Housing prices, both purchase and rental, continue to rise in Barcelona and in most main European cities, in contrast to the purchasing power of the majority of their citizens This creates a significant social problem, seriously limiting and often negating a fundamental right of the people to have access to housing, and forces an urban exodus of large sectors of the population.

 

Cities thus lose basic elements of their identity and become urban "no-places", defined by financial dynamics and interests, detached from their own culture, and oblivious to values such as equity, cohesion and cultural diversity.

 

It's crucial to qualify the uncontrolled curve of real estate financial speculation, as a "unique" focus, so the investment system continues to function, but not in a self-destructive manner, and not destroying the urban social fabric nor its cultural and social networks.

 

In this sense, the 4th industrial revolution, ICT’s sensorization and new building design technologies –BIM-, in conjunction with the growing use of flexible financial formulas to gain access to land and housing, such as leasing or co-ownership, are starting to make possible significant reductions in the cost of access to housing.

 

Moving away from thinking that housing is only private property to thinking that it can be of shared use - “housing as a service”- implies a new paradigm with similar kinds of implications and technological dynamics that are driving the automotive sector, for example, to design mobility as a service in favor of cost reduction, property sharing and an increased sustainability and quality of life in cities. To enable a solid and transversal implementation of this new housing paradigm using in Barcelona, we present the Vive Project Platform.