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In this piece, architect and educator Leo Care shares his experience of the small-scale co-housing development he has been involved in, the Open House Project, and reflects on the multigenerational living environment it has created.
Multigenerational Housing: The Open House Project
A recent report by Generations Working Together sums up one of our key contemporary societal challenges: “Many of the places where we traditionally mixed are slowly disappearing. We continue to travel through life in cliques and groups of our own peers which we keep throughout our lives. This growing separation means that children and older adults miss out on opportunities for mutual interaction, understanding and learning.”
Research shows us that these mono-generational habits, whether conscious or unconscious, have lasting impact; such as loneliness in older age (which can hasten the onset of dementia and other degenerative diseases) and missed opportunities for children to learn from, and with, their elders through conversation and often storytelling.
For the Open House Project, forging multi-generational connections starts at home. Our innovative small-scale co-housing development has been growing over the past 12 years through the self-build conversion of a listed historic farmstead. Comprising seven houses, ground source district heating system and a communal space (the Open House), we have gradually built a community of extended family and friends that spans three generations.
When we started out, we had no great pretensions or metrics for social success. But we did have a basic belief that living in our own homes on the same site, whilst having shared gardens and facilities would bring lots of opportunities and hopefully benefits for everyday life. Whether someone has run out of bread, needs a hand moving a piece of furniture, a lift to the train station, or to keep an eye on a child for an hour, there are many opportunities for people of all ages to interact.
We benefit from a lot of passive support. There’s always someone around to wave or chat to. With a number of residents working in public services with changing shift patterns, there are always people coming and going at different times, which creates informal opportunities to connect and check in. In our group we have a mix of adult professionals including teachers, police officers and medics (whether working or retired). At a push I think we can help the young people with most school subjects, and if you have a legal or medical issue, there is always someone to ask for advice! This creates an informal network of support between people of all ages. Everyone has something to give and something to learn.
There are a whole series of social events on the calendar that people can opt in or out of; Joint meals (where everyone brings a dish), birthday parties and the ‘new year house crawl’. This last event, where we go round everyone’s house, means we also celebrate the achievement of constructing our homes as well!
Social media also plays its part in supporting the interactions. The ‘charity lifts’ whatsapp group helps to coordinate the school run for up to 8 kids, reducing car journeys and creating another point of (often amusing) intergenerational interaction.
The co-housing community is by no means self-sustaining, but we do grow some fruit and vegetables and have a polytunnel to support this. It certainly contributes to residents living well and at times offers an abundance of produce, which can be eaten or stored. We have even made our own cider and wine!
Although co-housing enables mutual support and interaction amongst its residents, some people can perceive this as a ‘gated community’ or one that sets itself apart from the wider community. For us it is really important to reach out and make our group more outwardly inclusive. Although our site is on a shared access drive, there are no physical barriers from this to the homes. We try to keep in contact with our surrounding neighbours, having provided free space for our local School PTA group to meet in the evenings and are active members of the local area action group. None of this is innovative as such but helps to stitch us into our wider community.
Managing the construction work and day-to-day maintenance of the buildings on site is a substantial amount of work and requires everyone to have a role. There are also lots of decisions to be made and meetings to attend to keep everything on track. This takes up people’s time and moving between the formality of the meetings and everyday neighborly interactions can be tricky at times. It is sometimes frustrating when people can’t agree, but when things go wrong, there is always support and problems are shared. Through this way of living, we have built a small community which we like to think is vibrant and resilient.
What we don’t yet know what will happen if and when a new generation is added! But what we do know is that we look forward to the challenge of creating more spaces for multi-generational living.
All images courtesy of Leo Care.
About the Author
Leo is an architect and teacher at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture and Landscape. He is also a Glass-House Enabler and director of Chiles, Evans and Care Architects. Leo is a founding member, architect and resident of the Open House Project. Over the last twenty years, he has continued to explore and develop innovative participatory architectural design processes through teaching, scholarship and practice.