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Abstract:
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"This research looks at two developments in contemporary Europe: on the one hand the
transition towards renewable energy with decentralised sources; on the other the increase
of grass-root initiatives for collaborative housing (co-housing). Co-housing is the overall
term for groups of households that together manage their living environment. From recent
research on co-housing in Europe it becomes clear that most initiatives consider
themselves pioneers for energy-transition.
From this combination of trends, the question arises how the design of co-housing can
match the decentralised energy flows, in a way that supports collaborative selfmanagement.
Compared to the conventional ways of housing provision, and to singlefamily
units, sharing the building volume and managing the buildings’ utilities holds extra
opportunities to optimize the energy-household, for example: creating critical mass to
enable investments, implement recycling mechanisms, organise collective learning or
divide tasks in managing and monitoring. This paper relates the specific built form to the
organization of self-governance and the patterns of living in co-housing. It is based on
field-studies in different generations of Dutch co-housing projects, gathering information
on grass-root initiatives through interviews as well as participative research. The
conclusions argue that the application of renewable sources can be optimised as a direct
result of the social architecture of co-housing. The use of common (shared) utilities and
equipment can however only be successful when the self-management aspects are taken
into account during design phases."
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