Assessible, innovative and qualitative: the AMB model to deal with the housing crisis | Company

Assequable, innovative and qualitative. Questions only on the three pillars that can answer a question asked by the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona (AMB) since 2008, concerning the Great Recession and the bursting of the real estate bomb: how does housing promote public administrations? From the point of view that was going to cause this crisis, it was going to create a new model that had both a monthly look at the end of the month, and which also aimed to promote those that lasted a month of one hundred and fifty years and also had the responsibility of transmitting to present and future generations the values ​​of integral sustainability: environmental, social and economic.

The effort that among these donors has made this supracommunal administration unique to the State, which fulfills both the third public mission of the great month of Catalonia and which has specific skills in this regard, is considerable and can be quantified in exact xifres: between 2019 and 2025, the AMB will promote the promotion of a property of 5,000 public habitats in these properties, including the incorporation of 6,000 social habitats in the metropolitan public park, as much as the purchase.

There have therefore been nearly 11,000 public housing units in around a decade. A complementary leap forward to most existing habitats: over the last three years, $6,809 have been rehabilitated and 100 million euros come from Next Eneration, a plan approved by the European Union after the pandemic.

For many months, innovations have been continuously introduced since the inflection point which will suppose that the 2008 crisis is profound on this point. This is a good example of the approval of the Sostenibilitation Protocol, which aims to reduce loads as well as low energy demand, by mitigating active and passive systems that optimize the response of buildings to the climate and consumption by part of the users.

The AMB strengthened 5,000 social housing units between 2019 and 2025 and plans to promote 6,000 months in its establishments by

Environmental awareness, at the center

Raising environmental awareness is one of the priorities of the projects carried out by AMB. There is a note in the design of the projects that seeks solutions with a central core as well as several connected systems that contribute to natural lighting and ventilation, to contribute to energy strategy and efficient management.

Also in the incorporation of passive energy efficiency strategies, with bioclimatic galleries that act with thermal pressure and promote climate regulation, the use of materials with high thermal inertia contributes to the stabilization of the interior temperature. A system that allows you to reduce energy demand and minimize heating costs.

During this period, the AMB, through the Institut Metropolità de Promoció de Sol i Gestió Patrimonial (IMPSOL), also made a decisive commitment to the use of new materials, standardizing the construction of buildings, including compacted earth blocks or other decarbonized systems. A construction phase in which, month after month, a drastic reduction in carbon deposition was achieved (ends at 600 kgCO2/m², weight per floor of 1,100 of a standard building).

At the nine llars takes more sustainable materials and techniques and applies to the gender perspective

Constructing a solar building is known as one of the many circumstances in which the public administration has worked in the upcoming projects. The AMB therefore considers and promotes the possibility of intervening in cities, by structuring urban life and proposing new forms of housing. A philosophy that is expressed in the material constitutes the distribution of the executed habitats, in which there are spaces in the hierarchy and flexibles that allow multiple uses (living room, bedroom, bedroom or office) and in the application of the gender perspective it is very relevant: from there, the kitchen is omnipresent at the center of the habitats, for example.

Fighting the housing crisis

The AMB, through IMPSOL, is working to develop an affordable, innovative and quality public housing model. The main objectives are to strengthen social cohesion, reduce territorial imbalances and improve the quality of life of residents of metropolitan areas.

The public administration strategy is more necessary in the current context, because in these circumstances the housing needs must exceed the salaries and the acquisition capacity of the city. The result – I do not feel the testimonies on site, through social issues, or even on the road – is a very difficult situation for young families when it comes to accessing and maintaining dignified housing.

In fact, being the economic engine that concentrates most of Catalonia’s GDP, the metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona is also the epicenter of a housing crisis which, although it has a general impact on the region, on the rest of Spain and Europe, acquires particular importance in an area integrated by 36 municipalities that concentrate it. 42.5% of the Catalan population.

In reality, there are 1.8% of housing in the metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona that is not available, a figure that goes from 15% to 15% that recovers housing. Therefore, with the response to this failure, one of the major objectives for the future of the AMB is to continue to promote habitats and social protection provided in the metropolitan territory.

Approval of the Sostenibilisation Protocol strengthens llars’ dissent and lower energy demand

Housing, town planning and land use planning play a key role in the public administration agenda. But from an integral perspective, these serious policies also have an impact on basic services to facilitate the daily life of citizens, with public transport and mobility, the management of the integral water cycle or the treatment of urban waste. The objective? Improve the quality of life of the people who come and work.

Public-private collaboration, a pioneering formula

Habitatge Metròpolis Barcelona (HMB), the operator of the assequable metropolis, is moving forward with the creation of an expanded residential park designed to stop cliff climbing and expand the habitat offering to protect Barcelona from the city’s drought. This pioneering initiative in Spain, owned 50% by the public sector and 50% by the private sector, planned to make an investment of some 600 million euros to build 4,500 accessible forest habitats. Since its creation, HMB has been working hard to promote 1,964 social housing units: a step that takes into consideration the projects it plans to be in the initial phase and also those that have already started to build.

Month after month, HMB and IMPSOL have participated in the public reserve of solar farms of Pla 50,000, an impulse project in search of the Generalitat of Catalonia which includes an annual investment of 1,100 million euros and the mission to complete the construction of 50,000 new public habitats in their cinc anys properties, ending in 2030.