The social logic of space: community and detachment

This chapter argues that co-housing is a spatial organization that over a long time has shown some important characteristics, and that there is what could be called a ’social logic of space’ in co-housing. Two processes in the creation of ’commitment’ to a collective are identified: on the one hand, ’detaching’ from the surrounding context and, on the other hand, ’attaching’ to the collective. The early predecessors of co-housing were all complex internal spatial organizations detached from the urban context and placed as ’buildings in the park’. Co-housing projects from the 1970s and onwards have in turn been described as coming in two ’models’: the ’Danish’ cluster of low-rise houses and the ’Swedish’ high-rise multi-family building. The Danish model is quite widespread in the Anglo-Saxon world. Using some central concepts in Hillier and Hanson’s space syntax, it will here be questioned whether these seemingly different two models of co-housing are really spatially different as far as ‘internal’ community and ‘external’ detachment is concerned. The chapter ends with a discussion of how co-housing can deal dialectically with the potentially vicious circle between ‘internal’ community and ‘external’ detachment.

Hagbert, Pernilla,1986 (author)
Wasshede, Cathrin,1967Gothenburg University,Göteborgs universitet,Institutionen för sociologi och arbetsvetenskap,Department of Sociology and Work Science(Swepub:gu)xwasca (author)
Göteborgs universitetInstitutionen för sociologi och arbetsvetenskap (creator_code:org_t)

In:Contemporary Co-housing in Europe Towards Sustainable Cities? Hagbert, P., Larsen, H. G., Thörn, H. and Wasshede, C. (eds.)London : Routledge, s. 163-1829780429450174

By the author/editor: Caldenby, Claes; Hagbert, Pernill ...; Wasshede, Cathri ...

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