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Open Call – Housing & Planning: A Global Call for Practices
Housing and planning are often treated as separate policy domains. In reality, they are deeply interconnected at an everyday level. Housing should not be viewed merely as a commodity, but as a key element in creating livable and sustainable communities. In the face of the global housing crisis, the design of high-quality living environments has become a critical challenge that demands attention and expertise from professionals across disciplines.
Together, let us rethink this common dilemma and help shape a future that is more affordable, equitable, and climate conscious. As housing challenges intensify across the world, there is no single model that works everywhere. One way to strengthen collective learning is by sharing knowledge and experiences from different countries, building a global repository of practices, both the ones that worked and the ones that offer hard-won lessons. Thus, raising awareness of the connections between housing and planning is important.
To celebrate the IFHP 113 anniversary, we invite our global network to contribute examples that demonstrate the relationship between housing and planning. We are looking for inspiring practices, innovative policies, and valuable lessons from challenges encountered in different contexts. Together, these contributions will form a growing collection of international experiences that can inspire practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and communities worldwide.
Did you know?
Although European countries share many common ambitions, their housing systems differ significantly.
🇦🇹 Austria
547.37 conventional dwellings per 1,000 inhabitants (ESPON, 2025)
73% of residential buildings are single-family homes
🇸🇪 Sweden
517 conventional dwellings per 1,000 inhabitants (ESPON, 2025)
51.8% of residential buildings are single-family homes
🇳🇱 The Netherlands
460.6 conventional dwellings per 1,000 inhabitants (ESPON, 2025)
62% of residential buildings are single-family homes
Source: HOUSE4ALL: European Compendium of Housing Policies (ESPON) https://www.espon.eu/publications/house4all-european-compendium-housing-policies
These figures remind us that housing challenges and their planning responses are shaped by local contexts. That is precisely why your experience matters.
We want to hear from you: What examples from your city, region, or country best and worst illustrate the relationship between housing and planning? What can the world learn from your experience?
This could be an inspiring project or policy; a challenging experience that offers important lessons; an innovative governance approach; a community-led initiative; or a planning decision that significantly influenced housing outcomes.
Submit your contribution: OPEN CALL
Submission deadline: 15th of September 2026
Join the conversation: Throughout the campaign, we also invite contributors to join us for a one-to-one conversation to exchange ideas, discuss emerging themes, and explore opportunities for future collaboration within the IFHP network.
Your inputs will be compiled into a digital publication and used as input for an online worldwide dialogue in November 2026. As a thank you for time and effort, we offer you free participation and the possibility to contribute to World Town Planning Day 2026!
Responses across research, policy and practice
Exploring how the European Affordable Housing Plan can be turned into concrete action across research, policy and practice
Hope for Housing? The European Affordable Housing Plan
Connecting the European Affordable Housing Agenda to political and spatial planning systems across different governance levels
IFHP x VDM Learning Labs #8
The varying definitions and implementations of affordable housing across different regions and governance structures
IFHP x VDM Learning Labs #7
Addressing the ongoing debate between prioritising the quantity of housing versus ensuring the quality of housing — can they go together?
The Housing Dilemma — A roundtable discussion
Accelerating the production of affordable housing while safeguarding ecological and social resilience
IFHP x VDM Learning Labs #6
How housing policies influence social and economic inequality, exploring the role of urban development strategies in either perpetuating or addressing disparities
IFHP Summit Part 2: Master Class
Tackling interpersonal and regional inequalities through inclusive growth strategies
Join the discussion! IFHP webinar on affordable housing
All IFHP members are invited to join the discussion on our flagship project, Affordable Housing for All. This is the second, albeit self-contained session of a two part online series. You will get the opportunity to follow the project’s development as well as come with suggestions for its further development. During the first session we introduced the project in some detail, and now during the second session you will be able to participate in a critical discussion including distinguished scholars researching housing affordability from across the world. We will also present some preliminary observations and talk about the next steps.
We look forward to seeing you!
IFHP on the road in France: Convening on the Montreal Design Declaration
On April 3-5th 2019, IFHP convened with signatories to the Montreal Design Declaration in St. Etienne, France at a Pre-Summit Meeting.
IFHP first reported on the Design Declaration back in November 2017, when it had just been signed on 24 October 2017 in Montréal, in the presence of three UN agencies (UNESCO, UN-Habitat, UN Environment) by the fourteen international organisations and partners, including WUC: World Urban Campaign as well as WUC affiliates: UIA: International Union of Architects; IFLA: International Federation of Landscape Architects; GPN: Global Planners Network; CAP: Commonwealth Association of Planners; ASF International: Architecture Sans Frontières International and, of course IFHP: International Federation for Housing and Planning.
The signing of the Design Declaration marks the launch of a global collaborative effort to utilize the potential of design for the benefit of all, and concludes: "All people deserve to live in a well-designed world." The Design Declaration is a Call to Action, consolidating a broad spectrum of design disciplines, to speak in a single voice on the value of design across the board, to get the ear of governments, educators, civil and private sectors to engage with design. It is also a call to designers themselves to step into a leadership role. A call for “people for design”.
From an IFHP perspective and in terms of the built environment and the cities we need, we see sustainable design goals as part and parcel to sustainable development goals, and we are campaigning for the role and responsibility of urban design. But to do so, we need people and policy making the most of potential of urban design. So to say; Urban Design for People takes People and Policy for Urban Design.
The St. Etienne Pre-Summit Meeting focused on the development of three key projects outlined in the Design Declaration, which were identified as highest priority by the Declaration Signatories in a recent internal survey:
Design Metrics: Establishing metrics and collecting data and case studies to more effectively communicate the value of design;
Design Education & Research: Fostering development, recognition, support and funding for design education and research, including development of new formats for design education curricula.
Government Design Policy: Supporting development of national and regional design policies;
The themes were elaborated and explored in three specific sessions highlighting the Pre-Summit in St. Etienne. Project sessions included curated keynote presentations, as well as panel and round table discussions. The results of these sessions will contribute to informing the pathway for full activation of the Projects leading to the next full-scale Summit Meeting.
Design Declaration Summit Steering Committee
Currently six design organizations are leading the implementation of the Design Declaration:
BEDA: Bureau of European Design Associations: Bart Ahsmann, Päivi Tahkokallio
Cumulus: International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media: Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen, Salmi Eija
IxDA: Interaction Design Association: Alok Nandi, Brenda Sanderson
ico-D: International Council of Design: David Grossman, Zachary Haris Ong
IFHP: International Federation for Housing and Planning: Regitze Marianne Hess
IFLA: International Federation of Landscape Architects: Kathryn Moore Read more about the Pre-Summit in St. Etienne at World Urban Campaign’s Newsletter and about the Montreal Design Declaration at ico-D.
IFHP Director International Affairs, Regitze Marianne Hess, R.Hess@ifhp.org.