On 17th August 2024, during the DASH team secondment in Serbia, the Association for Innovative Forms of Housing and Living (INWOLE) and the Association of Urban Planners of Serbia (SUPA) organized a field trip and tour of Novi Sad, in which all the DASH team members participated. During the field trip, DASH member Petar Atanacković explained the city’s urban history. The day ended with a visit to the youth center CK13.
On August 8, DASH partner Cooperativa Integral Minga met with KO GRADI GRAD at the Geographical Institute “Jovan Cvijić” SANU. The meeting centered on the establishment and operation of housing cooperatives, highlighting our shared commitment to addressing pressing challenges such as housing shortages and community development. The participants explored transformative, community-led solutions rooted in grassroots efforts; discussed recent legislative reforms in Portugal that promise to create a more supportive environment for next-generation housing cooperatives; and identified a common challenge: the lack of financial mechanisms to support community-based housing projects.
In June 2024, DASH members Brankica Jelić and Dejan Žvković visited Tübingen (Germany), to learn more about the dynamics of the rental sector from the perspective of the resident population, with a special focus on beneficiaries from the refugee and immigrant population. Their hosts in Tübingen were DASH members Axel Burkhardt (Commissioner for housing and accessibility) and Julia Hartmann (Commissioner for housing and accessibility), with whom we exchanged practical experiences in the field of affordable housing.
During the spring of 2024, PhD student Rikke Sundstrup went on a secondment to Belgrade, Serbia, where she was hosted by Geographical Institute “Jovan Cvijic” SANU. The insights this provided into affordable housing in Serbia gave her new perspectives on the contextual challenges of, and universal objectives for, affordable housing.
In October 2024, DASH member Marco Allegra presented a paper on local housing strategies (co-authored with Caterina di Giovanni, ICS-ULisboa) at the 5th International Congress on Housing in the Lusophone Space (CIHEL), which took place in Lisbon on October 2-4.
On 8 April 2024, the DASH project held its Mid-Term Meeting. The meeting was attended by Dr Desislava Kolarova, Project advisor in charge of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Staff Exchanges for the European Research Executive Agency, as well as DASH member representatives. It was a fruitful meeting in which progress to date was presented and the project’s future discussed.
The Serbian Urban Planners Association (SUPA) and the Republic Geodetic Authority organized their 20th international scientific-professional conference "Urbanism and Sustainable Development", which took place in Novi Pazar (Serbia), from 9 to 11 May, with over 200 participants from Serbia, Republic of Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Croatia and Sweden. Zlata Vuksanović-Macura, Ivana Momić and Aleksandar Jevtić attended the conference as DASH members.
On April 27, 2024, Petar Atanackovic presented the work of the Project House Potsdam and the Association INWOLE in Cooperativa Minga’s space in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal.
DASH members Sónia Alves, Zlata Vuksanović-Macura, Rikke Skovgaard Nielsen and Lene Wiell Nordberg will participate in the ENHR CONFERENCE 2024 - Making Housing Systems work: Evidence and Solutions (Delft, Netherlands, August 26-30)
On 3 April, the DASH team visited Évora. During the morning civil servants from the municipalities of Évora and Tubingen gave two presentations on urban history and housing strategies, while during the afternoon the team visited the Bairro do Legado do Operário, an affordable housing project built between the 1930s and the 1940s, which marked the first eastward expansion of the city core
