Architectural Cases

Europe's building stock offers significant potential for addressing pressing environmental and societal issues, yet current renovation rates are insufficient. The Re:Living initiative seeks to revolutionize how we approach building transformations, moving beyond individual projects to a systemic, scalable strategy. Central to this endeavor is the research paper, "The Housing We Need for the Future We Want," which highlights the untapped value in our existing structures and outlines new avenues for architectural innovation, urban development, and community well-being. This ambitious project aims to create healthier living spaces, reduce environmental footprints, and improve affordability by reimagining the renovation process.

In 2023, the Living Places project successfully demonstrated that constructing homes with a substantially reduced carbon footprint while maintaining healthy indoor environments and market-competitive costs is achievable. This collaborative effort brought together various experts, including architects, engineers, researchers, and industry leaders, to explore holistic housing solutions that prioritize both human welfare and planetary health. This previous success laid the groundwork for Re:Living, shifting the focus from new construction to the enormous potential within existing buildings.

The core concept behind Re:Living is straightforward yet profound: Europe's most significant opportunity in housing lies not in what we will build next, but in what we already possess. Across the continent, existing buildings represent a dual challenge and a largely underutilized asset. Many of these structures are inefficient, detrimental to health, or inadequately used. Simultaneously, urban centers are struggling to provide affordable housing, decrease emissions, and manage resources more responsibly. Re:Living aims to tackle these intertwined issues by showcasing how comprehensive renovation can unlock new possibilities.

Re:Living functions as a collaborative experiment, driven by partnerships, designed to investigate how building renovation can transcend isolated efforts to become a broadly applicable solution. Through a practical demonstration project, the collaborators will assess methods to achieve healthier indoor living conditions, minimize environmental impact, and enhance affordability within the existing building framework. This initiative will formally commence on July 3, 2026, in Barcelona, coinciding with the UIA World Congress of Architects and Barcelona World Capital of Architecture. This event will gather architects, design specialists, and industry professionals to deliberate on one of the most critical questions facing today's built environment: how to effectively scale renovation efforts.

The initial phase of the Re:Living project emphasizes a fresh perspective on residential development rather than focusing on new construction. The Green Paper, "The Housing We Need for the Future We Want," developed by VELUX in partnership with BPIE, Artelia, RISE, and No Objectives, challenges the long-held assumption that future housing demands are best met primarily through constructing new buildings. Instead, this research prompts a fundamental question: what innovative solutions emerge when we prioritize the buildings that are already standing?

For professionals in architecture and urban planning, the report provides a quantitative analysis of the most promising opportunities within Europe's existing building inventory. It reframes renovation not as a singular intervention, but as a diverse array of strategies, including adaptive reuse, conversion, extensions, attic modifications, and the activation of underutilized spaces. The report assesses the collective potential of these approaches to address housing needs while simultaneously alleviating environmental pressures. Its findings are compelling, suggesting that up to 107 million additional homes could be created within Europe's current building stock through a combination of these various renovation and utilization strategies. This perspective transforms existing buildings from perceived limitations into valuable resources capable of tackling multiple challenges—including climate change, housing shortages, public health, resource depletion, and biodiversity loss—all at once.

The research unequivocally identifies renovating and optimizing existing buildings as the highest-priority interventions, positioning new construction as a last resort rather than an initial response. Furthermore, the report significantly broadens the discussion beyond carbon emissions, which, while crucial, are complemented by resource consumption and biodiversity as equally important metrics of environmental impact. This expanded viewpoint encourages a more comprehensive understanding of building performance, one that considers not only operational and embodied carbon but also the broader ecological ramifications of construction and design choices. For Re:Living, this Green Paper provides the foundational evidence needed to launch its experimental phase. The initiative aims to discover how existing structures can be transformed into catalysts for improved health, reduced environmental impact, and increased affordability. Ultimately, Re:Living endeavors to convert a collective challenge into a shared learning journey, openly documenting its findings and involving the broader value chain in this pivotal transition. The critical question for the industry is no longer whether renovation is important, but rather: how can we achieve renovation at scale?