Affordable housing is scarce, rent is soaring and house prices put even the most serious savers out of the market. So many would assume a scheme to build apartments on a small portion of a 300-acre field in Berlin would be welcomed with open arms. Instead, protesters prevail.

In 2013, property prices in the UK increased by over 11%. Living spaces may be getting more expensive (and smaller) but new schemes aim to make houses better connected and personally serviced too. How are people and brands reacting to the changing nature of our homes?

Seoul has embraced peer-to-peer businesses and become the sharing economy’s model city. Now, the Sharing City initiative is turning it into a blueprint for city governance. But what makes Seoul ideal for this experiment? And what’s really driving Koreans to embrace sharing?

From being accustomed to renting our homes, and that power drill you only need once, we now don’t mind renting a nail polish that someone else has already had their hands on, or not owning our washing machine. But why aren’t people so keen to own material possessions anymore?

In response to increasingly fluid definitions of home, people are projecting their identities onto their living spaces by curating, remixing and personally improving their surroundings.

A third of the 10,000 Boomers turning 65 each day are entering retirement single. The thought of being shipped off to live in a retirement home is unthinkable for many – but The Golden Girls Network offers house sharing for older single women who are still young at heart.

How often do you get your hair cut? When was the last time you ate out? Do you subscribe to Netflix? Questions more akin to filling out online dating profiles will soon be asked by mortgage providers across the UK. But is it another case of a step too far for big data?

About 40% of Hamburg's 1.8 million residents don’t own a car, so IKEA has introduced its first ‘citystore’ – an urban little sister to its sprawling, out-of-town counterparts. It’s already more popular than any other German branch, but who is this inner-city store attracting?