Co-creating a Liveable Future - Inspired by New European Bauhaus
What is the New European Bauhaus?
The New European Bauhaus is an initiative of the European Commission that connects the European Green Deal to our living spaces. It calls on all Europeans to jointly imagine and build a sustainable and inclusive future by facilitating a conversation on how and where we live, and our relationship with our natural environment. The European Bauhaus calls for examples, a sharing of ideas, challenges and solutions that cross-link art, culture, social inclusion, science and technology.
How can Stronghouse contribute?
Stronghouse wants to contribute to the New European Bauhaus with ideas and the vision of using a better understanding of what motivates individual homeowners so we can further adjust and redesign supportive measures. The partners want to share their inclusive best practices for the effective engagement and enablement of homeowners undertaking an energy renovation journey.
Support & understanding
In terms of the individual homeowner, Stronghouse sees that the impact of current support measures is limited. Support is fractured and insufficiently based on specific needs. The partnership is now adjusting and redesigning these measures to help individual homeowners and neighbourhoods, based on a better understanding of their motivations to invest in reducing the environmental footprint of their homes.
Design thinking, end-user approach
Our project taps directly into the consortium’s design-thinking expertise, such as is used in digital development. We’ve created a toolbox with customer journeys, user-stories and personas. These personas sharpen the Stronghouse focus on improved technical, financial and organizational solutions for the end-user. We are also aware that homeowners are not necessarily aiming for reduced CO2 emissions and hard business cases, but may want to contribute to a more sustainable future …while simultaneously improving their indoor climate, home comfort and saving on energy bills.
Inclusion & cohesive communities
Stronghouse wants to develop more practices to involve key players in local communities for energy advice, using a neighbourhood approach. Creating energy communities is a great example of how to combine ‘sustainable, beautiful and inclusive’ which dovetails perfectly with the European Bauhaus concept.
Challenges to share
Stronghouse also wants to share the challenges we’re facing with this European Bauhaus network. The Renovation Wave and the Green Deal, reducing CO2 emissions, the energy transition, energy efficiency and renovation and working with sustainable products. These are all targetting the public good – but cannot be realized without the private sector. However, this requires a larger role and more commitment than just that of a supplier. Business culture and regulations often limit many local authorities in their endeavors to develop local coalitions with the private sector.
Stronghouse workshop
As a result of these preliminary discussions on the Stronghouse potential contribution to the New European Bauhaus, the partners have become even more inspired. Plans are now in the making for a follow-up workshop with more professionals from the world of design, spatial planning and social sciences.
We will keep you posted on the results of ‘From energy renovation to climate friendly, liveable neighbourhoods’.
Meanwhile, read more about the New European Bauhaus and how you can contribute. Join the thinkers and doers to design our future ways of living together.
‘The New European Bauhaus is a creative and interdisciplinary movement in the making, and you can be part of it!’ #NewEuopeanBauhaus
