Zoe Tzika
ESR10

Host university
B7 - School of Architecture, Universitat Politècnica de ValènciaSupervising team
Carla Sentieri (Supervisor) Adrienne Csizmady (Co-Supervisor) Anna Martínez (Co-Supervisor)Secondments
School of Architecture La Salle, Ramon Llull University, Spain Institute for Sociology, Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence, Hungary Budapesti Módszertani Szociális Központ, Hungary Városkutatás Kft, HungaryResearch project
ESR10 - Sustainable neighbourhoods and co-creationZoe is a PhD candidate at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), looking at collective and community-led forms of housing. In her thesis, she investigates the potential and challenges of participatory processes and cooperative housing models to achieve sustainability and affordability. She completed her studies in architectural engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh). In her research thesis, she focused on the results of the financial crisis in the urban space of greek cities. Her final diploma project used the theoretical framework of the urban commons, to investigate alternatives for a deprived neighborhood through local and bottom-up practices, to rehabilitate and re-appropriate an abandoned marketplace into a common space. She also studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Lyon, and has a Master's degree from the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IaaC).
She practiced architecture in Copenhagen, working in architectural offices on urban and housing projects. She was part of the Atelier d'architecture autogérée in Paris working on self-managed architecture and research concerning urban mutations and participatory architecture. She has worked as a freelance architect on buildings' rehabilitation and as a research assistant for the FabCity research initiative, focusing on sustainable urban development and circular local production. Her research is following a transdisciplinary, participatory action research methodology to investigate current processes of collective and alternative models of housing provision that aim at inclusive and sustainable urban environments.
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‘From crisis-scapes to common space: spatial transformations and practices in the post-political city’ (A. Pantelidis & Z. Tzika, 2016)
‘Urban Factory: a micro-production model for the commons’ (A. Pantelidis, M. Papamitrou & Z. Tzika, 2017)
February, 23, 2022
September, 17, 2021
An analysis of community participation for the provision of affordable and sustainable housing: The case of Barcelona
Housing is becoming unaffordable for an increasing part of the population, due to the rising real-estate values, financialization, and commodification of the housing market, leading to exclusion and dislocations. Particularly, in the countries of the European south, the model of private ownership traditionally prevailed, provided through the open market, and social housing provision appeared limited. At the same time, the existing built stock is often inadequate as it doesn’t cover the current dwellers' needs, values, or desires. The research aims to investigate processes of community participation in housing provision, as an emerging practice, that seeks solutions to the housing crisis and more sustainable practices. The focus will be on the case of Barcelona, where during the last fifteen years, local groups are exploring alternative paths of housing co-creation as a response to the housing crisis. We will be focusing on cooperative housing that uses the legal form of ‘grant of use’, and that is following a transdisciplinary co-creation process. The first step of the research will be to map the cases of housing co-creation that appear in Barcelona, using GIS, to understand and analyse their characteristics. The characteristics will follow three categories; spatial/technical, demographic/social, and tenure/legal. Through this mapping we will be able to categorise and understand, what are these projects, who participate and in what tenure forms. In the next step, three cases will be further researched through participatory action research, using interviews, focus groups and participatory observation. Through this investigation, we will be able to analyse the processes that are being followed, the objectives and the outcomes. The cases will be in different stages of their development: initiation, in-process, or already occupied, allowing us to understand critical factors throughout the development of these projects. The emerging practices of community participation in the provision of housing are considered ways to address on the one hand the challenges of long-term affordability of housing, and on the other hand, to pursue the environmental and social sustainability of the communities. Social and environmental sustainability is understood as the entanglement of the two concepts, that need to be defined by each community, encompassing their habits, practices, and modes of living and aiming in pursuing their collective wellbeing. The research aims to provide a better understanding of the emerging model of housing, analyse its critical limits and success factors, and suggest ways of pursuing such a direction. This analysis has the potential of diffusing this knowledge to other countries of the European south, as a way to pursue models of affordable and sustainable housing through community participation.
Reference documents
Retrofit of existing buildings and cohousing: Co-creation of sustainable living environments
The aim of the research is to investigate processes and practices of collective co-creation of housing and neighborhoods in order to give solutions to the current housing crisis in the context of the european south. The research takes its departure from the need for a critical exploration of what defines a sustainable urban environment, that promotes socially inclusive, environmentally aware and affordable modes of living, that is co-produced by the local population, according to their needs. The research seeks to connect the act of inhabiting with the active involvement in shaping the built environment and creating sustainable communities with respect to their identity and socio-cultural characteristics.
Housing is becoming unaffordable for a big part of society, because of the rising real-estate values, financialisation and deregulation of the housing market and a permanent housing crisis. At the same time, the right to affordable housing should not be separated from the right to decent housing and to access resources, infrastructures and services. Often, urban areas are being (re)developed following centralised decision-making, which leads to dislocation of the local populations, gentrification or exclusion. In addition, the climate crisis strengthens the importance of re-considering the dominant paradigm of urban development, suggesting more ecological approaches and energy efficiency. Bottom-up practices of collective retrofit and cohousing are creating alternatives that challenge the commodification and precarization of housing and the atomization and isolation of people, offering opportunities for collaboration, appropriation, self-management and empowerment of the residents.
The research will investigate collaborative practices of housing with the adaptive reuse and retrofit of existing built environments, understanding the socio-political context in which they emerge to create perspectives that go beyond a normative approach. I will use case study research with a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative data, to investigate the process and the characteristics of retrofit cohousing. The post-occupancy evaluation will be followed by participatory action research. Also, the field surveys will be combined with interviews and ethnographic methodologies to develop a comprehensive analysis of the existing conditions. The aim is to arrive at analysis and methodologies for sustainable retrofit of existing buildings considering the social implications and exploring the potential of collaborative housing.

Cooperative housing in Barcelona
Posted on 01-02-2023
Secondments
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The discussion for the right to housing. ENHR, Barcelona 2022
Posted on 12-09-2022
Conferences, Reflections
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Community participation in the provision of affordable and sustainable housing | discussing inclusion/exclusion
Posted on 05-04-2022
Workshops, Reflections
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La Borda
Created on 26-04-2023
Community Empowerment
Housing Retrofit
Area: Community participation
Created on 03-06-2022
Read more ->Area: Design, planning and building
Created on 16-02-2022
Read more ->Posted on 29-05-2023
Conference
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