Amid a significant global housing shortage and an increase in urban growth, the residential phenomenon of co-living is expanding, fostering a community-based lifestyle where socialization becomes a fundamental principle. Resources, values, interests, and experiences are shared, creating new ways of living. While co-living buildings also incorporate spaces for individuality, this new form of communal domesticity emerges as a viable alternative suitable for diverse users, not only students or young adults but also older residents, promoting efficient space utilization and intergenerational interaction.
In recent decades, numerous professionals in architecture, design, and urban planning have taken on the challenge of exploring new ideas and philosophies of living, where harmonious coexistence among residents enables the creation of environments that address sustainable and environmentally efficient variables, as well as resourceful and material-conscious solutions tailored to users' needs. For example, MVRDV's new design study focuses on investigating various typologies that, through communal living, can shape the future of housing. By addressing contemporary living needs, the climate crisis, and affordability issues, the studio aims to foster inclusion and community participation, whether in new constructions, adaptively reused existing structures or underutilized spaces.
Although, as Eduardo Souza argues, the term co-living originated in Denmark in the 1970s, the concept has since expanded globally with proposals that aim to innovate and require rethinking what models of cities, neighborhoods, and housing need to be designed to improve the quality of life in communities. According to estimates from the Bank of Spain, there is a deficit of 600,000 homes in the country between 2022 and 2025, which means finding various ways to counteract this trend will likely require public-private partnerships as well as architectural, typological, and construction solutions, among many other strategies needed to ensure access to decent housing. Co-living has seen significant growth in Spain in recent years, driven by social, economic, and cultural factors such as lifestyle changes, the promotion of social connections, rising property values, cost-saving, and the availability of services, among others. Cities like Barcelona and Madrid represent the epicenters of this trend, which continues to grow in a region that has emerged as one of the leaders in this practice.
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The Rise of Co-Living: Designing for Communal LifeBelow, discover a selection of 5 co-living projects in Spain along with their descriptions and stories that allow us to understand the possible uses of these spaces and the dialogue between their different inhabitants.
Beyond-the-family Kin Housing / Ignacio G. Galán + OF Architects
Beyond-the-family Kin seeks to empower aging by addressing the growing isolation of elderly residents or their confinement to institutionalized forms of living. The project introduces various approaches to intergenerational care that extend beyond the nuclear family, supported by technological and financial strategies to enhance the lives of its occupants. Different living arrangements are incorporated on each floor, with varying degrees of autonomy and interdependence. For instance, the first floor features a series of spaces for an elderly couple with mobility challenges. Additionally, a pair of guest rooms are located on this level around a shared common area for the couple’s frequent visitors. The lower level is organized as a one-bedroom apartment that the couple could rent out for financial stability or use to accommodate someone who could assist them if needed. In this way, constructed notions of the family home as an autonomous and stable social unit are countered, recognizing the dependency relationships among inhabitants and their social and material environments.
Cohousing San Juan / eneseis Arquitectura
Cohousing San Juan arises from the initiative of three families to create a collaborative housing project where they can share the synergies generated by a shared approach to life. This project is based on a mutual understanding of the relationship between public and private spaces, as well as the economic and social benefits of sharing them. The configuration of the homes is determined by the size of the plot and the principle of including a large green area and common spaces. The three homes are arranged around a central courtyard that organizes life through circulation paths, communal areas, and a swimming pool. Thus, this type of project carries a certain social responsibility, as the homes coexist with spaces for collective activities that residents shape according to their needs, fostering socialization and cooperation among its inhabitants and placing people at the center of action.
Dozen Doors Coliving / gon architects
Co-living Dozen Doors involves transforming a single-family home from the early 21st century into a co-living space for university students from various parts of the world. The project proposes an interior urban spatial structure designed to house individuals united by similar life positions, fostering communal living while still accommodating individuality. The building's overall organization revolves around a central staircase that facilitates vertical circulation and horizontally distributes and organizes both common and private spaces. The design includes a wide variety of shared indoor and outdoor community spaces equipped for different activities. From the community kitchen, dining room, or living room to the basement game room or terraces, the building establishes a series of public spaces undefined areas for interaction and conversation. It represents a residential solution that focuses on coexistence and social dialogue, demonstrating the home's flexibility to move beyond being an exclusively private space and becoming, instead, an arena for public engagement. A hub for social production where different bodies share spaces, times, resources, and activities, fostering the construction of an advanced human fabric that enhances cohesion among the neighborhood community and the co-living residents.
La Balma Collective Housing / Lacol + LaBoqueria
Taking a realistic approach aligned with the available resources, the La Balma cooperative housing project proposes a building designed as an "energy poverty refuge," where comfort-related housing expenses can be reduced by more than 50%. During the competition phase, where this project won the site on Espronceda Street (Poblenou), a socioeconomic assessment of the residents was conducted alongside a participatory process in which the user and the community played central roles. The building evolves through three social spheres: the neighborhood, the community, and the homes. The structure includes 20 housing units, one of which is designated as a transitional apartment for families undergoing social reintegration. The units are designed around a grid of spaces with various divisions and layouts, allowing residents to make decisions about their own living spaces.
Senior Cohousing / arqbag
The project involves rehabilitating an agricultural building into a "senior" cohousing space. By aiming to accommodate two families within the same structure, the team studied each individual's lifestyle to redesign and reorganize the home's spaces according to their use, considering the degree of collectivization at different times. This approach resulted in individual, couple, communal, and neighborhood-oriented spaces. A central core was introduced to address the shift in scale from an agricultural building to a residence, the multiplicity of functional spaces, and varying levels of privacy. This core enables reconfiguring the preexisting open space into multiple sub-spaces, distributed in plan and section.
This article is part of an ArchDaily curated series that focuses on built projects from our database grouped under specific themes related to cities, typologies, materials, or programs. Every month, we will highlight a collection of structures that find a common thread between previously uncommon contexts, unpacking the depths of influence on our built environments. As always, at ArchDaily, we highly appreciate the input of our readers. If you think we should mention specific ideas, please submit your suggestions.
