Architectural plans submitted for a low-cost housing design competition by various Belgian architects and ‘Comités de Patronage’, low-cost housing and social welfare institutions, --the forerunners of social housing associations.
Throughout the 19th century the literature of hygienists and reformists abounds with projects and proposals for the ‘ideal working-class house’, i.e. one that meets the requirements of morality, hygiene and the lowest possible cost. At the turn of the 1880s and 1890s, the social housing movement began to gain momentum in Belgium, and following the Belgian workers' revolt of 1886, a law was passed in 1889 to allow workers easier access to home ownership. The years following saw the development of social housing projects.