Spatial Agency: Creating New Opportunities for Sharing and Collaboration in Older People’s Cohousing

Mark Hammond

doi:10.3390/urbansci2030064

Mark Hammond

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci2030064

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Abstract

Older people’s cohousing enables individuals to share spaces, resources, activities, and knowledge to expand their capability to act in society. Despite the diverse social, economic, and ethical aims that inform the creation of every cohousing community, there is often a disconnect between the social discourse developed by cohousing groups and the architectural spaces they create. This is a consequence of the building development process in cohousing, in which groups of older people are tasked with making decisions with considerable spatial implications prior to any collaboration with an architect. The concept of “spatial agency” offers an alternative model for the creation of cohousing, in which the expansion of architectural practice beyond aesthetic and technical building design enables social and spatial considerations to be explored contemporaneously. This study uses a two-year design-research collaboration with a cohousing group in Manchester, UK, to test the opportunities and constraints posed by a “spatial agency” approach to cohousing. The collaboration demonstrated how spatial agency enables both the architect and cohouser to act more creatively through a mutual sharing of knowledge, and, in doing so, tests new opportunities of sharing that are currently outside the cohousing orthodoxy.

Highlights

The cohousing model is a residential typology consisting of individual dwellings with collectively owned facilities, with most communities seeking to develop strong social bonds between residents through shared management, labour, and leisure activities
The story described how the meal would take place in a large communal dining room, a space that is ubiquitous in the cohousing orthodoxy, and demonstrated how this type of space could enable the Manchester Urban Cohousing (MUCH) group to enact the kind of social change that they could not achieve in their current individual houses
The examples discussed in this paper demonstrate how co-design processes enable older people to investigate and test how sharing might shape their urban environment, and how different spatial constraints can influence what forms of sharing are possible

Summary

Introduction

The cohousing model is a residential typology consisting of individual dwellings with collectively owned facilities, with most communities seeking to develop strong social bonds between residents through shared management, labour, and leisure activities. Urban Sci. 2018, 2, 64 seeks to apply architectural knowledge in contexts beyond the design of technical and aesthetic form, positioning the architect as one of many agents of change This new form of practice was investigated through a two-year design-research collaboration with an older people’s cohousing group in Manchester, UK, in which spatial agency was used to challenge the cohousing orthodoxy and identify opportunities for new forms of sharing within a cohousing community and within the wider city. In addition to these immediate interactions with neighbours (both inside and outside their respective communities), many cohousing groups seek to effect change on a wider city or societal level These are often as a response to a perceived social injustice, or to demonstrate that alternative models of living are possible. These issues are pertinent in relation to older people’s cohousing, where a prolonged development process might account for a significant portion of the individuals remaining years

Architecture and the Creation of Cohousing

Methodology

Design Game

Workshop Two

Findings

Discussion