Designing communities : an architectural approach to intentional community housing

Abstract

RESEARCH QUESTIONS: How can we design buildings to build communities encouraging social interaction in future?

Does the design influence social interaction in cohousing?

Can the impact of design be enhanced by the personal characteristics of residents or the formal social structures operating in a suburban housing module?

ABSTRACT: People are social beings that need to interact with each other for survival. Interaction of people leads to a lot of positive things. More hands can accomplish a task easily and quickly while interacting with each other leads to inventing simple solutions to problems and speed in solving them. Technology over time has increased opportunities for social contact while reducing physical and social interactions among people. People have started treating social networking sites as their ‘Virtual Life’

This research is premised around the understanding that there is an architectural problem, the lack of socially cohesive spaces in suburban residential developments. The research will suggest that social interaction is important in day today life. How disappearing social interaction can be adressed through architectural solutions. The project tries to develop a set of systems and design strategies based on the principles of Cohousing. The proposition is to provide a housing solution which encourages social interaction within the residents and challenge the way we live in a typical suburban residential setting.