In this piece for Le Monde, I call for all professions working with the built environment to design the health commons we need in the context of extreme heat, so that those most at risk are no longer the last to be protected.

« L’injustice climatique se joue étage par étage, mais aussi d’une commune du Grand Paris à l’autre »

TRIBUNE. Les outils en place depuis quelques années dans la métropole parisienne pour mettre en œuvre l’adaptation au changement climatique, s’ils sont mal calibrés, peuvent renforcer les inégalités q...

lemonde.fr

In a new @gsd.harvard.edu magazine essay, @magdamaaoui.bsky.social & @airbrycki.bsky.social unpack how the Massachusetts’ MBTA Communities Act is playing out across the state. While compliance with the law looks high, their research shows more nuance. www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/mbt...

Why Assessing the MBTA Communities Act Is More Complicated Than You Think

New Harvard GSD research shows that compliance with the Massachusetts transit-linked zoning law is more widespread than the media depicts.

harvarddesignmagazine.org

New interview in Le journal du Grand Paris: I talk about what extreme heat means for chambres de bonne, energy‑inefficient housing, and the risk of “green” micro‑gentrification—plus how insulation mandates, subsidies, and heritage rules collide on Paris’s top floors.

Careful what you wish for: back in Paris to study heat, now trapped in the canicule doing ‘embodied fieldwork’ in 40°C with no AC in sight. On the bright side, I'm available to talk to journalists about heat, its health effects, & adaptation. DM me if you don't know how to make sense of all this!

Perfect timing as New York just released its new housing plan—A new paper I co-authored with Lance Freeman and Yining Lei, AICP on the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, a legacy of de Blasio’s mandates, has recently been published in Land Use Policy. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Very excited to connect with the larger research community at Harvard by being now affiliated with the Pop Center at the Chan School of Public Health. I’ve also recently become an affiliate of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, as well as the Center for European Studies.

I have written about housing as a social contract. New Harvard Design Magazine digital piece featuring a conversation I had with Chris Herbert, Susanne Schindler, and Becca Heilman, curated by A. Krista Sykes, on what it would take to seize the momentum www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/soc...

Social housing isn’t public housing with a new name. It’s a different way to think about land, funding, design, and who our cities and housing are for. Four researchers sat down for a @gsd.harvard.edu roundtable discussion. @magdamaaoui.bsky.social www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/soc...

Social Housing, Reconsidered

Chris Herbert, Susanne Schindler, Becca Heilman, and Magda Maaoui examine what social housing is, what it could become, and hinders it.

harvarddesignmagazine.org

I’m on the jury for this award & if you have planning grad students interested in submitting a research paper, please encourage them to apply!

My hybrid but determined testimony at a recent Cambridge housing committee hearing. I was tasked with sharing evidence from Massachusetts, other states, and other cities around the world, underscoring why the 2025 multifamily zoning reform the city has adopted needs to stay in place.

A full series of posters presenting past Healthy Places Design Lab-supported speaker series at Harvard GSD’s urban planning and design department, bringing bold ideas and fresh perspectives to the conversation. Looking forward to planning more of these ✨

First time holding a copy of the Renée Gailhoustet book! Right on time for Spring flowers 🌸🪴 sneak peek snapshots of why Renée matters more than ever as we grapple with a crisis of care and an inability to build better commons. ed. NVBL + Architectural Association Publications

Social housing shouldn’t just be about unit counts—it should be about the pleasure of living. In a new blog, @magdamaaoui.bsky.social argues for renovation over demolition, designing for difference and everyday life, and for resident-led design. @gsd.harvard.edu www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/pleasur...

The Pleasure of Living: Lessons from France for US Social Housing

jchs.harvard.edu

Emmanuel Grégoire won the Paris mayoralty. A real win for Paris—and a powerful signal that a progressive coalition can still hold the capital. The other story is the inner-ring suburbs, where several pivotal city halls were won by the left, places that struggle with housing pressure + inequality.

I was recently invited by @ethz.ch’s Einstein Colloquium on Science and Policy (thank you David Kauffmann!) to present this research on the geography of rental deserts, co-authored with Whitney Airgood-Obrycki and Sophia Wedeen. Read the paper here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Rental deserts, segregation, and zoning

Restrictive zoning and NIMBY attitudes have left nearly a third of neighborhoods across the United States with few options for renters. The concentration of rental housing in some neighborhoods and...

tandfonline.com

New-ish paper, in 🇫🇷, with my beloved friend and co-author @noranafaa.bsky.social! We explore frameworks that can equally serve research on North American housing, school access, and neighborhood health outcomes for the Revue Internationale de Sèvres. journals.openedition.org/ries/16682

Les écoles, de nouvelles aménités urbaines aux États-Unis ?

S’interroger sur la place des écoles en ville aux États-Unis, c’est invoquer toute une histoire urbaine, sociale et raciale construite sur des logiques de ségrégation dès le xixe siècle et reconfig...

journals.openedition.org

Thanks for featuring my podcast episode on Lessons from French housing in the monthly newsletter, @columbiagsapp.bsky.social!

For colleagues still tweaking their syllabi for the semester: I recently reviewed Sara Bronin's Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes our World, for the Journal of Urban Affairs. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Key to the city: How zoning shapes our world, by Sara C. Bronin

Published in Journal of Urban Affairs (Ahead of Print, 2025)

tandfonline.com

Join us for this semester's At Home and Abroad speaker series, co-organized by the GSD Healthy Places Design Lab, and Healthy places GSD! @amydain.bsky.social @gsd.harvard.edu

Join us for this semester's Planning for Health speaker series, co-organized by the Harvard GSD Healthy Places Design Lab, and Healthy places GSD! @joeallenjoe.bsky.social @gsd.harvard.edu @biobotanalytics.bsky.social

I always start by the acknowledgements section when I read nonfiction. It’s a passion of mine. I do it as meticulously as when I watch the pilot episode of a show, pause and reflect, without jumping into the second episode just yet. I could write an entire essay on pilots and acknowledgments.

Last year, I gave a guest lecture at the London School of Economics about my research at the nexus of housing and health. Immense thank you to colleagues in the sociology department Giulia Torino and David Madden for such a warm welcome.Excited to be sharing this published conceptual paper soon.

For colleagues still tweaking their syllabi for the semester, here's a book recommendation from me: I recently reviewed Cole Stangler Stangler's Paris Is Not Dead: Surviving Gentrification in the City of Light, for the Journal of Planning Education and Research: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Review: Paris Is Not Dead: Surviving Gentrification in the City of Light, by Stangler, Cole - Magda Maaoui, 2025

journals.sagepub.com

À la veille des élections municipales 2026 en France, heureuse d’avoir co-signé cette tribune dans Le Monde, en tant que membre du collectif Tous Grands Parisiens www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...

Elections municipales 2026 : « Nous pensons qu’il est temps d’élire un ou une maire du Grand Paris »

TRIBUNE. Le collectif Tous Grands Parisiens estime, dans une tribune au « Monde », que les réponses à de nombreuses attentes citoyennes et aux injustices territoriales ne sont possibles qu’à des échel...

lemonde.fr

In an episode of the podcast Housing After Dark, @alexschafran.bsky.social sits down with our former postdoc @magdamaaoui.bsky.social to unpack what the U.S. can learn from France’s approach to housing. @gsd.harvard.edu open.spotify.com/episode/1gY0...

Housing After Dark Episode 21: Magda Maaoui on Lessons for American Housers: Why France and the US are More Similar Than We Think

open.spotify.com

The London opening of the Renée Gailhoustet exhibition at the Architectural Association was featured in another article: www.wallpaper.com/architecture... The book, to which I contributed, will be out in March 2026!

Explore architect Renée Gailhoustet’s radical social housing

The Algerian-French architect created bespoke designs such as Le Liegat in Paris; explore her legacy at a London exhibition

wallpaper.com

Magda Maaoui, PhD@magdamaaoui.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Friends in London! New exhibit "Renée Gailhoustet: A Thousand and One Ways of Living" this Friday at the AA. Precedes the release of Renée Gailhoustet, a new book by NVBL, to which I contributed a piece on Gailhoustet's unique role in producing healthy social housing throughout the late 20th century

It’s tonight!

Magda Maaoui, PhD@magdamaaoui.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Friends in London! New exhibit "Renée Gailhoustet: A Thousand and One Ways of Living" this Friday at the AA. Precedes the release of Renée Gailhoustet, a new book by NVBL, to which I contributed a piece on Gailhoustet's unique role in producing healthy social housing throughout the late 20th century

Friends in London! New exhibit "Renée Gailhoustet: A Thousand and One Ways of Living" this Friday at the AA. Precedes the release of Renée Gailhoustet, a new book by NVBL, to which I contributed a piece on Gailhoustet's unique role in producing healthy social housing throughout the late 20th century

Friends in London! New exhibit "Renée Gailhoustet: A Thousand and One Ways of Living" this Friday at the AA. Precedes the release of Renée Gailhoustet, a new book by NVBL, to which I contributed a piece on Gailhoustet's unique role in producing healthy social housing throughout the late 20th century

My fellow French and Canadian housers have lately been tuning into very detailed New York City housing politics & provision mechanisms. I gave this interview to make sense of the history, and the future, of New York's housing landscape to European audiences: www.mediapart.fr/journal/inte...

Zohran Mamdani ou le pari gagnant du logement

En plaçant au cœur de sa campagne la question du logement, Zohran Mamdani a réussi à mobiliser un électorat populaire qui s’est depuis longtemps détourné des urnes. Habituellement relégué au second p…

mediapart.fr