Visualizing Equitable Housing: A Prototype for a Framework

Abstract

Many citizens, researchers, civil organizations, and policymakers strive for equitable housing. Changing demographics, rising housing prices, and material and energy crises all add to the complexity of that quest. Responding to it, even on a project scale, requires a holistic view. Yet practitioners often work in niches. In contrast, an overarching, interdisciplinary understanding of equitable housing by all stakeholders is expected to bring more sustainable and just housing. In the academic literature, researchers have already defined many criteria of what equitable housing can entail. Nevertheless, this knowledge does not seep through to practitioners who design and develop equitable housing projects. Therefore, this paper proposes a prototype for an equitable housing framework. This framework is designed to facilitate an open discussion between all stakeholders in a project. To develop this framework, an explorative literature study and fifteen semi-structured interviews resulted in a long list of 418 considerations for equitable housing. These considerations are socially, financially, and environmentally oriented. To structure the considerations, they were categorized into fifteen dimensions and visualized in a doughnut-like framework. The framework is designed to encourage users to vocalize their needs and intentions, and to trigger systemic insights. It directs them towards sustainable, social, and inclusive decisions, based on the needs of all stakeholders involved. Moreover, the equitable housing framework allows understanding and analysing their thought patterns and intentions.

1. Introduction

Architects claim they are expected to be superhuman. Policymakers criticize the color of façade bricks, while waiting lists for social housing keep growing. Landlords do not want to renovate their property. Meanwhile, the rent and energy bills of their tenants reach new heights day after day. Housing is complex. A growing housing crisis in Western Europe increases the pressure on conventional support measures and further reduces the accessibility of housing. Many European countries (e.g., Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Spain, Ireland, and Estonia) experienced a large increase in the housing price-to-income ratio, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic [1]. Meanwhile in Flanders, the northern region of Belgium, 56% of dwellings do not correspond to the minimum quality requirements [2]. In general, 47% of EU residents are unsatisfied with the availability of good, affordable housing in their region [3].

Attention to good qualitative affordable (i.e., equitable) housing is needed. Vanderstraeten et al. (2018) explain the need for new housing models and concepts that correspond to changing demographics and remedy the inefficient occupancy of the housing stock [2]. On top of that, the pressing material and energy crisis in Europe urges stakeholders to consider energy and material efficiency in their housing projects. Responding to these diverse challenges, even on a project scale, requires a holistic view of the complex multi-disciplinary domain of housing. It requires that no stakeholders are under-served, and all are aware of the implications certain decisions can entail. Yet stakeholders in practice are often only confronted with a fraction of the project within their expertise. Whereas an overarching, transdisciplinary understanding of equitable housing by all stakeholders could lead to more sustainable and equitable living situations and buildings.

This article adopts the term equitable housing instead of affordable or qualitative housing, as the term equitable refers to physical, social, environmental, and financial aspects [4,5,6]. Whereas affordable housing is usually only perceived as the cost ratio of household income to housing costs [7]. The interdisciplinary nature of housing projects is stressed in the literature, where researchers often define extensive lists of criteria to explain qualitative affordable (i.e., equitable) housing [8]. Mulliner et al. (2013) [9] developed a list of 20 criteria for sustainable housing affordability. They do not only consider financial criteria, such as housing prices and rents in relation to incomes, but also safety (crime level) and many factors that concern neighborhood facilities such as public transport services, good quality schools, and shops. Karji et al. (2019) [10] conducted similar research where they define 33 indicators for social sustainability. Karji et al. also include indicators like health and risk, livability, construction, and community. Olakitan Atanda (2019) [11] expands the concept and adds indicators for cultural value (e.g., design of spaces and intercultural dialogue). The literature discussed above confirms the complex and scattered nature of equitable housing criteria and the tendency to think holistically.

The holistic and complex understanding of equitable housing seems to be developed mainly in academia. Practitioners and other non-academics appear not to be included in the target audience to whom the created knowledge is communicated. Since practitioners are the ones who have to design, build, and organize equitable housing projects, the extensive knowledge, developed in academia, should be transferred and communicated to them. Clear structuring and simplification of the concept could be a necessary step to include non-academic stakeholders in the pre-existing knowledge on equitable housing. This article develops a prototype for a visual representation of equitable housing, to communicate and give an overview of this complex concept to practitioners and non-academics. Therefore, the research discussed in this paper answers the following questions:

• How can we understand and structure the notion of equitable housing in the context of a project?
• How can we bypass the complexity of equitable housing for non-academics?
• If it is so, how could a visual framework empower and guide practitioners?

An explorative literature study and semi-structured interviews with practitioners were set up to create a thorough understanding of the criteria considered in equitable housing. The goal of this research was to bring together pre-existing knowledge and prototype a framework that simply communicates this knowledge.

Visualizing the complex and systemic nature of an equitable housing project in a comprehensible way could help stakeholders in developing inclusive and equitable housing projects [12]. This research proposes a prototype for an equitable housing framework that could serve as a base for an open discussion between stakeholders in a housing project. The framework is designed to encourage them to think systemically and visualize their intentions. It is expected to guide them towards making sustainable, social, and inclusive decisions, based on the needs of all stakeholders involved. It could be used when designing, drawing up, and analyzing housing projects.

2. Materials and Methods

The methodology of the research presented in this article consists of two phases: (A) gathering and structuring existing criteria and knowledge on equitable housing, explained in Section 2.1, and (B) developing a framework to communicate this knowledge to non-academic stakeholders, explained in Section 2.2. Figure 1 gives an overview of the methodology.

2.1. Gathering and Structuring Existing Criteria and Knowledge on Equitable Housing

An explorative, systematic, international literature study was set up to establish an in-depth understanding of the different criteria for equitable housing. To broaden the search for housing criteria, the literature search did not only focus on equitable housing. Sustainable housing, social housing, and affordable housing were also considered, as these are all part of the broader definition of equitable housing as an element of social and sustainable transition [13,14]. This query resulted in a selection of six journal articles over a period of ten years. As a result, all criteria discussed in the studied articles were collected in a long list of 219 considerations.

Since the outcome of this research is aimed at practitioners, their experiences and views played an important role in developing a shared definition of equitable housing. In addition to the literature study, a series of twenty-one semi-structured interviews allowed us to further define equitable housing from a non-academic perspective. Taking a qualitative approach suitable for this exploration, semi-structured interviews with relevant stakeholders were organized. At the beginning of the study in November 2020, e-mail invitations were sent to twenty-four practitioners in housing projects, i.e., architects, sustainability engineers, (social) housing developers, and residents. All invitees had a link to one or more forerunner housing projects in the Belgian context. Appendix A shows the distribution of experiences of the interviewees. From these invites, fifteen participants responded. The interviewees were questioned about their vision of equitable housing. This resulted in a spontaneous conversation where they related the topic to their experiences and expertise.

Table 1. Fifteen dimensions of equitable housing.

Category	Dimension	Meaning
Using	Comfort	Creating a healthy and comforting living environment, regarding temperature, daylight, hygiene, acoustics, and accessibility.
Living	Neighborhood	Providing enough services in the area, such as schools, greenspace, work, public transport, healthcare, and childcare. This dimension also includes legislations and other influences specific to the neighborhood.
	Social contact	Allowing social interaction without the invasion of privacy. Communication between stakeholders.
	Safety	Creating a safe environment without the feeling of being controlled. Safety also includes protection from natural disasters and tenure security.
	Responsibility	Involvement of all stakeholders in the project with the least amount of conflict. Allowing stakeholders to make informed choices.
	Solidarity	Financial inclusion of all stakeholders in the project. Reducing social inequity between inhabitants.
Financing	The total cost of ownership	The cost that will be spent over time for (co-)owning the dwelling, including interest rates and life cycle costs.
	Capital accumulation	Gaining long-term financial security while living in a dwelling. This can be, for example, through cost recovery, shares, or (co-)ownership.
	Initial cost	The cost spent at the beginning of a project, including building costs, legal costs, and organizational costs.
Dwelling	Adequate living space	The space inside the dwelling in relation to the residents’ needs, including individually used and shared spaces.
	Scale	The number of housing units and other functions in the project.
	Service life	Lifespan envisioned for (part of) the project, ranging from long-term project phasing to temporary use.
Using	Energy and water use	Strategies for efficient energy and water use, including reducing the use of environmental resources.
	Maintenance costs	Costs spent on repair and maintenance of the building.
	The total cost of usership	The costs spent on using the project over time. (ex. Rent, energy costs, …)

gives an overview of the interviewees and their experience in the housing sector. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded with NVivo software. Together, the literature study and the interviews resulted in an in-depth list of considerations for equitable housing projects with international and regional insights (Appendix A). These considerations were then grouped into fifteen dimensions. These dimensions are distributed over four categories: living, financing, dwelling, and using. The considerations were combined in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet wherein considerations could be sorted by dimension.

2.2. Developing a Model/Framework to Communicate This Knowledge to Non-Academic Stakeholders

The fifteen dimensions, defined in phase A, were then visualized in a framework that aligned with the goals of the research: simplifying the complex concept of equitable housing and encouraging systemic thinking. By exploring pre-existing systemic design models [15,16,17], a visualization that aligned most with the goal of the research was chosen. A prototype for the framework was developed and improved iteratively. Finally, in further research, the potential of the framework as a workshop format was illustrated with practitioners in two existing projects [18].

3. Results

The results are divided into four sections. Section 3.1 and Section 3.2 of the results section correspond to phases A and B in the methodology. Based on case studies and examples, Section 3.3 and Section 3.4 give an overview of the workings and the uses of the equitable housing framework.

3.1. Gathering and Structuring Existing Criteria and Knowledge on Equitable Housing

The literature study resulted in a list of 219 considerations. Similarly, from the interviews with practitioners, a list of 241 considerations was collected (Appendix B). The length and diversity of these lists confirm the complex nature of equitable housing. Communicating these considerations with practitioners and policymakers required simplifying and structuring the list. Therefore, the considerations were grouped into fifteen dimensions. Together, these dimensions are designed to present a holistic perspective of equitable housing, as they are situated within four categories: living (i.e., lifestyle), financing, dwelling (i.e., the physical building), and using. Four dimensions are situated between categories: comfort (using and living), solidarity (living and financing), initial costs (financing and dwelling), and service life (dwelling and using). These are dimensions that link two categories together. An overview and explanation of each dimension can be found in Table 1. Appendix B shows the complete list of considerations from the literature review and the interviews after merging similar considerations and structuring them according to the dimensions.

For many dimensions, the literature and the interviews had similar findings, however, in some dimensions, differences could be detected. Figure 2 shows how the initial price is rarely mentioned as a consideration in the literature, compared to the considerations mentioned in the interviews. This is surprising, since many interviewees suggested that the initial price of building elements was often the main driver for decision-making. The other dimensions are often balanced with the initial price. Yet many interviewees also explained how reductions in the initial price must not come at the expense of basic living qualities. Furthermore, many stakeholders stressed that the time and budget that goes to each stakeholder are important in making a housing project more equitable. A large part of a project’s budget might go to stakeholders, who do not have a largely positive influence.

The perception of the term “safety” was different in the interviews compared to the literature. In the literature, safety was mentioned as protection from hurricanes, crime prevention, and protection from toxic materials, epidemics, and other health hazards. Contrarily, interviewees rarely spoke of this form of safety. Instead, safety was perceived as technical and fire safety. One interviewee spoke of housing security to make households feel safe, so they can focus on other aspects of their lives.

Efficient water use was often mentioned in the literature study, while the interviewees concentrated more on energy efficiency. Thermal energy efficiency, like insulating a house and installing (collective) heat pumps, was the focus of the experiences of the interviewees especially. Waste management and decreasing internal energy of materials were on their minds, but it was not yet a deciding consideration in decision-making in their projects.

From the list of considerations several patterns could be observed. Some considerations were straightforward, such as “hygiene, clean dwellings”, “proximity of public transport”, and “enough indoor daylight”. However, many considerations, mainly coming from the interviews, revolved around balancing various implications of decisions. For example, interviewees spoke about the balance stakeholders must strike between investing in more comfort for the residents or lowering the initial price of the project. Given the high standards of comfort regulations in Belgium (i.e., acoustics, living space, and thermal comfort), stakeholders are already obliged to invest high sums of money, often leaving little space for more investments in comfort. These regulations often drive stakeholders to buy cheaper building elements with initially lower initial prices, but with many uncertainties in the long-term durability.

Balances between scale, initial price, maintenance costs, the total cost of ownership, responsibility, and social contact often came back during the interviews. From a financing perspective, a larger scale can lead to collective investment and thus lower initial prices. Collective investment was praised for collaboratively developing a housing project and making certain projects feasible for lower-income households. A distinction was made between enlarging the scale to improve solidarity and financial feasibility and enlarging the project scale to reduce the initial price per stakeholder. The first one refers to collective investment and working together. In some cases stakeholders even opt for an uneven distribution in the investment each household makes. Whereas the second one is more individual. Furthermore, larger scales were claimed to enable more liveliness in collective areas and allow more activities to take place. However, when the scale becomes too large, residents will become anonymous, which might then again reduce the liveliness of the project. This is related to the amount of responsibility and social contact residents have with the building and with the other residents. Furthermore, in a cohousing project, for example, the scale must be large enough so the responsibilities can be divided, without putting too much burden on one person. Yet when the scale becomes too large, social control will be lost, and the responsibilities might not be executed as desired.

Considerations in the list stressed the importance of a clear definition of financial risks and the responsibilities of all stakeholders. Responsibilities should not only point towards residents but also the responsibilities of architects, contractors, and (co-)owners. Different financing models have different divisions of responsibilities. For example, developing a cooperative housing project requires shareholders to take up responsibilities such as voting, investing in the cooperative, and paying a monthly fee. A sense of responsibility corresponds to a sense of ownership, not only for residents but also for producers and housing companies. Interviewees explained how, generally, the more a sense of ownership exists amongst residents the more responsibility they will feel towards a project. This is strengthened by the participation of residents and nearby neighbors, especially in the process of decision-making. In cases where residents come from minority groups, participation can have an empowering effect and include people who were previously silenced in the housing debate. The responsibilities of each stakeholder must be clearly defined and must correspond to the stakeholder’s capabilities. Considerations in the list also implied that decision-making should happen democratically between all financially-involved stakeholders.

The list illustrates the networks of decisions, considerations, and balances that researchers and non-academics are dealing with when designing and studying equitable housing. They often balance several decisions, without having an overview of the implications this has on other stakeholders. Given the complexity, it is not surprising that stakeholders cannot grasp a holistic view of the concept.

3.2. Developing a Model/Framework to Communicate Housing Equitability to Non-Academic Stakeholders

In phase A, a definition for equitable housing was developed through a list based on a literature study and interviews with practitioners. The following section of this article develops a framework prototype to further structure and visualize this holistic insight and definition, and in doing so make it actionable for practitioners.

Following the observation above that many balances must be found within and between dimensions, this research approaches equitable housing as an equilibrium between interconnected dimensions. The importance of each dimension over the others is highly context specific. A cohousing project, for example, might concentrate on the social contact between its inhabitants, while a house for disabled people might pay more attention to comfort in terms of accessibility with wheelchairs. Either way, a house for disabled people should still consider the amount of privacy and social contact their residents should experience. Therefore stakeholders might pay more attention to a certain dimension, like in the ranking of criteria by Karji et al. (2017), however, the other dimensions should still be considered [10]. Therefore, in the framework for equitable housing developed in this research, all dimensions were portrayed on the same level, with visually equal importance. Inspired by the doughnut economy model by Raworth (2014), this equivalence is symbolized by placing the dimensions on a circle [22], see Figure 3.

The larger the radius of the circle is the more of a certain dimension is present in the project. Dimensions are constrained by lower and upper limits. For example, a minimum sum of maintenance costs is required to prevent a building from decay, i.e., the lower limit. On the other hand, there is also a maximum sum of maintenance costs, above which stakeholders cannot afford the costs, or it is simply not worth it. In the case of maintenance costs, limits are quantitative. The limits of the social contact dimension, for example, must be more qualitative as this dimension balances between privacy and meeting someone’s social needs. Limits create the boundaries needed for the solution space within which designers can be creative [23]. For a housing project to be equitable, all design decisions must be balanced between the lower and upper limit of each dimension, i.e., the black area. The exact limits and solutions are context-specific and will vary depending on the project and the stakeholders involved in the decision-making. Defining one dimension will inevitably influence other dimensions; users must thus think systemically when using the framework. Figure 4 illustrates another way in which the upper and under limits of social contact can be filled in as well as how a solution can be found between limits.

Quantitative data can be added to the framework to define limits, for example, the limit for the initial costs can be the maximum amount residents can acquire as a mortgage. Yet the outcome of the framework was deliberately left qualitative. Recent sustainable design tools, like Envision or LEED, allow users to calculate their social sustainability rating or certification through a scoring mechanism [24,25]. They easily give the user an indication of how sustainable or social their project is, according to the tool. However, these tools can become like a checklist where designers try to tick off boxes to reach a higher score without questioning whether the elements on the checklist would be beneficial to the project [26]. Therefore, the framework for equitable housing focuses more on the discussion that can arise between different stakeholders and how one design decision can ignite a series of consequences for other dimensions. Rather than obtaining a score, the framework leads towards an inclusive equilibrium of design decisions that fit within the limits indicated by different stakeholders.

3.3. Systemic Decision Mechanisms

Given the systemic nature of equitable housing, one decision will impact various dimensions. As a result, stakeholders must keep in mind the under and upper limits of these dimensions to come to the most desirable solution. This is already visible from how the considerations in the list express the need to balance different dimensions, but through four examples, this section will give a deeper illustration of this interconnection.

For many people, privacy is an important notion, as it is often associated with the perception of a safe home. Several dimensions interact in the notion of privacy. The most obvious dimension to link to privacy is social contact, with privacy meaning a limit on how much social contact someone needs. However, privacy can also be a safety measurement. Certain safety measures, e.g., cameras, can invade a person’s privacy; but there should also be enough safety measures to ensure an inhabitant’s privacy, e.g., locked doors. The housing typology of a project influences the privacy of its inhabitants. Depending on the spaces inhabitants share, privacy will be experienced in different ways (adequate living space). The scale of a project can also impact privacy. A single-family house with a fence around the garden will provide more privacy than an apartment block where neighbors share hallways or even other living spaces. Privacy as a design criterion thus contains social contact, safety, adequate living space, and scale. Depending on the project, privacy might impact even more dimensions than these.

The dimension of safety can also be linked to several other dimensions in the framework. A study by Attia (2021) [27] examines the level of safety through the case study of the Prince Fawaz project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The study shows how a balance in social contact in spaces can impact the (perception of) safety. They describe how access to certain spaces in a project should be controlled to ensure compatibility between outsiders and residents, and to be able to identify unwanted intruders. In the equitable housing framework, this argument would be interpreted as an upper limit of social contact. Magar also mentions how controlling and limiting spaces can create segregated islands of projects, often leading to encouraging criminal activity and increasing fear of crime. Furthermore, the case study showed how matching the residents’ and strangers’ movements can increase the sense of security. Therefore an under limit for social contact can be defined as making certain spaces public enough to not create segregation, and matching strangers’ and residents’ movements to provide a higher level of security [27].

Another example of how dimensions influence each other is the decision to share living spaces. This decision impacts at least five dimensions of the equitable housing framework. Households can decide to collectively invest (solidarity) in shared living spaces, to reduce the initial price needed to build these spaces, and reduce the total cost of ownership needed to maintain and renovate these spaces in the future. Furthermore, by sharing certain spaces like a kitchen, living room, and laundry room, residents can eliminate these amenities from their private spaces, reducing their personal living spaces (adequate living space). Sharing living spaces will also result in more interaction with one’s neighbors and thus an increase in social contact. Stakeholders should, therefore, keep in mind the type and number of living spaces the inhabitants are willing to share. In some cases, residents even share certain spaces, like workshops or gardens, with the neighborhood.

The impact of sharing small spaces was illustrated through an article written by Rosa-Jimenez et al. (2022) [28]. They explain how during the pandemic, residents in small apartments had to balance their needs within their available living space. Imposing the thought process of the equitable housing framework on their study allows one to identify the under limit for adequate living space as the need for a space to exercise, to work, to live and to perform leisure activities. For comfort, under limits could be identified as obtaining a comfortable temperature, orientation of the spaces to have sunlight in areas such as the terrace, and to have qualitative views. They also identified how social contact should be balanced between having enough personal space to perform daily activities, such as making videocalls without hindering the other residents (upper limit), and obtaining enough social contact with people from outside the household, for example, by looking from their terrace (under limit). Using these limits as guidelines when designing small apartment buildings could improve the residents’ living quality [28].

3.4. Using the Framework for Informed Decision-Making in Social, Financial, and Technical Sustainable Investments

Sustainable building solutions are not excluded from the systemic mechanisms of decision-making. Therefore, this section illustrates how certain sustainable investments can impact several dimensions at once.

One interviewee explained how using straw as insulation was for them a valuable experience. Aside from the low environmental impact of the production process, this material was easy to build by oneself. This allowed them to organize workshops and include people who were eager to learn the building techniques for straw insulation (social contact and responsibility). Building by themselves and thus eliminating labor costs reduced the initial cost significantly. However, to reach the insulation level (energy and water use) imposed by the Flemish government, walls insulated with straw must be significantly thicker than when insulated with conventional materials, like polyurethane. As a result, to stay within the building boundaries imposed by the local authorities, many projects which use this building method must reduce the indoor living spaces to compensate for the thickness of the straw insulation (adequate living space). This example shows how one sustainable building solution impacts various dimensions.

Another project illustrated the need for inclusive decision-making when implementing sustainable building systems. The project consisted of an apartment building with a mix of social and owner-occupied housing. A neighborhood contract, imposed by the local authorities, insisted that the housing developer would provide a urine filtering system to water the plants in a public garden next to the project, thus limiting the city’s water use. However, given the large initial cost of this system, other maybe more impactful decisions, for example, reusing materials, were dismissed due to high expenses. Furthermore, the maintenance costs of ducts and the technical installation of a urine filter system would be indirectly passed on to the residents living in the apartments through their rent or collective building costs (total cost of usership). When opting for sustainable solutions in equitable housing projects, stakeholders must question first which dimensions they will impact and who will benefit from the solution.

Following the decision-making approach of the framework, stakeholders could adopt a bottom-up approach and include representatives for residents in the process of decision-making to improve the inclusiveness of their sustainable decisions. One interviewee explained how, in their project, the participatory process was empowering for the residents, who were before often dismissed from the debate on housing. This process helped to shape a sense of ownership of the project amongst residents. Involving (future) residents in the decision-making process can help other stakeholders to understand the financial and physical abilities and willingness of residents to use sustainable design solutions. Moreover, it can also inform residents about the sustainable strategies in the project and how to use them to create the least environmental impact (responsibility). However, Eikelboom et al. (2021) [29] warn that involving residents too intensely might lead to indecisiveness. Furthermore, participatory processes can be long and intense. For residents who do not have the time, the intense participatory process might become a burden rather than a chance to be involved [29]. Nevertheless, bottom-up approaches and involving users in a design process prevents making sustainable decisions that will not be used optimally or even burden the users. As a result, these interventions will often not make the environmental impact they were meant to.

Sustainable and circular decisions, like other design decisions, should therefore consider the equitable housing dimensions they have an impact on. Millar et al. (2019) [30] suggest the missing links between social welfare and circular economy [30]. Therefore, using the equitable housing framework guides practitioners, researchers, and even policymakers to understand and visualize the implications of the circular and sustainable decisions they want to impose, and guides them to make supported decisions with social and environmental impact.

4. Conclusions

The framework prototype developed in this research, structures and visualizes the complex concept of equitable housing. The list of considerations, based on the literature and semi-structured interviews, provides a holistic and diverse image of what the notion of equitable housing entails. Yet it also highlights the complexity stakeholders face when developing equitable housing projects, and the need for an understandable communication of the academic notion of equitable housing towards practice. Structuring the list of considerations into fifteen dimensions over four categories creates the base for the visualization of the prototype of the framework for equitable housing. This framework approaches equitable housing as a highly context-specific equilibrium between all the different dimensions. Through the aforementioned examples, the strong connections between the fifteen dimensions in the framework, as well as the necessary balances, trends and patterns, become visible. They indicate the systemic nature of design decisions in housing projects.

For sustainable design decisions to have an impact, stakeholders must consider the physical, financial, and organizational needs of all stakeholders involved in the project. Using the framework as an underlayer for discussions between various stakeholders guides designers to these more inclusive decisions. The output of the framework is qualitative, focusing mainly on the discussion arising from the framework, and leaving enough room for interpretation by the stakeholders, but also allowing quantitative argumentation.

For architects and housing project designers, the framework is designed to structure a complex concept into a more manageable notion. The framework is a guide to making better-informed decisions. As some dimensions on the framework, for example, adequate living space and social contact, refer to the users’ needs, the framework moves away from the top-down way of designing where only the project developer and the architect design the building, but rather involves or considers other stakeholders such as residents and policymakers to develop a more inclusive design.

For researchers, the equitable housing framework opens opportunities for analyzing existing and future projects and practices. By analyzing and understanding stakeholders’ thought patterns and intentions, researchers can guide non-academics in developing equitable housing or analyze the decision-making mechanisms practitioners apply. This could then be linked to sustainable building decisions, which opens possibilities for researchers to develop tools that can help practitioners to apply sustainable design aspects equitably.

For clients and public authorities, the framework is an opportunity to broaden their view on the added value of equitable housing and give them more insight into their role in the design process.

In further research, the framework prototype was developed into a workshop format and retrospectively used to analyze, together with stakeholders, their decision process during the conception of an equitable housing project. The actual applicability and impact of the framework, when used as a design tool, on the equitability of existing design cases should be examined in future research. The current version of the framework prototype was developed in a Belgian, Western European context. For projects in other regions of the world, the framework might need some minor adaptations to stay in line with cultural and climatological differences.

Given that every project is unique, the framework allows enough room for interpretation and does not make judgements on the values of stakeholders. Moreover, it allows design teams to think further than their discipline. The framework allows stakeholders from various niches to speak the same language and discuss their needs. It does not tell the users exactly what to do but guides and opens the conversation on topics the stakeholders might not have thought about or were not able to express before.