The housing sector is in desperate need of innovative thinking. In response to the housing crisis MVRDV has released a co-living design study, which researches and catalogues various typologies to create new opportunities for this emerging way of living that engenders lively neighbourhoods. Created in collaboration with developer HUB and sustainable and impact investor Bridges Fund Management, the study proposes new solutions which reflect and incorporate societal attitudes towards sharing, community, flexibility, mobility, and working from home, while responding to the problems of climate change, a lack of affordability, and poor management. This series of ideas expands the options available to designers and builders of co-living projects, from new developments to repurposed buildings and spaces, for differing demographics, lifestyles, and communities.

Image © MVRDV

The housing crisis is a global challenge compounded by a variety of issues, and which requires new thinking and new solutions. In the UK, a social crisis and the need to address climate change add to a serious housing shortage. Responses to these challenges have produced housing which stubbornly recreates the status quo, neither correcting the shortfall nor creating sufficient affordable homes, nor addressing the need for community or ameliorating loneliness. Considering deep, concurrent changes to demographics, societal attitudes, and the ways in which we work, play, and travel, what if stakeholders were provided with a catalogue of ideas in which many, if not all of these issues could be answered?

Image © MVRDV

This Co-living Design study, commissioned by HUB and Bridges and created by MVRDV, acknowledges shared living’s long history while adding an array of new ideas suitable for implementation today. At the heart of the co-living model is the idea of communal spaces, from shared facilities providing access to equipment far beyond what would ordinarily be available in an individual home, to creating natural opportunities for residents and visitors to meet, form relationships, and build communities. The study shows how the co-living model allows buildings to serve the needs of communities of different shapes and sizes through strategies such as providing a guest room for visitors to incorporating event spaces, gardens, or co-working rooms to deliver for the broader community.

The study was inspired by HUB and Bridges’ growing shared portfolio of office-to-residential conversions, with many being designed as co-living schemes. The pair recently unveiled plans for a landmark 174-home City of London co-living retrofit development adjacent to London’s iconic Barbican estate, following the announcement of an £88m forward-funding deal with CDL for a 209-home West London co-living scheme.

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Damien Sharkey, Managing Director of HUB said: “This study highlights the huge number of benefits co-living can deliver when designed in the right way – and helps us to define what exactly ‘the right way’ is. While it’s seen as an emerging typology in some markets, communal living has existed in different forms throughout history. What we’re looking at now is its role in the modern context of cities, and defining best practice in terms of design and delivery. The potential for positive impact can go beyond residents out into wider communities, which is something we are striving to deliver with our developments in the UK. This is what we see as the next generation of co-living: a lower impact, sustainable and community-centred lifestyle in high quality, well-located homes.”

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Bounded by the concept of ‘social spaciousness’, which introduces residents to neighbours through accidental encounters, the study offers examples for both adapting existing buildings and spaces, and developing new, sustainable, resilient structures. The fifteen typologies presented comprise a selection of diverse arrangements of homes and communal spaces. Based on repetitive volumes for ease and affordability of construction, each also supports a wide array of floorplans. This includes a “Stacked village” in which each floor possesses a distinct character that collectively result in a vertical village, and “Vibrant Heart”, where collective spaces are thoughtfully arranged to ensure accessibility to a shared area from each residential level. All corridors within these typologies become the “streets” of the building, creating new functions for previously often empty, dark, low-ceilinged spaces such as sports, libraries, and shop windows, and making them social. 

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In a further demonstration of the flexibility of community living, the study assesses the feasibility of not simply delivering new builds, but also how existing buildings such as vacant, low-quality office buildings and stranded assets can be transformed while preserving the character of the original structure. This approach is crucial in addressing the housing crisis and the climate crisis simultaneously, as transforming buildings releases significantly less carbon than demolishing and replacing an existing structure. With space for new housing developments scarce in urban areas, flat rooftops provide additional capacity for the creation of rooftop villages. Leftover or oddly shaped plots are given new leases of life through the creation of indoor or outdoor spaces, providing a choice between a new communal open area or multiple enclosed rooms.

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“In addressing the needs of the housing sector, we looked closely at how society is changing – topics such as the increase in single households and loneliness, and a lack of community. The ideas we present in this book put co-living schemes on the agenda as vibrant points for their neighbourhoods and cities by inviting the public in, not shutting it out”, says MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas. “Cities from London to Lagos are impacted by the housing and climate crises, and with our approach, we offer proposals that are applicable globally, and which can create gracious residences possessing similar qualities to our ideal homes, and move away from the concept that this is a solution only for expats.”

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The book concludes by extending the boundaries of the study, envisaging a future in which cities are threatened by the effects of climate change, whether rendered inhospitable in hot summers or subject to flooding or biodiversity loss. These future risks are turned into opportunities, while delivering extraordinary buildings. From vertical farm cities to autarkic towers which are wholly self-sufficient and independent, and from biodiversity towers to vertical 15-minute cities which flips the existing horizontal concept, the challenges tomorrow’s cities face instead become a platform for progress.

See more images from the co-living design study here.