Beyond collective property: a typology of collaborative housing in Europe

Abstract

Collaborative housing is generally defined by what it is not: it is neither solely private tenure nor fully state-run public housing. As a result, housing studies have not fully captured the great diversity of collaborative housing forms. This article develops a complex typology of collaborative housing based on an analysis of 100 cases from Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany. We identify differentiating features across three key dimensions: the architecture of the estate, the institutional set-up of its property rights, and the values motivating the collective inhabiting and managing of the estate. We then apply our typology using the case of the 4Stelle Hotel, a collaborative housing estate in Rome. This study lays the foundations for future international comparative research that moves beyond the reductive understanding of collaborative housing as property sharing.