Loneliness Preventive Design: A design guidebook to prevent loneliness with community living
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Architecture and planning beyond sustainability, MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Baas, Arnaud
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The race for independence is blinding us. The world's population is rising
and densifying however humans are more individualist than ever. The
effect on society can already be seen, around 80% of people under 18 years
old and 40% of those over 65 years old reported feeling lonely at least
sometimes. After all, as humans, we are striving for a sense of belonging
and connectedness for survival. Loneliness is a social phenomenon that
might afflict any of us in life. In parallel, there is a growing interest in
community-led housing with solutions as co-housing or co-living. These
are about community living and therefore common interaction. This thesis
is drawing a line between loneliness and community living and develops a
design guidebook for enhancing social interactions and a sense of belonging
in housing. The preliminary research on loneliness and community living
revealed theoretical intervention methods to prevent loneliness and
crucial elements to consider when designing for community living. All the
learnings are constantly considered from an architect's perspective. The
studied projects come from different countries, in and outside Europe.
Nevertheless, the Swedish context is important to consider as it is the
European country most threatened by loneliness. Through literature and
case studies, design strategies are extracted. They are the parameters
that need to be addressed in projects aiming to prevent loneliness.
They are tested by being attributed to test spaces which are the design
components. These components are elaborated by turning standard
common places in buildings into social hubs encouraging interactions.
They are exemplary spatial prototypes reflected on separately and
then all synthesized within a design proposal. It is an implementation
example where the building is developed from the combination of some
components. The proposal is meant to be a testbed for the components
to see how the components can work together. This guidebook is meant
to be a source of inspiration for architects and planners but also future
communities. As Bowes defended, "dwellings become more compact, the
implications on lifestyle must be considered" so preventing loneliness by
the design of community housing is a solution that needs to be explored