What Is Co-Housing? Developing a Conceptual Framework from the Studies of Danish Intergenerational Co-Housing

ABSTRACT

Co-housing forms part of a collaborative housing trend receiving increased interest. The physical layout of co-housing (bofællesskab in Danish) comprise several independent homes in combination with shared spaces and facilities, which support living together, balancing privacy and communality. In Denmark, self-organised groups have established co-housing ever since the early 1970s in different forms and types. Due to the complexity of how these communities have been arranged over time, co-housing includes great variety, which can be challenging when exploring the concept. The paper proposes an empirical and conceptual approach to the emerging literature on intergenerational co-housing, by developing a multi-dimensional spatial framework combined with an investigation of the different designing types of co-housing. By presenting an analysis of Danish intergenerational co-housing, the paper fills an empirical and conceptual gap in the existing co-housing literature, which usually makes references to Danish experiences or analyses some single cases, but rarely explore these more systematically.

KEYWORDS:

• Concept of co-housing
• spatiality
• visions
• organisation
• communality
• design

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. “Open spaces” implies opening up spaces to share between residents (Vedel-Petersen, Jantzen, and Ranten 1988).

2. Christiania is not co-housing, but rather a free town community, referred to for historical reasons.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Housing investment Foundation [3];The Danish Innovation Fund [1];The National Building Fund [2].