The New European Bauhaus strengthens its focus on housing

Affordable housing, urban regeneration and the green transition have become some of the European Union’s main priorities. A clear example is the new New European Bauhaus (NEB) call for proposals, HORIZON-NEB-2026-01, which has a budget of more than €100 million and is open until 1st December to fund projects combining innovation, sustainability and inclusion in cities.

The call for proposals is structured around three main areas of action. The first focuses on citizen participation, social inclusion and access to housing; the second promotes circular solutions for regenerating the built environment; and the third seeks new financing models capable of ensuring the long-term viability of interventions. Taken together, the funding will support projects addressing issues such as homelessness, health, thermal comfort, the reuse of buildings, private investment and the maintenance of urban spaces.

Housing drives the NEB

The 2026 edition comes as housing has gained prominence on the European agenda and following a recommendation by the Council of the European Union in May to incorporate NEB values into national policies and programmes. EU guidance favours renovation over demolition, the use of sustainable materials, citizen participation and greater coordination between public authorities, industry, investors and social stakeholders.

In this way, “the NEB has moved beyond being a mainly conceptual framework and is taking shape as an agenda for housing, urban regeneration and neighbourhood transformation with an increasingly operational focus”, stresses Antonio Barrios, a consultant in the Regions and Cities area at Zabala Innovation. Together with Marta Bascuñana, a consultant in the Social Innovation area, he attended the technical dialogue organised by the European Commission and the European Urban Initiative Policy Lab in Rome on 16 and 17 June.

Jon Ander Ortuondo, also a consultant in the Social Innovation area, notes that the latest European recommendations, while not legally binding, “provide clear indications of the policy and investment priorities that are likely to shape the development of European programmes in the coming years”. This influence, he points out, will not be limited to EU instruments but may also filter through to national level as Member States incorporate NEB principles into their policies and funding programmes.

Ortuondo also highlights that the initiative “is becoming much more closely linked to industrial competitiveness, innovation and the Clean Industrial Deal”. The transformation of the building stock therefore opens opportunities for value chains linked to circular and low-emission materials, although technology will also need to address clearly identifiable social needs. Beyond its energy or environmental performance, the renovation of a building will have to demonstrate its impact on affordability, residents’ wellbeing and the quality of the surrounding environment.

Three priorities for regenerating cities

Against this backdrop, the topics in the strand dedicated to participation, inclusion and local democracy – with a budget of €37.6 million – cover approaches based on stable access to housing to tackle homelessness, new participatory methods for designing public spaces, and research into the relationship between the urban environment, sensory experience and health. Proposals will have to involve residents and users from the earliest stages, with particular attention to vulnerable or underrepresented groups. One-off consultation is giving way to processes in which communities can participate in decisions about use, design and management.

A further €37 million is earmarked for the circular regeneration of the built environment. Eligible areas include affordable solutions to improve thermal comfort, predictive maintenance systems that extend the lifespan of buildings, and ways of making use of roofs, façades and other vertical surfaces. This last area ranges from green infrastructure and urban agriculture to extensions that provide new uses or housing without consuming additional land. Projects will need to assess the social consequences of densification and prevent neighbourhoods from becoming less affordable or residents from being displaced.

The third area, with a budget of €26.5 million, addresses the economic sustainability of urban transformation. The Commission is looking for projects that coordinate housing and social services to tackle homelessness, channel capital towards NEB initiatives and bring vacant or underused buildings, infrastructure and plots of land back into use. Barrios sees this direction as a change of scale: “Europe is moving away from treating urban regeneration as a collection of isolated pilot projects”. The aim, he explains, is to build replicable and financeable neighbourhood models, with clear responsibilities for management, investment and maintenance.

Lessons from Rome

These ideas were reinforced at the event in Rome. In the Italian capital, representatives from cities, EU institutions and urban professionals examined the use of existing buildings and the mobilisation of investment for social and affordable housing. A visit to the We-Z project at the Vigne Nuove social housing complex provided an opportunity to see how an NEB intervention can combine public space, community memory, nature, culture, youth wellbeing and social mediation.

One of the most important practical lessons to emerge from the meeting, according to Bascuñana, is that “the transformation of districts must be understood as a long-term governance exercise rather than a one-off physical improvement”. Working with communities requires time, trust, facilitation and intermediaries capable of translating different interests into project decisions. “It also means defining from the outset who will be responsible for programming the spaces and maintaining them once European funding comes to an end”, she adds.

The keys to a competitive proposal

For all these reasons, preparing a competitive proposal for the NEB call for proposals will require more than an attractive architectural solution or a technology with strong environmental indicators. Consortia will need to demonstrate knowledge of the neighbourhood, early participation, implementation capacity and a coherent financial strategy. Local authorities, universities, research centres, construction companies, housing managers, social organisations and cultural bodies can play complementary roles, if governance is clearly defined and the people affected have meaningful involvement.

Proposals will have to demonstrate their ability to improve access to housing, reduce vulnerabilities, bring underused assets back into use and create healthier, more liveable spaces. They will also need to address the continuity of interventions: how they will be financed, who will maintain them and what mechanisms will prevent regeneration from ultimately displacing the very people it was intended to benefit. “The key is no longer simply to fund interventions, but to structure viable, maintainable and socially legitimate neighbourhood projects”, concludes Bascuñana.