EUI Urban Diary #1- 2024 SHARE intergenerational housing in Fuenlabrada: Laying the Foundations

SHARE project constitutes a pioneering community revitalization model based on two interdependent facets: the Intergenerational Solidarity Housing System (ISHS) and the Programme for early autonomy protection (PEPA). The ISHS aims on one side to double the current municipal youth rental supply called in the project “Intergenerational solidarity housing stock” accommodating between 40 and 60 young tenants. The apartment stock is created through the voluntary participation of senior homeowners prepared to transition into a new cohousing development.  In order to support the transition of youth in the housing stock SHARE foresees a scheme called Community Engagement Programme for Youth (CEPY).

On the other side PEPA consists of creating a cohabitation focused on early protection of autonomy for non-dependent seniors, benefiting approximately 20 to 30 older adults called Lifetime Housing Complex (LHC) in an underused school in the city center. The transition and cohabitation of elderly is managed by a scheme called Local Care Ecosystem (LCE) to ensure community engagement and intergenerational sharing opportunities, also benefitting from  personalised support services to connects user´s needs with locale solution called “User-centric Care Itineraries” (UCCI).

In this way the vision of the project is to target the dual needs of elderly and young populations: for the elderly, it seeks to maximize autonomy, fighting loneliness, through the rehabilitation of a disused school into a housing complex tailored to support their independence; for the younger demographic, it offers affordable, centrally located housing by renovating accommodations made available by elderly owners, and increase the opportunity for young people to actively participate in the community.

Moreover it responds to the collective need to reduce underused space, downsizing privately owned apartments by elderly, offering an opportunity to use space sustainably without building new apartments for the young population thus reducing land consumption from new buildings. In addition it experiments for the first time in EUrope a solidarity based mechanism which is grounded on the vision of long-term house swap, managed by the local authorities able to secure the provision of affordable housing and intergenerational solidarity. The project addresses this multifaceted challenge by establishing an intersectoral community care unit that integrates diverse municipal departments—including housing, welfare, elderly care, and youth services—with various partners such as urban designers and experts in innovative gerontological models.

The genesis of SHARE vision lies in a combination of demographic pressures in the housing and job market, and population decline, leading to underutilized and obsolete urban infrastructure, and a strong municipal and political will to boost affordable housing in the city  integrating innovation with social cohesion. Fuenlabrada, originally a rural settlement in the 1960s, underwent the most significant population growth in the country during the subsequent decades, transitioning into a densely populated urban center. This demographic surge was fueled predominantly by the internal migration of young individuals and families from southern Spain and adjacent agrarian regions in search of employment opportunities in the Madrid metropolitan area. Immigration has continued to shape Fuenlabrada’s socio-demographic profile, especially since the late 20th century. In addition to earlier flows from rural Spain, there has been a sustained influx of migrants from Latin America, Africa, the Maghreb, Romania, and more recently, China. Employment rates in Fuenlabrada have generally remained moderate relative to the broader Madrid metropolitan region. However, in the past decade, Fuenlabrada is not immune to the European trend of aging population (birth rate in Spain is among the lowest in Europe) and has experienced  population decline, a trend analogous to broader patterns observed in other Spanish urban areas. This contraction is driven by factors including a pronounced gap between income and housing costs, particularly impacting young adults, the limited availability of public social housing, and escalating real estate pressures emanating from central Madrid. In particular, Fuenlabrada's city centre is marked by aging infrastructure and demographic imbalance.Data relevant to the Centre of Fuenlabrada underscores the demographic and social imperatives driving the project, highlighting a high aging index of 158%, a youth index of 63%, and a dependency rate index of 43%. Housing demands remain largely unmet, with only 4.8% of the demand covered, and significant proportions of dwellings suffer from accessibility issues (41%), lack of heating (20%), structural deterioration (15%), vacancy (21%), and commercial vacancy rates (29%) ( Fig.1)

There are around 50 schools in the city and more than half of the San Estaban school premises are underused as a result of a decrease in the number of school children roughly from 1000 to 200 in 20 years (Data from the Municipality of Fuenlabrada) As a result, more than half of the San Esteban school premises are underused. The downsizing of San Esteban school provided an opportunity to address both housing shortages and social fragmentation by creating a new residential model for pre-dependent elderly and youth, grounded in solidarity and mutual support. The co-living for elderly will take place in the former “care house” and the kindergarten, if the San Esteban school complex.

The organizational structure of SHARE's work is delineated through several integrated packages. A key innovation arm within the project is the ecosystem of horizontal and vertical multistakeholder coordination which accompanies the implementation of the project, to bring together various municipal areas, partners and relevant stakeholders , and conduct analyses of the functional urban area, explorations of target groups, and investigations into new housing solutions. Additional components focus on program requirements, care provision models, the adaptation of the school, city center dwelling refurbishment, deployment of housing and user-centered services, staff training, community proximity efforts, and the implementation of technical innovations.

The project involves a robust partnership network, including the Fuenlabrada City Hall (MUA), the Municipal Housing Institute of Fuenlabrada (IMVF), Fuenlabrada Communication Media PLC (FUMECO), Animajoven- the youth enterprise publicly owned, the Matia Instituto ( Matia Gerontological Institute), Khora Urban Thinkers- think tank, the National University of Distance Education (UNED)  and la Mesa por la convivencia (further info about SHARE partners are available here).

By early 2024, the governance of SHARE was formally established. The project is overseen by the Municipal Urban Authority (MUA), which manages the collaboration among the partners and coordinates its implementation. The governance architecture was initially planned to be organised around  three main committees: Strategic Committee Comité Estratégico, Steering Committee Comité Directivo, Coordination Committee Comité de Coordinación.

The Strategic Committee (Comité Estratégico) includes representatives from the Mayor's OfficeRelevant Department Councils, Director of the City’s Sustainable Development Area and SHARE partners. This Strategic Committee is responsible for important decision-making on changes in the project implementation, risk and quality management,  adding new partners or stakeholders to engage in meetings, changes of procedures or rules. “We meet biannually to discuss the larger issues of the project, even though (generally) the people involved in both  this committee and the steering one are the same.”

The Steering Committee (Comité Directivo) brings together representatives from the municipal departments of Social Welfare, Urban Planning, and European Projects, along with the partner entities in SHARE. Initially, the Committee was intended to review project progress, address communication and funding issues, and identify potential risks. However, during the project’s implementation, its role has evolved into multilateral stakeholder meetings focused on advancing specific actions. As the project coordinator explained: “We are managing this committee differently from what was originally planned, in order to make it more operational. For example, in relation to the basic and implementation activities of the architecture competition, representatives from the city hall, Matia, and Khora have been meeting separately with the architectural team and then reporting back to the rest of the group during Coordination Committee meetings. A similar process is taking place with the law firm preparing rental contracts for the apartments, which meets with representatives from the city hall, IMVF, and Khora.”

The Coordination Committee (Comité de Coordinación) plays a central role in driving the project forward. It takes charge of planning, monitoring, financial management, communication compliance, and risk evaluation. More than just a formal body, it is the engine that keeps the project moving. The committee fosters collaboration, it ensures that results are achieved,reports are submitted on time, tackles challenges as they arise, and ultimately safeguards the success of the project, meeting twice a year.

Although the same SHARE partners participate across different committees—making them appear similar from the outside—each body embodies an important innovation in governance. Together, they create mechanisms that align partners on concrete actions, political decisions, and deep coordination across the project’s many dimensions. The Municipality department leading SHARE plays a pivotal role by anchoring this governance process in everyday practice. Coordination does not remain abstract; it happens through near-daily informal exchanges—meetings, phone calls, and ongoing dialogue—that ensure partners stay fully informed and engaged.

This continuous collaboration is formalized through the UNIR meeting, held every two weeks, which acts as a collective governance space. UNIR allows partners not only to share progress but also to build on each other’s work, co-produce solutions, and take pragmatic decisions together. In this way, UNIR goes beyond a standard coordination meeting; it institutionalizes a culture of collaborative policymaking and joint ownership.Meanwhile, the committees provide a structured governance backbone, establishing a predictable rhythm and ensuring accountability. They complement the flexibility of UNIR by giving the partnership a clear decision-making framework.

In addition, SHARE foresaw the creation of a Stakeholders Board—a forward-looking governance innovation designed to extend collaboration beyond the project partnership. Envisioned as a platform for communication, knowledge sharing, and fundraising, this Board would open up the project to external actors and strengthen its policy impact. Although not yet activated, its inclusion reflects a commitment to designing governance that is participatory, outward-looking, and scalable.

In order to help in the coordination along the implementation phase, a Manual of Procedures was co-developed by (Fuenlabrada City Council and Khora, defining protocols for financial reporting, risk monitoring, internal communication, and performance evaluation. The dedicated financial monitoring framework and a follow-up model ensured alignment with EUI reporting standards and embedded agility into the delivery model. Four risk workshops were planned over the project’s life cycle, with the first held in Q2 2024 to anticipate barriers related to procurement, public engagement, and co-design coordination.

While this organizational structure was helpful in kick-starting the project, as often happens in practice, the original scheme has not been followed to the letter. Experience on the ground shows that the key coordination role has primarily been carried out through interdepartmental collaboration within the municipality—specifically among the departments of Social Welfare, Urban Planning, and European Projects, whereby the latter has served as a crucial reference point between local partners activities, the EUI Secretariat, and the SHARE transfer cities Teramo (IT), Larissa (GR), Vilnius (LV) . During the first year, each partner has been mainly focused on their assigned work package and specific deliverables. Meanwhile, much of the intense coordination effort during this period has been dedicated to preparing and launching the competition for the future redesign of the S. Esteban School.

The participatory ethos of SHARE manifested early in the form of preparatory research targeting two key demographics: pre-dependent elderly and youth under 35, selected among participants to the entities involved in SHARE.  Coordinated by Matia Institute and Animajoven respectively, the research combined desk studies with immersive fieldwork techniques: shadowing, in-depth interviews, participatory workshops and collective walks in the area of the project. These approaches uncovered nuanced insights into housing insecurity, isolation, spatial disconnection, and helped shaping ideas for new institutional care models.This phase culminated in the creation of "personas" and "journey maps," fictional yet research-grounded profiles capturing the daily routines, needs, and frictions experienced by the future users of the complex. These informed not only the future architectural brief but also policy considerations around care provision, mobility, and cohabitation ethics.

While these workshops were conducted with age-representative groups capable of providing targeted input on the two aspects of the house-swapping mechanism in SHARE Fuenlabrada, none of the participants involved at this early stage are expected to become actual beneficiaries. This reflects a deliberate choice in the SHARE design namely to separate the input gathered from the two target groups—youth and elderly—from the selection of eventual users/beneficiaries.

Beside the inputs from the ground, the initial project framing included an exhaustive bioclimatic study of the San Esteban site, assessing climatic patterns, solar exposure, wind directions, and humidity profiles. Data from the Getafe meteorological station and platforms like Solargis and AdapteCCa helped highlight key design priorities: solar access, natural ventilation, climate resilience, and reduction of energy demand in extreme weather scenarios.

The bioclimatic assessment conducted on San Esteban and its surroundings was pivotal also to inform the architecture competition. The study recommended a range of nature-based solutions including vegetated facades, shaded courtyards, and integration with nearby green infrastructure, later integrated into the terms of reference for the architecture competition active between June - September 2024.

The first year of the SHARE project has successfully established strong institutional and social foundations through research, climate-sensitive design, and stakeholder engagement. However, key challenges remain that require urgent policy attention; these include sustaining meaningful beneficiary participation, especially among youth; navigating complex legal and procurement frameworks; and securing transparent, equitable criteria for beneficiary selection and tenure arrangements.

The preparatory groundwork for the school culminated in a pan-European architecture competition, launched in late 2024, inviting proposals for transforming San Esteban into a co-housing complex. The competition brief mandated NEB principles, bioclimatic excellence, and inclusive design. It included all prior research outputs: personas, climatic data, site diagnostics, and spatial constraints. The competition received strong interest, with three winning teams and three mentions selected. Only the winning team collaborates with users in the next co-design phase, ensuring continuity from diagnosis to intervention. Further information is available online on EUI Portico website.

Critical issues such as the voluntary involvement of elderly homeowners, the affordability and sustainability of the rental model, and the long-term management of intergenerational housing demand clear governance solutions, and options which are currently debated require robust oversight to balance private property rights with public interest goals.  As it is in the first year of the project, financial sustainability of integrated services hinges on reliable cost-sharing mechanisms between public subsidies and rental income. To ensure lasting impact, policymakers should prioritise establishing legal safeguards for tenure security, transparent beneficiary engagement processes, and institutional frameworks that embed intergenerational solidarity as a core principle—transforming SHARE from a pilot into a scalable locally and potentially transferable to other contexts.