ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the process and purpose of involving future residents in the design of their new homes, and how the intense method both affects the physical outcome and helps to build new communities. A developer might commission the design, obtain the necessary consents and construct an apartment building or a terrace of houses, except for the internal fitting out. The co-design process helps to build a ready-made community to share the running of the project after its completion. The physical and psychological occupation of space and attachment to place is the ongoing activity of ‘design by living’, in which most professional designers will only exceptionally play a long-term role – a great loss for learning. With its fabric-first design approach, Marmalade Lane is a sustainable new community. A new site-specific cohousing group was recruited by Cambridge Architectural Research, whose architects worked for six months with the emerging group to develop a detailed design brief.
