Sign up to our newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter for all the latest new and updates.

Become a member

Membership of Type allows unlimited access to our online library. Join to support new research and writing on the design of the built environment.

You can read more about membership here.

Become a member

Already a member? Login to your account to avail of unlimited downloads.

Co-habitations and co-productions: translating housing models

Dougal Sheridan

8/5/2023

One Good Idea

Can an approach of co-production to multi-residential environments offer more than an atomised accumulation of individual units and traverse the polarised perception of house vs apartment, as ingrained in the Irish national psyche?

Example of Translating Housing case study: Ritterstr 50. Graphic techniques were developed to map all shared spaces and facilities, communal and private outdoor spaces, and to visually represent project data including programmatic mixture, costs, funding model, etc.

These forms of self-organised housing are customised to residents’ needs, and by eliminating the risk – and associated profit margins – of building investors/developers, the buildings that emerge are generally of a higher quality and more cost-effective than traditional alternatives.

At a time when housing has become such a pressing social, economic, and political issue, it is important to ask the questions: how do we actually want to live together? And how do the places we live in get produced? Examining international examples of innovative, self-determined housing reveals the fundamental connection between modes of production and habitation.

How can our domestic environments reflect emergent patterns of daily life to create resilient social spatial configurations? Can multi-residential environments offer more than an atomised accumulation of individual units and traverse the polarity of the house vs the apartment; a polarity evident in housing typologies in Ireland and ingrained in the national psyche? Challenging the established model requires alternatives to reductive developer-led/market-driven housing provision which distorts our relationship to the places we inhabit by turning them into high-risk commodities.

The Translating Housing research project briefly described in this article sought to explore these questions by analysing a series of Berlin-based case studies of diverse and innovative approaches to housing typologies, financing, and development models, in particular various forms of co-housing.

Ritterstrasse 50. Photo credit: Andrew Alberts

These Baugruppen (building groups) and particular forms of Baugenossenschaften (building co-operatives) have involved groups of people coming together to secure sites or empty buildings, design their future homes collectively, and in some case participate in aspects of the building process. These forms of self-organised housing are customised to residents’ needs regarding size, layout, interior fit-out, etc. By eliminating the risk – and associated profit margins – of building investors/developers, the buildings that emerge from these processes are generally of a higher quality and more cost-effective than traditional alternatives.

 

Baugruppen projects effectively divide the finished building into individual apartments within a larger framework as collectively agreed by all residents. Baugenossenschaften provide affordable housing in the middle ground between ownership and rented accommodation, such that cooperative members are simultaneously both landlords and tenants, and the building is effectively independent of the free market’s speculative circle [1].

 

The negotiation inherent to such projects allows the tensions and potentials sparked by individual and shared needs and aspirations to be explored. Amenities that would not be financially feasible for individual households – shared roof terraces, collective kitchens, guest apartments, common gardens, shared workspaces, etc. – are made possible by collective investment. These resources support the social resilience and flexibility of collective housing models, and were particularly valuable during COVID-19 lockdowns [2].

 

The diversity of dwelling types typical of these medium- to high-density residential typologies is often coupled with a reciprocal flexibility, allowing rooms or spaces to be transferred, or dwelling units to being swapped as residents up-scale, down-scale, or adjust their live-work configurations. The Ritterstrasse 50 project, by architects Ifau and Jesko Fezer and Heide and von Beckerath, for client GbR Ritterstrasse 50, is a good example of how this designed flexibility works. Simplicity in the building’s volume, structural strategy, and services design allows for highly personalised internal spatial configurations, with no two apartment layouts being the same.  

Plan comparison of different floors of Ritterstr. 50 showing how careful design provides flexibility, allowing all unit arrangements to be individualised. Supplied by architects Ifau and Jesko Fezer and Heide and von Beckerath

Ritterstrasse 50 also illustrates the significance of shared spaces and facilities. Its generous common areas include a 159m2 two-storey common area in the lobby, a roof terrace with summer kitchen, a laundry room, a shared wrap-around balcony, and a garden.

Our Translating Housing research developed a methodology to illustrate the location and relationship of such spaces to the building’s organisation. These drawings are cross-referenced to specially developed graphic representations of the density, construction and site costs, programmatic mixture, shared and private amenity provision, and the organisational and funding models of each project. This methodology foregrounds the interconnection between design intent and underlying financial and organisational models, as it is only through an understanding of these interrelationships that the case studies can inform our thinking in other contexts.

Berlin’s development authority plays an important role in facilitating these self-generating projects: by strategically using its own land assets, and by accommodating smaller networks, not just large housing providers. These strategies could be instructive for Ireland, as has been outlined by SOA (Self-Organised Architecture) [3] who suggest that such state facilitation could take the form of sale or allocation by lease of public land for community-led housing initiatives based on such European models [4].

For example, at Ritterstrasse, a ‘concept-driven’ sales process was used, meaning the site was sold not for the highest offered price, but for the best value for the city in terms of social, architectural, urban, and environmental criteria. Ritterstrasse 50 was selected because it proposed giving back part of the site as green space to the surrounding housing. Its emphasis on collective spaces and participatory planning processes was seen as an example of best practice for urban housing; a practice of people making the city and in so doing taking responsibility for it.

At Ritterstrasse, a ‘concept-driven’ sales process was used, meaning the site was sold not for the highest offered price, but for the best value for the city in terms of social, architectural/urban, and environmental criteria.

One Good Idea is a series of articles which focuses on the simple, concise discussion of a complex spatial issue. Each piece is presented as a starting point towards a topic that the author believes should be part of broader public discourse. For all enquiries and potential contributors, please contact eimear.arthur@type.ie.

One Good Idea is supported by the Arts Council through the Architecture Project Award Round 2 2022

References

1. D. Englert, ‘Sozialwohnungen als Renditeobjekte’, Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 14 February 2011.

2. D. Kleilein, 'Urbanität in der Krise: Die Stadt nach Corona', Taz, 29 July 2020, p. 2.

3. SOA is a not-for-profit action research collaborative working to establish community-led housing in Ireland.

4. SOA Research CLG, LAND: Roadmapping a viable community-led housing sector for Ireland. Available to download at: www.soa.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roadmapping_clh_land.pdf. Accessed 4 May 2023.

5. K. Ring, AA Projects, and Senatsverwaltungfür Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt, Selfmade City Berlin: Stadtgestaltung und Wohnprojekte in Eigeninitiative, Berlin, Jovis Verlag, 2013, p. 203.

Contributors

Dougal Sheridan

Dougal Sheridan is a founding member of LiD Architecture, an award-winning architecture practice, established in 2003 and the author/ editor of the book "Translating Housing Berlin-Belfast: Innovative Housing Provision – Precedents and Proposals", on which this article draws. The book contains six case studies exploring the wider context and themes of housing provision, including examples of their interpretation within the NI/Irish context though projects developed at the Urban Design Studio at the University of Ulster. The publication also includes the financial and organisational modelling of selected projects. "Translating Housing" is available online at www.nihe.gov.uk and www.lid-architecture.net.

Updates

Website by Good as Gold.