ABSTRACT
Collectively build and self-managed housing clusters, co-housing for short, emerge as a renewed housing typology that raises many expectations for creating vivid social networks and healthy environments (Parasote 2011; Krokfors 2012; Vestbro 2010). Cohousing or Centraal Wonen has gained momentum in the 1980s and now forms an international network of living with shared spaces in a variety of management forms (Hoofwijk and Felder 2012). The persistent attention of researchers hints that there is an important message in co-housing as innovators of housing provision, co-habitation (social cohesion) and sustainable environmental technology. Especially, the interaction and involvement of inhabitants makes co-housing different from classical condominiums or co-ownership. The notion of ‘participation’ is not only challenged but gaining new intensity through co-housing practices. Nevertheless, the value and contribution of co-housing initiatives to housing provision and sustainable urban development, both quantitative and qualitative, has so far not been assessed beyond case-study level. This omission is partly due to the ‘idealist’ connotation of co-housing that makes housing professionals dismiss the model as only suitable for driven minorities or elite groups. Another part of the explanation is the manyfold appearances of co-housing: what to include into the statistics or not? In this article,
the overall term co-housing is used to indicate a wider scope than strictly the model of the international cohousing association1 to include various initiatives of residents groups collectively creating living arrangements that are not easily available on the (local) housing market, such as the French Habitat Participatif; German Baugruppen and Dutch Collectief Particulier Opdrachtgeverschap. The article is based on literature research in France, Netherlands and Germany, as well as field trips including several other EU countries and in-depth case-studies performed in the Netherlands in 2011-2012.
