How to answer a housing crisis?

A crisis formed in the house spills into the streets

Across Europe, housing has become one of the defining issues of the year, and nowhere more visibly than in Spain. Just over a month ago, tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid demanding more affordable housing. Driven by a shortage of housing supply, 70% of an average salary in Madrid now goes towards rent (Kilby, 2026).

In the UK, the government has had to reach deep into its pockets to curb the supply shortage. £10bn has been allocated to deliver affordable homes, with a first wave of 70,000 social and affordable homes and an ultimate goal of 1.5 million homes over the next five years (Business, 2026).

Closer to home, things in Copenhagen may look a little calmer for now. But just like these other cities, population growth is outpacing homebuilding. With demand set to increase and buildable space dwindling, there is only one direction prices will head without serious intervention (Lund & Kjeldsen, 2025).  

Polling by Danmarks Almene Boliger shows that across many demographic groups, affordable housing is a top political priority in Denmark – ranking as a higher concern than sustainable housing or housing for older people. Affordable housing has the most prominent role in national policy since the last 25 years.

Different cities, one shared problem: not enough affordable homes where people need them. Meeting this demand requires looking at every opportunity, including those that are easy to overlook.

Building upwards: homes on homes 

In Towards New Heights (Mod nye højder), part of the Bevar Mere initiative, Smith worked with Tegnestuen LOKAL and Structural Collective on vertical densification: adding new homes on top of existing buildings. 

Its appeal is that the city is already there. An extra one to three storeys can plug into existing roads, pipes and services rather than demanding new ones. They take no new land and leave courtyards and green spaces intact, making vertical densification a supply-side solution that is better suited to operating within planetary boundaries. 

In the right contexts it makes financial sense too. Since there is no land to buy, the only cost to the developer is construction, and risk can be kept low as existing residents can stay in their homes rather than make way for demolition. 

Additional floors can also increase the variety of housing on offer in a neighbourhood. For instance, smaller and therefore cheaper one-bedroom flats on a new floor could encourage older residents to move out of their larger apartments, especially if the new homes come with a lift and are in the same building. This frees up much-needed family-sized homes. 

Towards New Heights takes a systemic approach, investigating not only design and construction but also how the market must mature and which stakeholders must align for this solution to become commonplace. Perhaps most importantly, the paper also interviews local residents whose buildings could be suitable for vertical densification.  

Discussions with residents highlight a common phenomena where support for the concept – vertical densification giving more affordable housing within the planetary boundaries – is high. However, the prospect of their building being the one to undergo transformation is less supported. As with many of the transformations our regenerative future requires, there remains a gap between agreeing with change in principle and being willing to change in practice. 

Building outwards: delivering on the social of social housing 

As cities across the world focus on delivering affordable housing, homes will on average be built to minimum space standards. As we are required to build upwards, the once familiar city skyline may also change. To bring people on board with these changes to their surroundings, opportunities for community connection and outdoor space become increasingly important: places to eat, play, bump into neighbours and spend time without spending money. 

The Future Neighbourhood House (Fremtidens Kvartershuse) is a handbook for developing neighbourhood houses in social housing areas, published by Realdania and Landsbyggefonden and supported by Smith. Unlike a residents-only common room, a neighbourhood house is open to everyone; a shared living room that brings social housing tenants and their neighbours together. 

The handbook draws on six pilot projects across Denmark. It is intended to guide municipalities and housing associations through the earliest and often hardest stage of planning, helping them overcome the initial barrier of getting started. It provides a framework for answering the critical questions: who should be involved, how to find out what the neighbourhood actually needs, and how the neighbourhood house should be owned and run. 

Across the cases, the handbook highlights the need for a tailored approach that responds to the unique character of each neighbourhood. In Svendborg, for example, a former kindergarten has become Bydelshuset, an open house where residents and local groups run activities together. It has helped build a new shared identity for the area and has especially engaged young people. 

Comparatively in Brøndby Strand, through mapping the community activities in the neighbourhood it was revealed that more than a specific lack of activities was a lack of overview and connection between existing offers. Therefore, the future neighbourhood house most importantly had to function as a cross-reaching meeting point for everyone. 

The range of solutions shows that what a neighbourhood really needs to be a thriving community is not necessarily always the flashiest solution, but rather a unique response to the specific context. 

One problem, many tactics 

There is no denying that the housing crisis is an overwhelmingly large challenge. Given its wicked nature, no one solution will solve it in its entirety. New construction is resource-intensive, greenfield development threatens biodiversity, and brownfield infill development is limited by the land available and often challenged by NIMBYism. Yet the imperfect nature of each solution must not become a barrier to action, as more than anything else, action is required. 

Vertical densification and tailored adaptations in the neighbourhood can diversify the types of housing on offer and make supply more flexible, with minimal environmental disruption. And as we head into increasingly uncertain times, what is most vital is togetherness, care and community. Here, neighbourhood houses build local connection and thus resilience, perhaps justifying the social in social housing. 

Given the nature of this problem, a multi-tactic approach is the only answer, with each tactic balancing the advantages and disadvantages of the others. Contributions large, small and everything in between are required to mobilise transformative and lasting change. If not, we cannot be surprised to see more outrage spilling from the houses into the streets.