Against the increasing commodification of housing, a new kind of housing cooperatives has emerged in Catalonia in the last decade. These cooperatives fall within the wider concept of collaborative housing (CH), i.e. they are collectively self-organised projects based on a collaborative design process, or ‘co-design’. In such a process, residents need to adjust their individual expectations and demands in order to reach a collective set of values to realise their housing project. The aim of this paper is to assess how values are set through co-design and translated into a housing project. To do so, we develop an analytical framework to conduct a longitudinal single case-study that traces back the co-design process of the resident-led housing cooperative La Borda, in Barcelona. Our findings shed light on how co-design unfolds and uncover trade-offs carried out to overcome tensions mostly between individual and collective demands and between building costs and quality.

In the last century, the concept of what can be heritage has expanded in definition, opening to everyday architecture and living environments. More recently, the group of stakeholders to be involved in heritage assessment and management has slowly grown, with authorities acknowledging that heritage significance lies in the representation and identification for people and that people could help define it. Studying the significance of everyday residential neighbourhoods and the inclusion of individual responses creates a demand for new methods. Although in heritage studies these methods remain undefined, studies on housing preferences offer starting points for new approaches. This paper presents a significance assessment of an everyday living environment by its residents, from a new heritage perspective. By analysing individual responses, this research discusses more inclusive methods of assessing significance. A neighbourhood in the Dutch town Almere, is used as a case study. Based on a survey in diary format, residents’ appreciation of their living environment is analysed using values-attributes and means-end theory. Results show that assessments of individual residents consist of chains of tangible and intangible attributes. The paper proposes a new analytical model, the ‘Web of Attributes’, which visualizes residents’ responses and reveals the diversity and relations between the attributes best appreciated in a specific living environment. The Web of Attributes can serve as visual reporting in statements of significance, for listed and non-listed neighbourhoods. By combining theories from housing preferences and heritage significance assessment, this novel research explores narrow the gap between the assessments of heritage and everyday neighbourhoods.

With the increasing social and ecological pressures on urban settlements, re-thinking how we produce them becomes a growing concern. Due to the diversity of actors across sectors and backgrounds involved in such design processes, collaboration is of utmost importance. Co-design can thus play a crucial role in integrating aims and knowledge as an evolving institutional process toward feasible, suitable and legitimate projects. While many studies on co-design focus on one-time activities, little attention is paid to conceptualising how such processes occur, involving several actors in dynamic participatory ways. We propose a Co-Design Framework and suggest that collaboration is achieved at many levels within different design steps in the process. Analysing three Chilean public space co-design processes through the lens of our framework, we highlight the intrinsic diversity of such an approach. This study posits that three co-design arenas interact (strategic, transdisciplinary, and socio-cultural) according to their main aims to enable, inform, and legitimise the projects accordingly. Our framework contributes to conceptualising and analyzing co-design and may also be useful to plan and develop such processes in academia and practice.

Dutch residential neighbourhoods built after 1965 (Post 65) are characterised by a varied range of housing and living environments. As a reaction to the post-war Reconstruction period, architects and urban designers focussed on quality of life and identification with the living environment. Midrise housing was the compromise between high-rise and low-rise, combining quality and efficiency. Today, Post 65 residential neighbourhoods are not recognised as valuable architecture or cultural heritage. Although academic interest in Post 65 architecture is increasing, attributes of midrise typologies are understudied. Research is necessary to document and assess them, to inform stakeholders and contribute to decision making in renovation processes. The central question in this paper is: What are the urban and architectural attributes (tangible and intangible) of Dutch midrise residential neighbourhoods built after 1965? The paper discusses a comparative analysis of five residential midrise examples, focussing on building typology and visual language. The research applied mixed methods and integrates fieldwork, archival and literature research and uses 2D-matrices, juxtaposing urban and architectural attributes. Results show a variety in terms of typology and use of visual language. Two spatial organisational concepts are identified. A 'snake' shapes the urban space, and creates a front. It refers to a formal urban model in which the urban form is the starting point and the development of the building block a means to that end. A 'mesh' arranges housing units and urban space in a sprawling structure, in which a human scale living environment is the starting point. Regarding visual language, the projects show referencing to various architectural movements. This pluralism applies to the 'collection' of Post 65 midrise complexes but also to single neighbourhoods. The urban and architectural attributes are diverse, with diversity as the common denominator. Following Jencks' definitions, the Post 65 midrise neighbourhoods can therefore be regarded as Post-Modern.