Life in common: Inclusive Housing for Ageing Populations through lessons from Contemporary French Practice

Location: Lviv Cultural Hub (Kniazia Romana St 6, Lviv) 

Date: April 30 

Time: 18:30

Across Europe’s ageing territories, a typological changing is operating by architects, public authorities and developers approach housing. Based on contemporary French practices in inclusive housing and socially embedded development models, this lecture examines how the provision for ageing populations is being redefined beyond the now outdated dichotomy between independent living and place of care for agieng. The binary that has long structured housing between the medicalised facility and the isolated private dwelling is increasingly challenged by operational experiences on the ground. Emerging models developed in France through the practice of French Housing Foundation point towards an intermediate residential condition an architecture of proximity, where individual autonomy and collective life are not opposed but articulated. Within this framework, housing is conceived not as a standardised product but as a situated response, combining domestic scale, shared uses and territorial anchoring.

The French experience demonstrates that viable frameworks exist financial, regulatory, architectural when developers, public bodies and designers commit to working across disciplines toward genuinely inclusive typologies as are micro-neighbourhoods conceived as living ecosystems, adaptable ground floors integrating health services, workshops and daily amenity, buildings whose spatial generosity refuses to stigmatise those they serve. This body of knowledge carries an acute relevance beyond French borders. 

Such approaches highlight the relevance of inclusive, non-institutional housing and care models as a response to emerging social and spatial inequalities, particularly in contexts marked by displacement, demographic ageing, and prolonged instability. In this perspective, the principles developed for ageing populations in France can be extended to a broader range of vulnerabilities, beyond age alone. The spatial and social logics of inclusive housing with accessibility, adaptability, proximity and collective support offer a transferable framework for addressing diverse situations of disability in Ukraine. Rather than targeting a single group, these approaches point toward a more structural redefinition of housing, capable of accommodating multiple forms of fragility across the life course, and contributing to more resilient and inclusive territorial models.

Natalya Yankovska is an architect, urban planner, and public policy advisor whose practice operates at the intersection of public project management and the social architecture of housing. Trained within France’s leading urban development context in the City of Le Havre, she currently leads a team as Head of Public Building Management at the Fondation pour le Logement Social in France.

Her main activity consists of proposing the adaptive reuse of former buildings into affordable, individually habitable dwellings, integrated into village-like urban fabrics and articulated around shared spaces and local care services. Rejecting the reduction of housing to a mere building typology, she embeds social engineering into every project through resident co-design processes, neighbourhood charters, and open community spaces.

Her portfolio includes work on the UNESCO-listed Le Havre city centre, the Grand Paris Express housing plan, and the mixed-tenure renewal of the Saisons district in La Défense. She approaches architecture as a practice of care—spatial, social, and firmly territorial.

She also teaches at graduate level across European and Ukrainian institutions, with a focus on material reuse in construction, vernacular planning, and territorial foresight. Her work combines field-based inquiry with design and planning practices, emphasizing the link between empirical research and project-oriented implementation.

Partner of Kharkiv School of Architecture Public Program: Lviv Cultural Hub

Registration is mandatory – https://nethunt.com/service/automation/forms/69e7406ef72dad519f781131