BY UPLIFTING PEOPLE AS PROSUMERS, DESIGNERS CAN FACILITATE BETTER LIVING. HERE’S WHY

by : Floor Kuitert

Marthijn Pool – cofounder of Space&Matter, an Amsterdam-based design studio specialized in sustainable architecture, circular area development and vision-making – speaks on the pitfalls of co-living as a trend, how to engage people in design processes effectively, and why doing so shapes more circular projects.

What new modes or models of collective living are you witnessing in today’s urban landscape? 

MARTHIJN POOL: Co-living and shared living are big trends. However from a critical standpoint I often see these terms used as an excuse to make the sizes of apartments and studios smaller, with rent increasing. This is a very negative development, since the people living in these so-called co-living spaces still experience loneliness and don’t feel they are part of a community. The sharing economy has brought us some great platforms and initiatives, but shifting from ownership to as-a-service model does not necessarily make our cost of living more affordable. Nor does it reduce the amount of resources that are used in the production processes. Look to the piles of electrical scooters in cities for example. The amount of high-demand resources being used in this way is not the way forward.

Marthijn Pool.

We aim for the use of technology – and the resulting ease of making new connections – as a 21st-century opportunity to have people engage in the early stage of the development and design process, allowing us to genuinely democratize decision-making. Technology helps us to lower the threshold to interact with people to become future residents of our projects. And the collective is a strong organizational form to converge residents into (in)formal groups that have a dialogue with us. In the process we make people interact with us professionals, but also and foremost to stimulate interaction amongst each other. Because as we say: ‘These people might be your future neighbors.’ How cool is it to already build the social tissue as the foundation for the project to be realized in the near future?

As you say, in cities people live near one another, but not necessarily in close connection. Which opportunities do you see for the design of urban housing to facilitate social connections and cultivate stronger communities post-build? 

In the Netherlands we have an expression: ‘It’s better to have nice neighbours nearby instead of good friends faraway.’ It says a lot about the impact neighbours have on the level of appreciation of the built environment. Architecture cannot make people happy in an instant – it’s not a cure for loneliness, for example. But the open architectural process that results can have a lot of positive impact on the built environment. If we allow people to actively engage in the design and decision-making process, especially early on in a development, we build a sense of ownership, pride and belonging.

Born from a development competition held by the City of Amsterdam, Circular City House is a winning concept for a sustainable and mixed-use building serving as an accessible meeting point for locals.

When a strong sense of community emerges, we can also start suggesting more radical spatial alternatives, such as making people think about sharing a guestroom and skipping the additional room for guest in their private domain. The same can happen with sharing electric vehicles and lowering the amount of parking spaces. And roof terrace can be spacious and nicely designed if collectively owned; otherwise, it’s a high-quality asset one could individually not always afford. 

In dealing with such participatory design, how do you teach local citizens and stakeholders to think like urban planners?

We don’t train citizens to think like urban planners. We don’t see the need to. We actively engage in conversations and consider ourselves the ‘translators’ and scenario builders. We very frequently ask ‘What if. . .’. It’s a phrase suggesting a certain outcome, allowing for an honest reaction in a balanced dialogue. We’ve seen architects and planners communicate differently and actually project a certain belief on a project. That’s not our approach. We see designing as an act of properly curating the process of emergence from lots of small interactions and conversations. Almost like form-finding within a limitless set of parameters.

Your initiative Co-Operate rethinks the way community-led housing projects are developed, owned and stewarded. Why do you believe that’s needed?

Co-Operate emerges from the notion that ‘the market’ is a strong effect that is not in favour of the generations to come. So, we started researching and developing models for multiple generations to profit from the virtue of succeeding in realizing affordable housing. In essence it means that we realize an apartment block that is not privately owned, but community owned – or, rather, steward-owned by the community. The building must become the owner of itself. We set-up legal frameworks that enable us to prevent future speculation with the specific type of building. Doing so we eliminate the market effects on housing.

A visualization for a community-based high-rise in Amsterdam, The Urban Tree Village centres on proactive co-living in space-limited places.

Can you explain why, and how a social dimension contributes to shaping more circular projects?

We believe and have learned that a strong social network is vital for a project’s ambitions to come to fruition. Aiming for an energy-neutral living environment unleashes a lot of technology that supports us in doing so. But it’s more important to add consumer behaviour to the equation, since behaviour represents more than 30 per cent of impact on energy reduction. We believe in creating awareness and building consciousness – explaining the efforts it takes to make a household energy-neutral and giving ‘control’ to residents themselves. It engages them in living up to goals we’ve set as a society.

Instead, we see consumers as prosumers. The house they live in is the actual energy-plant; in an apartment complex you’re partly shareholder of the ‘energy cooperative’. And being a shareholder of the production, you become aware of the amount of energy produced and the amount of energy consumed. The amount energy available is considered a commons. Since we cannot guarantee unlimited energy, the building block depends on consumers to be in balance in times of scarcity. To create this feedback loop, we need to build dashboards and allow information to be freely accessible. People need agency in order to act correspondingly. The agent and building are both dynamic entities. This ‘living-organism’ results in a very strong bi-directional relationship: the building can take care of its residents, while the resident will take good care of the building.

What are your hopes for the future of urban housing and collective living?   

I have high hopes. We are entering a new real estate crisis. Whether it’s fast or slow, I don’t know. The good thing is that a crisis shakes up the status quo. In my humble opinion the real estate market in the ‘status quo’ is not serving our society. So, I am an optimist – and kind of an activist – with a strong belief that times will change.

Cover image: Currently under construction, Common Woods is a circular 56-home neighbourhood in the historic Nimmerdor forest of Amersfoort, the Netherlands, aimed at becoming the most sustainable in Europe.