A Brief History Of Coliving

A look into history and an exploration into the
future of living – with a focus on co-living,
looking for speci
fi
c examples for women
(learnings that it is a world mostly designed by
men for men).
WHAT CAN WE LEARN
FROM THE HISTORY
OF COLIVING?
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INFLUENTIAL MINDS
THAT SHAPED
COLIVING
PLATO described an utopian state in
Republic, where nuclear family is
abolished. Men, women, and children
live communally and that children are
removed from their mothers soon after
birth to be raised collectively. The City
replaces parents and their
contemporaries become their brothers
and sisters. The purpose is to eliminate
competition and create a single extended
family—the City itself.

THOMAS MOORE in his book Utopia
imagines a complex, self-contained
community set on an island, in which
people share a common culture, with
common dining-rooms and various
shared leisure facilities.

ROBERT OWEN imagined an ideal
society known as Parallelogram,
combining the best of the agricultural and
the industrial society. Each community
limited to 2,000 inhabitants who would
collectively own the means of production.
Men and

women would have equal rights. The
society would have generous dining
halls, schools, libraries, while the
individual dwellings would be modest.
CHARLES FOURIER wrote about
Falanstere, an ideal society that looked
like the royal Palace of Versailles, where
workers live in ”social palaces” with
collective kitchen and dining hall,
schools, theatre, fencing arena, and
beautiful gardens. Everything would be
owned by the workers, with the means of
improving their own lot by owning the
means of

production.
1506
380 BCE 1820s 1840s
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A LOOK INTO THE
HISTORY OF THE
WAY WE’VE LIVED
If industrialisation rendered extended
communities less necessary, the internet
era makes it necessary again.
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A BRIEF HISTORY
AND CURRENTS
OF COLIVING
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Further
Contemporary coliving communities, driven by the sharing economy, are a
manifestation of a renewed cultural movement towards resource-sharing.
Communities of people have shared the use of assets for thousands of
years, but the advent of the Internet has made it easier for asset owners
and those seeking to use those assets to
fi
nd each other. This sort of
dynamic can also be referred to as the shareconomy, collaborative
consumption, collaborative economy, or peer economy. (Think Uber, Uber
Pool, Airbnb, Zip car, etc)

Criticism of the sharing economy often involves regulatory uncertainty,
lack of government oversight, and bias in algorithms (gender, race).

Thesis
Today’s modern coliving movement is the latest iteration of a
recurring human trend. The act of communally sharing space and
resources while bene
fi
ting from a supportive community is
something we’ve seen time and time again throughout history.

Yet each time a coliving or cohousing community arises, it’s often for
a completely di
ff
erent reason than the last. This is because societal,
economic, spiritual and technological shifts signi
fi
cantly impact our
lifestyle choices and force us to constantly rede
fi
ne our idea of
“home”.

COLIVING AND THE
SHARING ECONOMY
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Further
Communal living can be traced back to the earliest days of human
cohabitation, historians Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued that hunter-
gatherer societies were traditionally based on egalitarian social relations
and common ownership.

And while there was little architecture to speak of, communal living - the
act of the tribe sharing resources equally - is something that predates
even the written word.

Thesis
Long ago, humans were hunter-gatherers that lived in large, mobile
camps together. These nomadic people relied on one another for
everything from food to protection to child care assistance. The
agricultural revolution around 10,000 BC made it possible for
humans to stay in one place and build long-term settlements. So
why did us humans choose to live in communities?

Psychology says that part of human nature’s default mode is to be
social. One theory: people have an innate (and very powerful) need
to belong. Research dating back to the 1970s suggests people with
weaker social networks actually die younger (due to any cause) than
people who have more extensive social networks.

COLIVING A
CULTURAL STUDY
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Further
In 1750, before the Industrial Revolution in Britain, only about 15% of the
population lived in towns or cities. By 1900, it was 85%. This meant that
thousands upon thousands of people suddenly needed food and shelter
in cities, which led to an outbreak of poverty.

Ghettos were constructed for poor people who couldn’t a
ff
ord to pay for
their own housing, but the conditions were often deplorable. Meanwhile,
the wealthy built private homes for themselves. This was a massive shift in
how society de
fi
ned what was socially appropriate in terms of housing.

Thesis
Historian John Gillis claims that medieval homes consisted of a mix
of friends and extended family, and that single-family households
were uncommon in most of the world. It wasn’t until the 12th century
that households became organised around monogamous couples
and their children in Western Europe. However, they were far from
the nuclear family, with various townspeople, poor married couples,
other children, orphans, widows, elderly people, and tenants often
living alongside them in communal housing.

It wasn’t until the 1800s that divisions were drawn between who
would live with whom, and towards the end of the 19th century the
so-called “godly family” started to take shape, that of single families
living in individual homes. Industrialization made extended
communities less necessary and communal living was mostly lost.

COLIVING FROM THE MIDDLE AGE
TO THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
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Further
There have been numerous attempts for co-living and a new society over
the course of history, especially Sweden experimented with many di
ff
erent
models from the early 1900. In the late 1960s a new attitude could be
seen, re
fl
ecting radical developments in the rest of society.

In the late 1970s the group BIG, Bo I Gemenskap, presented a “Working
together model”, which inspired a number of new cohousing projects.

With the advent of the Internet, the
fl
exibility to work wherever you had a
computer and a connection was intriguing. There was no longer a need to
go sit in an o
ffi
ce all day. Original hacker homes, which began popping up
in and around San Francisco in the 2000s, housed teams of computer
engineers living and working together to build tech startups. Being in
close quarters all the time bred business productivity and creativity in a
whole new way.

Thesis
It gradually became the norm to live with family or people in the same
class. Because we no longer needed to rely on communal living to
prosper, we placed a higher value on privacy and individual success
over group needs. The industrial revolution completely trans
fi
gured
the idea of women and men working in similar roles on an agricultural
commune. With women in lower class, child bearing and raising, full
day labour, running the household - su
ff
ering deeply.

Today people are placing a value on
fi
guring out who they are and
what they want in life as opposed to having to instinctively accept
the expectations and situations of the previous generation.

COLIVING AND
FAMILYY
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Further
Coliving spaces are seen not as permanent cohousing communities, but
rather as temporary (avg. 6 months to 2 years) dwellings for people to
enhance their life skills while motivating and being motivated by a network
of inspiring people. Coliving spaces for startups, artists, freelancers,
remote workers, entrepreneurs, young professionals and students are just
some of the examples of niche coliving trends that exist today.

These subsets of coliving spaces allow for more structured networking
opportunities between people that share professional and personal
interests.

As the sharing economy continues to grow, coliving communities with
intention are on track to skyrocket to new heights in the next few
decades. The coliving movement is on
fi
re and showing no signs of
slowing down with many coliving companies having their eye on global
expansion.

Thesis
Contemporary coliving takes the form of businesses o
ff
ering
community hosted living spaces to people who are determined to
learn and grow from each other. Residents live, work, socialize,
network, eat, play and create together in units that have both private
and shared rooms, communal spaces, and sometimes even
coworking spaces.

Coliving operators often have several locations within the same city
and many have spaces scattered around the world. Many also o
ff
er
unique business networking opportunities that are designed to give
members exclusive access to founders and investors that they can
potentially learn from and partner with.

The modern coliving movement is the
fi
rst time we’ve seen
cohousing operate with the underlying impetus to give people a
convenient and
fl
exible space to learn, share and grow to better their
future.

COLIVING CURRENT AND
MOVING FORWARD
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HISTORIC
COLIVING

EXAMPLES
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UTOPIA
An ideal by English lawyer Thomas More, 1516.
Economy
On the economic side there is a
marketplace where no money is
exchanged. There is no private property,
nothing is private. No locks are permitted
on homes, all things are shared.
Story
Besides agriculture, everyone has at
least one occupational specialty. It is
customary to follow the trade of your
father, however you may be adopted
into a house of a di
ff
erent trade.

Design Principles
Utopia is an island of
fi
fty-four cities, with the chief city in
the center. All cities are twenty-four miles apart. The
layout of all the cities as well as language, customs, and
laws are all the same. The countryside is covered with
well-managed farm land, with all citizens spending at
least two years on a farm.
System
A six hour work day assures there is enough work for
everyone. Leisure is highly valued with time devoted to
education and recreation.

Inhabitants of foreign cities who are condemned to death
are permitted to live in utopia as a slave. Poor persons
from other countries may volutarily serve as slaves.

Utopia is a work of
fi
ction and socio-political satire by
Thomas More, written in Latin and published in 1516. The
book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a
fi
ctional island
society and its religious, social, and political customs.

Written as an act of the Humanist movement, More's Utopia
is the story of an imaginary island society. Utopia means
nowhere in Greek.
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FALANSTERE
Designed by Charles Fourier, France, between 1808 and his death in 1837.
Economy
Despite its aporias, Fourier's thought
established a new tradition of
relationships between architecture and
utopia more fully than Robert Owen's for
example.

It was predicated on the belief that
individual behaviour was modi
fi
able
through strong, organic links between
architecture and user, a concept revived
in most twentieth‐century avant‐garde
movements.
Story
An idea by Charles Fourier, a type of building (very much
looking like the royal Palace of Versailles, the most famous
piece of architecture at that time), designed for a self-
contained utopian community, ideally consisting of 500–
2000 people working together for mutual bene
fi
t, and
developed in the early 19th century.

In France Fourier’s followers were forbidden to realise his
ideas.

Design Principles
Charles Fourier, following Claude Nicolas Ledoux, put
architecture at the heart of his social project. The
building, or ‘phalanstère’, which he devised for his
community, had speci
fi
ed spaces, the most signi
fi
cant
being the ‘rue‐galerie’.
System
For Fourier the phalanstères were communities set up
in direct opposition to both the industrial revolution
and its attendant bourgeois society. He realised that
industrial society may generate wealth but its working
conditions were alienating and unjust; he advocated
instead a radical vision where people would only do
the work they enjoyed.
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FAMILISTÈRE
A project by the wealthy iron stove manufacturer Jean André Baptiste Godin in France
Economy
Soon individual family kitchens were built
because women were not allowed to
work in the factory and said to have
nothing to do and the Familistere
gradually lost its collective character.

However, the factory continued to
operate successfully even after Godin’s
death and the whole complex is to-day
part of the national building heritage.

Story
The iron stove manufacturer Jean André Baptiste Godin, as
a leading industrialist and member of the Senate,
fi
nally was
granted permission to build what he called the Familistere,
where everyone would live as in a huge family; in northern
France 1858.

From 1856 to 1859 Godin started the Familistère (Social
Palace) in Guise on more carefully developed plans.

His intention was to improve housing for workers, but also
"production, trade, supply, education, and recreation", all
the facets of life of a modern worker. He developed the
Familistère as a self-contained community within the town,
where he could encourage "social sympathy".
Design Principles
The full site with the foundry was about eighteen acres,
on either side of the River Oise. In addition to a large
factory for cast-iron manufacture, three large buildings,
each four stories high, were constructed to house all the
workers and their families, with each family having
apartments of two or three rooms. The main building
consisted of three rectangular blocks joined at the
corners.

Each of these blocks had a large central court covered
with a glass roof under which children could play in all
weather. Galleries around the courtyard provided access
to the apartments on each
fl
oor. There were also garden
allotments for the workers.
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PARALLELOGRAM
A system design by Robert Owen Scottish industrialist that became a reality in 1825
Real World Aspirations
Owen, his twenty-two-year-old son,
William, and his Scottish friend Donald
McDonald sailed to the United States in
1824 to purchase a site to implement
Owen's vision for "a New Moral World" of
happiness, enlightenment, and prosperity
through education, science, technology,
and communal living.

Owen believed his utopian community
would create a "superior social,
intellectual and physical environment"
based on his ideals of social reform.

Story
Robert Owen was a social reformer and wealthy industrialist
who made his fortune from textile mills in New Lanark,
Scotland. He had an ideal that would combine the best of
the agricultural and the industrial society. Each community
would be limited to 2000 inhabitants, who would collectively
own the means of production.

Men and women would have equal rights.

Each village would consist of about 1,200 persons living on
1,000 to 1,500 acres; all would live in one large structure
built in the form of a square, with public kitchen and
messrooms - hence the nickname "Owen's parallelograms".

New Harmony - The Town
Owen bought the town Harmony, in 1825, in order to
prove his theories were viable and to correct the troubles
that were a
ff
ecting his mill-town community New Lanark.
He renamed the town New Harmony, and invited "any
and all" to join him there.
System
It became known as a center for advances in education
and scienti
fi
c research. Town residents established the
fi
rst free library, a civic drama club, and a public school
system open to men and women. but it disintegrated
after a few years.

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MARIEBERG COHOUSING UNIT
By Olle Engkvist, who spearheaded development of collective housing in Sweden from the 1940s.
Economy
The Engkvist philosophy included
uniformed sta
ff
, which secured order in
the house, besides serving the tenants.
Some of the employees lived in the unit
themselves.

The Marieberg unit was designed by
architect Sven Ivar Lind, who, despite the
corridor solution, created much
appreciated communal and private living
spaces. Besides a pre-school nursery
there was an afternoon kindergarten for
school-children. There is ample evidence
that the children’s environment was both
stimulating and secure.

Story
The Marieberg cohousing unit was built in 1944 by
contractor Olle Engkvist, who spearheaded development of
collective housing in Sweden from the 1940s.

He introduced a system of 24 meal tickets per adult each
month, to be paid as part of the rent. This would keep meal
prices low and secure that only people interested in
collective services would move in. Tenants could either take
their meals in the dining hall or carry the food in a basket to
their
fl
at.

Change
When larger families left the building, more and more
single mothers moved in, thus maintaining the unit as "a
paradise for children". This process also meant that the
upper class character of collective housing was
weakened.
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THE HÄSSELBY FAMILY HOTEL
Olle Engkvist’s last and biggest cohousing project in Sweden, 1950s.
Design Principles
There were 328 apartments, a restaurant kitchen, a large dining hall on
several levels, a smaller dining room, a room for parties, a club-room with
its own cafeteria, a sta
ff
ed reception, a shop that was open in the evenings
(which was rare in the 1950s), a kindergarten, a laundry, a sauna, a prayer-
room and a gymnastic hall shared with the adjacent school. The dining hall
was run like a restaurant, with a manager who decided the menu. The sta
ff
wore uniforms and the guests dressed smartly. If they paid a little extra,
they could have a specially-laid table with special dishes for guests. In
other words, the family hotel was for privileged families.

The Hässelby family hotel was not designed so that those who lived there
should cook meals or do anything else together. As the name “family
hotel” implies, the objective was to support families where the mother
was working outside the home.

Story
The Hässelby family hotel was not designed so that those
who lived there should cook meals or do anything else
together. As the name “family hotel” implies, the
objective was to support families where the mother was
working outside the home.

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DEGANIA ALEF - A KIBBUTZ
Israel, 1910.
Economy
Kibbutzim in the early days tried to be self-su
ffi
cient in all agricultural goods,
from eggs to dairy to fruits to meats, but realized this was not possible.
Land was generally provided by the Jewish National Fund. Later, they
became dependent on government subsidies.

Even before the establishment of the State of Israel, kibbutzim began to
branch out from agriculture into manufacturing. Kibbutz Degania
Alef opened a factory for diamond cutting tools that came to have a gross
turnover of several US million dollars a year. Kibbutz Hatzerim has a factory
for drip irrigation equipment. Neta
fi
m is a multinational corporation that
grosses over $300 million a year.

Today, some Kibbutzim operate major industrial ventures. For example, in
2010, Kibbutz Sasa, containing some 200 members, generated $850
million in annual revenue from its military-plastics industry. Kibbutz Ketura is
leading Israel's development of solar technology, becoming a popular eco
tourism attraction.
Story
Degania Alef is a kibbutz in northern Israel. The Jewish
communal settlement started o
ff
in 1910, making it the
earliest socialist Zionist farming commune in the Land of
Israel. Its status as "the mother of all kibbutzim" is
sometimes contested based on a later distinction made
between the smaller kvutza, applying to Degania in its
beginnings, and the larger kibbutz.

A Kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was
traditionally based on agriculture.

Deanna was the
fi
rst Kibbutz established in 1909.

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SIHEYUAN
By Olle Engkvist, who spearheaded development of collective housing in Sweden from the 1940s.
Economy
Siheyuan has a history of over 2,000
years.

They exhibit outstanding and
fundamental characteristics of Chinese
architecture. They exist all across China
and are the template for most Chinese
architectural styles. Siheyuan also
serves as a cultural symbol of Be
ij
ing
and a window into its old ways of life.
Story
A siheyuan is a historical type of residence that was
commonly found throughout China, most famously
in Be
ij
ing and rural Shanxi. Throughout Chinese history, the
siheyuan composition was the basic pattern used for
residences, palaces, temples, monasteries, family
businesses, and government o
ffi
ces. In ancient times, a
spacious siheyuan would be occupied by a single, usually
large and extended family, signifying wealth and prosperity.

Today, remaining siheyuan are often still used as subdivided
housing complexes, although many lack modern amenities.
Design Principles
The four buildings of a siheyuan are normally
positioned along the north–south and east–west axis.
The building positioned to the north and facing the
south is considered the main house.

The buildings adjoining the main house and facing
east and west are called side houses. The northern,
eastern and western buildings are connected by
beautifully decorated pathways. These passages
serve as shelters from the sunshine during the day,
and provide a cool place to appreciate the view of the
courtyard at night.
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CHICAGO’S “ELEANOR CLUBS”
Philantropist Ina Robertson established a series of boardinghouses for young working women in Chicago in 1898.
Economy
The 28 women who lived at the
fi
rst
Eleanor Club paid $2.50 a week for their
room, cleaning service and two home-
cooked meals per day. (In 2001,
residents paid just $21 per day for the
same services.)

The bedrooms were small and sparsely
furnished, but each club had elegant
common areas for the residents to
socialize and dine together. Later, the
homes added TV rooms for residents to
gather in.

Story
These boarding houses called Eleanor Clubs, reached the
height of their popularity in the 1910s and 1920s, when six
residential clubs housed a total of 600 young women.

By having residents pay a fair price for their room and
board, the Eleanor Clubs were intended to be self-
supporting. In accordance with these principles, the clubs
began on a small and a
ff
ordable scale. The
fi
rst clubs were
in rented premises that had originally been built as a large
single-family homes or small scale hotels and apartment
buildings.

Design Principles
Unlike other women’s residences, the Eleanor Clubs did
not have curfews, but they did prohibit men from visiting
areas other than the lobby.

Over the years, the organization added more women’s
residences across the city. In 1909, the Eleanor Clubs
also opened a rustic campsite at Lake Geneva for
members to enjoy camping,
fi
shing and boating
unchaperoned – something that social mores of the time
made impossible otherwise.

The last residence, the Eleanor Club Parkway, was built
in 1956 at Dearborn Street and North Avenue. By then,
the six Eleanor Clubs provided room and board for up to
600 women.

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DEGANIA ALEF - A KIBBUTZ
Israel, 1910.
Economic Change
But as women gained power in society and in the workplace and it
became easier for them to strike out on their own, the demand for gender-
segregated housing declined. The Lake Geneva camp closed in 1953, and
beginning in the 1970s, the Eleanor Club and other women’s residences
gradually closed their doors.

The Eleanor Club Parkway was one of the last holdouts,
fi
nally ending its
residential program in 2002. The property was purchased by the Latin
School of Chicago and the building was demolished. Around that time, the
Eleanor Club reorganized into the Eleanor Foundation and focused on a
new mission of building a network of social services for working women.

Ten years later, the organization became part of the Chicago Foundation for
Women.
Innovative Membership Scheme
The Eleanor Clubs were run as a nonpro
fi
t enterprise, but
unlike organizations with similar missions such as the YWCA
and the Three Arts Club, did so without any charitable or
religious elements in their operation. Each house had a
resident director who would interview prospective residents.
Once approved, women could become members of the
Eleanor Club and stay for just a couple of nights at a time or
as long as two years.

Purcell fondly remembers her time at the Eleanor Club
Parkway, where she met women from all walks of life –
artists, lawyers, divorcees, widows, trust-fund babies – from
across the country and even the world.

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fi
rst time we’ve seen cohousing
operate with the underlying impetus to give people a convenient and
fl
exible space to learn, share and grow to better their future.

Coliving spaces are seen not as permanent cohousing communities, but
rather as temporary (avg. 6 months to 2 years) dwellings for people to
enhance their life skills while motivating and being motivated by a network
of inspiring people.

Coliving spaces for startups, artists, freelancers, remote workers,
entrepreneurs, young professionals and students are just some of the
examples of niche coliving trends that exist today. These subsets of
coliving spaces allow for more structured networking opportunities
between people that share professional and personal interests.

As the sharing economy continues to grow, coliving communities with
intention are on track to skyrocket to new heights in the next few decades.
The coliving movement is on
fi
re and showing no signs of slowing down
with many coliving companies having their eye on global expansion.

Our generation of creatives is moving so much, we do not have the
resources to build a new “home” and would like to step right into a
community. It takes at least 3 years to get to know a city you live in and if
it is a city of the scale and pace of London, then after 6-10 years you do
start to get to know where to
fi
nd what and when.

New ideas need exchange – and a big city, wrote Johnson, is the ideal
platform for serendipitous collisions. The very density that becomes
troubling during a pandemic also holds the key to solutions going
forward. And as the months of lockdown have shown, we can’t deal with
isolation. We crave connection to others.

GOING
FORWARD
LEARNINGS
CAN
POTENTIALLY
BE APPLIED
THROUGH
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Long ago, humans were hunter-gatherers that lived in large, mobile
camps together. These nomadic people relied on one another for
everything from food to protection to child care assistance.
 
Psychology says that part of human nature’s default mode is to be
social. One theory: people have an innate (and very powerful) need
to belong.
 
On average having stronger social ties increased likelihood of an
individual’s overall survival by as much as 50 percent
 
The act of the tribe sharing resources equally - is something that
predates even the written word.
 
It wasn’t until the 12th century that households became organised
around monogamous couples and their children

Before the mid 1800 this was mainly an endeavour of rich
industrialists and philanthropists
 
KEY TAKE AWAYS
1800s that divisions were drawn between who would live with whom,
and towards the end of the 19th century the so-called “godly family”
started to take shape, that of single families living in individual homes.
 
In 1750, before the Industrial Revolution in Britain, only about 15% of
the population lived in towns or cities. By 1900, it was 85%. This meant
that thousands upon thousands of people suddenly needed food and
shelter in cities, which led to an outbreak of poverty.
 
Models of co-living have been explored through philosophical means
by the upper class since Plato.
 
Various models have been tested but never endured time - this was
often when colliding was a community outside of society.

Central dining and kitchen areas prevailed.
 
fi
rst time we’ve seen cohousing
operate with the underlying impetus to give people a convenient and
fl
exible space to learn, share and grow to better their future.
 
 
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REFERENCES & SOURCES
Cultural studies:

• Sharing Economy explained
 
• Circular Economy explained
 
• Why we need other people
 
• Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review
 
• History of Communal Architecture
 
• The Industrial Revolution in context
 
Housing developments

• Treehouse Seoul - urban coliving complex
 
• Jystrup Savværket - bofællesskab in Denmark
 
• WindSong Cohousing - in Canada
 
• Eleanor Clubs - for women in the US 1920s
History of co-living:

• History of Co Housing
 
• Example New Harmony US
 
• Example Phalanstere
 
• Example Familistere
 
• http://kollektivhus.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/
Livingtogetherwebb-1.pdf
 
• http://habiter-autrement.org/33_collectifs/contributions-33/
Collective-Housing-in-Sweden-Dick-Urban-Vestbro.pdf
 
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THANK YOU
Alexandra Plesner

alexandraplesner.com

A Brief History Of Coliving

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