HARMONIA
Horizon Europe | Housing Affordability through Renewal, MOdernitazion and New Integrated Approaches
Project code:
Grant Agreement No. 101308922
Programme
Horizon Europe
Call
HORIZON-NEB-2025-01-REGEN-04 Innovative approaches for sustainable, inclusive and beautiful social and affordable housing
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.
Project duration
01/09/2026 - 31/08/2030
Scientific project head for the Department
Coordinator
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università Di Bologna
Partnership
DEEP BLUE SRL
AEGIS ENGINEERING I.K.E.
ESTRATS CONSULTORIA ESTRATEGICA SCCL
RENESCO SIA
COMITE EUROPEEN DE COORDINATION DE L'HABITAT SOCIAL AISBL
UNION INTERNATIONALE DE LA PROPRIETE IMMOBILIERE
EUROPEAN BUILDERS CONFEDERATION
EDERA SRL IMPRESA SOCIALE
Jones Lang LaSalle S.p.a.
METABUILDING
Sundesk Soph Antip Biot Emer Sq Bât C rue Evariste Galois - R2M Solution SAS
FAIR GROUND BRUSSELS
NEAR SGR SPA BENEFIT
DIMOS KALAMATAS
AZIENDA CASA EMILIA-ROMAGNA DELLA PROVINCIA DI MODENA
TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY DUBLIN
Tuath Housing Association
Total Budget: 9 401 982,43 €
DA Budget: 794 555,00 €
Lecturers and researchers connected to the project
Professor Annarita FERRANTE (Scientific project head) (DA)
PhD. Ing. Cecilia MAZZOLI (DA)
Professor Roberta PALTRINERI (DAR)
PhD. Dr. Emanuele Rinaldo MESCHINI (DAR)
PhD. Dr. Teresa CARLONE (DAR)
Professor Giovanni SEMPRIN (DIN)
Professor Claudio LANTIERI (DICAM)
Non-permanent staff connected to the project
Martina FRATTURA (Doctoral student) (DA)
Eugenio CANNOVALE PALERMO (Doctoral student) (DAR)
Website
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101308922
Project ERC Sectors
PE8_11 - Sustainable design (for recycling, for environment, eco-design); PE8_3 - Civil engineering, architecture, maritime/hydraulic engineering, geotechnics, waste treatment; SH4_4 Cognitive and experimental psychology: perception, action, attention, memory, learning, imitation, cognition; SH1_12 - Technological change, innovation, research & development