Centraal Wonen Delft

Abstract

Alternative forms of dwelling, and collaborative housing models in particular, are again gaining an increasing amount of interest in the architectural discourse. Although not a new topic, there is a noticeable lack of research on how existing cohousing projects, that were established decades ago, have developed in practice. Among other counties in northern Europe, the Netherlands experienced a rise of cohousing communities in the early nineteen-eighties, many of which still exist today. One example for this is the project of Centraal Wonen Delft, which was chosen as a case study for this thesis. Completed in 1981, it was part of a larger national movement called Centraal Wonen (CW) and was particularly experimental in its layout and spatial organization in the context of that time.
As society shifts continuosly over time, the design intentions of CW Delft might no longer comply with the lifestyle of its residents fourty years after completion. To test this hypothesis the author conducted interviews with multiple residents and two of the founders. Further, the results of qualitative research methods including field notes, observations and photographic documentation were compared to historical documents, such as blueprints and images. The results showed that, while many of the initial intentions of collaborative living do not match the outcomes observed today, CW Delft as a whole can yet be seen as a successful project that is home to a thriving and diverse community to this day.
The observations suggest that, together with its residents, the project was able to naturally evolve in time, particularly when the design of shared spaces was not too strongly attached to a certain ideology. On this basis, the design of spatial concepts in cohousing should consider a flexible approach that is not tied to specific social structures.