Save by Sharing
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Collective housing aims to simplify everyday life through shared common spaces and facilities while promoting sustainable lifestyles. Sharing items like tools, workshops, and subscriptions across 15-40 households can save 10% of normal private space usage. The Stolplyckan model in Linköping includes 184 apartments divided into staircases, 2000 square meters of common space, and municipal child and elderly services. Collective housing traditionally appealed to well-educated 1940s workers and families but now includes a more diverse mix like single mothers and seniors. Individualism may reduce health by limiting social interaction, while communal spaces can foster local tasks, organization, and economy for improved well-being.
Save by Sharing
- 1. Saving by Sharing Collective Housing for Sustainable Lifestyles by Prof. Emer. Dick Urban Vestbro, KTH, Stockholm; March2010 Presentation based on • Research on cohousing 1964 - today • Teaching of house planning and design • Experience as an activist, chairman of Swedish association Cohousing NOW
- 2. Concepts and Aims Concepts Aims Cohousing (Durrett & McCa- • Simplify everyday life, esp. mant, based on DK exp.) to combine family life and Collaborative housing job (gender equality) (Fromm) • Demand for moderate Collective housing (incl. servi- sense of community ces through employed staff) • Access to common spaces Communes (without individual and facilities such as guest apartments) rooms, club rooms , work- Intentional Communities shops , tools etc • Promote sustainable (Eco-villages) (Cooperative housing) lifestyles
- 3. Historical development of communal living ideas Cohousing Smaller communities Oneida Communes Shakers Eco-villages Kibbutzim Bofælleskab Self-work (DK) model Robert Owen (GB) Collective Charles Fourier (F) housing 2nd half Godin’s fami- (Sovjet) of life m. listère (F) Apartment hotels (USA) Senior Collective Service housing Central kit- housing (SE) housing chen h. Family hotels (elderly) 1800 1900 2000 Blue = rational society; Red = ideal life; Green = ecological or other goals
- 4. How much can be saved by sharing? • 15 households abstaining 10% of normal private space allows access to 120 sqm common space • 40 households abstaining 10% of normal private space allows access to 320 sqm common space • Access to common spaces may motivate fewer private rooms • Possible to share cars, expen- sive tools, workshops, compost, newspaper subscriptions, library etc.
- 5. The Stolplyckan model, Linköping • 184 apartments, divided into staircase units • 10% reduction of apts • 2000 sqm common spaces • Municipal service as a base (care of children, elderly) • Own cooking in evenings
- 6. Collective housing - for sustainable lifestyles The ’commons’ dilemma’: as an individual it feels meaningless to do something for the environment, but as a collective it may be enjoyable and meaningful In collective housing one may share news paper subscriptions, expensive tools, guest rooms, laser writers, books, children’s clothes, toys etc. Cultivation, Prästgårdshagen Alotments gardens, Fristad Composting, Phagen Ecological food, Tullstugan
- 7. Things residents can do together Breakfast club, study circle, parents’ café, culti- vation, subscription to papers, kate flying, disco, mascerade, karaoke, children’s parties, movies, playing games, art work, music, photo, carpen- try, ceramics, badminton, indoor bandy, sauna, weaving, composting, pancake parties, billard, flea markets, barbecues, repair sessions, book Oiling furniture, Tullstugan clubs, poetry evening, excursions. Carpentry, Phagen Textile work, Fristad Weaving, Fristad Cleaning stairs, Phagen
- 8. Which categories prefer collective living? Earlier: well educated people born in the 1940s, working in pub- lic sector, women, families with children, ’postmaterialists’ Today: as above but more mixed, not as ideological, single mothers, elderly. Anti-consumerists? Sign board reflects alternative movement ideas Resident meeting, Prästgårdshagen, Stockholm Garden party, Blenda, Uppsala
- 9. Individualism replacing kinship ties and need for company? • 75% one& two person households today • Increase of small households continues • Does individualism help people to live alone? • Do people get enough company from work, associations, eating out, visiting friends? “Household explosion” Living alone reduces health and wellbeing
- 10. Theory of gender and communal space From “The New Everyday Life - ways and means”, 1991 & Oscar Newman: ’Defensible Space’ 1974 Patriarchal view: separate Female view: local quali- functions, big gestures, ties, human scale inte- abstract forms grated functions In-between level - Local tasks - Local organisation - Local economy Private cells + monumen- Semiprivate & communal spaces for local social life & tal public places crime prevention