IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

The Research Group for Solidarity in Architecture defines pathways to access to housing through co-created interventions that bring together civic allies dedicated to urban livability, affordability and sustainability. Since 2016 the group has enacted Lakni Kell (We All Need A Home), an initiative to address the crisis in housing equity – with nearly two million people in Hungary living on less than €220 monthly. The solidarity approach ensures marginalized people are centered in efforts to make cities livable and sustainable. Each co-designed iteration reinvigorates disinvested places and supports civil society while contributing to learning at the University of Pécs and beyond. In 2025 Lakni Kell catalyzed a broad partnership to renovate a vacant municipal flat. In Pécs, a significant portion of potential housing resource are the legacy of coal mining industrialization. When mining was nationalized during the socialist regime purpose-built workers housing became municipal rentals. The capitalist regime change led to disinvestment, widespread building neglect and abandonment. The pilot will ultimately house a young family in the social welfare system threatened by homelessness. This intervention combined strengths and resources from multiple stakeholders allied in purposes connecting housing access and urban livability including the municipality, unhoused care advocates, future residents living in housing insecurity, professional and vocational student and commercial and industry partners. The pilot aims to move-in the family by first quarter of 2026. The presentation documents learning across the process which has motivated ongoing collaboration to further conceptualize how to sustain and scaling actions with shared aims to create access and livability in post-industrial Pécs: potentially reusing 400 vacant municipal flats over time.