of empty buildings.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 225 917,16
Address
PIAZZA LEONARDO DA VINCI 32
20133 Milano
Italy

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Region
Nord-Ovest Lombardia Milano
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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Partners (2)

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