A think tank is generally perceived as a group of interdisciplinary researchers who discuss particular subjects, ideas and policies. The “Housing Think Tank: Knowledge Integration on multi-family residential buildings” [HoTT] seeks to address the problems of contemporary housing structures as the key subject, bringing together, in a cooperative database repository, scattered scientific information on built experiences in several countries, from the early 20th century to the present. It should be noted that the approach to housing design best practices must be holistic, interconnecting societal challenges such as ageing, climate change, energetic efficiency and participatory processes, among others, where architecture and research by design are placed in a central debating position. Designing adequate, affordable houses implies deep knowledge and an assessment of the built heritage. Hence, this project aims to revisit modern and contemporary architecture, focusing on passive design as a critical strategy for designing adequate buildings (including adaptability and accessibility as crucial issues). 

Furthermore, this project seeks to aggregate a broad set of built experiences (and related scientific data) and cast light on past (or recent) resilient or adaptive architecture design practices capable of supporting future solutions. Resilience is the ability to adapt rapidly to change and is vital to guide design. Housing buildings must incorporate different transformation levels, i.e., to adapt to changing life patterns or household structures, for instance. As, in most countries, not all housing stock will be refurbished shortly, intermediate solutions are needed, and collaborative interactions must be instigated within the local communities.

Additionally, housing has a significant impact on healthy living; therefore, it is expected that housing affordability in most developed countries will be further confronted with an ever-larger population of older people and the need to consider housing structures as an adequate asset in the long term. 

This project stems from the knowledge drawn from two past experiences: the Archives Habitat international network, conducted by a restricted group of scholars who shared information through a specialised scientific database, and the recently concluded research project “Mapping Public Housing” [PTDC/CPC-HAT/1688/2014], which has made available a large open-access database.

HoTT aims to promote the interconnection of ongoing individual and collective research projects. The team members from seven different institutions (FAUP/Portugal, IST-UL/Portugal, FLUP/Portugal, UPCatalunya/Spain, UMA/Sweden, TU DELFT/Netherlands, UDP/Chile) will bring together pilot case studies built in Portugal, Belgium, Chile, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain, each with its specific features regarding housing experiences, types of buildings, conceptual frameworks and approaches to critical contemporary challenges.