HARMONIA

Through the development of energy efficient and energy plus buildings, a pre-defined component library, prefabricated construction methods, and standardized renovation playbooks, HARMONIA will build a new participatory ecosystem where citizens, municipalities, local SMEs, and industry co-produce homes that are affordable, sustainable, inclusive, beautiful, and deeply rooted in their local context. By turning housing from a construction task into a community-driven innovation process, the project will demonstrate a replicable model for European cities that accelerates climate neutrality, stimulates local economies, empowers people, and transforms neighborhoods into resilient, future-ready living spaces. To do so, HARMONIA has been built upon the four pillars of affordability, environmental sustainability, inclusiveness and beauty. Two pilots (renovation and new construction, in Belgium and Greece respectively) are implemented; crucially, the addition of an Italian hybrid case that couples renovation and new construction, where the New “adopts” the Old, is essential to demonstrate an innovative, attractive approach unlocking affordable housing with no public funding, fastest payback time (PBT), and zero land take. HARMONIA will demonstrate how Europe’s cities can deliver beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive urban regeneration by integrating cutting-edge design, innovative financing, and citizen-led processes into scalable models for affordable housing and neighbourhood transformation. By uniting a multidisciplinary consortium from research and social innovation to industry, finance, and public authorities the project will co-create, deploy, and validate new solutions for deep renovation, climate-aligned new construction, and hybrid development. HARMONIA will bridge the gap between policy ambition and on-the-ground delivery, advancing the goals of the NEB initiative, the Cities Mission, and the European Green Deal.