Proof of Concept for the Solidary Mobile Housing Co-Creation Model and the Realized Housing Prototype (PoC SMH) (INNOVIRIS-POC_SMH)

In 2016, with the support of the INNOVIRIS Co-create Fund, the Department of Architecture of the KU Leuven and the NGO’s Samenlevingsopbouw Brussel (SOB) and CAW Brussel started up the ‘Solidary Mobile Housing’ (SMH) applied research project. From 2017 until today, a group of eight future inhabitants have been working together with employees of SOB and CAW, students, teachers and researchers of the Faculty/Department of Architecture of the KU Leuven to develop, test and refine a Model (SMH/M) for the co-creation of solidary living in mobile homes on Waiting Spaces in the Brussels-Capital Region. As a result, a housing co-creation model (SMH/M) have been developed which incorporates:

• empowering design solutions and technologies, embodied in a design prototype (cluster of 8 housing units and a collective space),
• a social guidance approach and process,
• preliminary strategies for operation in the legal framework and codes of the Brussels Capital-Region
• concepts for a framework for integration into urban planning and governance
• a financial balance sheet for the prototype (not yet a financial plan for the upscaling and production)
• continuous university collaboration (service learning and applied design research).

This INNOVIRIS Proof of Concept (PoC) project aims to make a demonstration of the feasibility and viability of the technologies, methods and innovative ideas incorporated in the SMH/M, developed in the INNOVIRIS Solidary Mobile Housing Co-create project (2017-2019). The objectives of the PoC are:

• proof of concept of the results of the INNOVIRIS Co-create project ‘Solidary Mobile Housing’
• proof of socio-economic and spatial practice interest showing the potential for valorization and transfer of the results

The project will integrate: in-depth study on technical, economic, legal, organizational and socio-spatial aspects, the findings from the on-site demonstration relating to all of these aspects and the results of exchanges with key experts and actors on all of these aspect, in order to evaluate and prove the socio-economic interest and the feasibility and viability of the SMH/M.