TU Delft
2022
Lang, Carriou, Czischke and others
The "Mapping social innovation and collaboration in housing – Co-Lab Mapping" project, developed in collaboration with Urbamonde and supported by the Dutch architecture firm Inbo, aims to establish a validated categorization of collaborative housing forms in Europe. Existing research has largely relied on qualitative case studies, leading to scattered data and a lack of standard definitions, hindering comparative analysis. The project focuses on nine countries with established collaborative housing, utilizing various data collection techniques such as interviews, literature reviews, and Delphi panels. By aggregating data from national umbrella organizations, the Co-Lab Mapping project seeks to enhance understanding and facilitate mutual learning across regions. Funded by the Creative Industry – KIEM programme and previously by the Delft Technology Fellowship, the project represents a significant scientific step toward comparing and analyzing key characteristics of collaborative housing.
The “Mapping social innovation and collaboration in housing – Co-Lab Mapping” is a project developed in collaboration with Urbamonde, and with support of the Dutch architecture firm Inbo.
Existing research on collaborative housing has been so far mainly based on qualitative case studies. Many umbrella organisations collect data on some forms of collaborative housing at regional and national level; however, data are scattered and there is a lack of standard definitions. This prevents a comparative understanding of the challenges and opportunities that these housing forms offer. Furthermore, comparative data are needed to facilitate mutual learning and communication amongst users across countries and regions.
Building on the conceptualisation of collaborative housing proposed by Lang, Carriou & Czischke (2020), the Co-Lab Mapping Project is a first scientific step to provide a validated categorisation of different collaborative housing forms in Europe. It also starts aggregating data on collaborative housing provided by national umbrella organisations, according to a set of pre-established filters. The aim of this project is to create the basis that helps compare and analyse the most salient characteristics of collaborative housing, and so bring current scientific and applied debates further.
The project focuses on nine countries where collaborative housing forms are well established and represented by national umbrella organisations; namely: Belgium, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The research applied an iterative data collection approach including a variety of techniques: interviews with key informants, literature review, a Delphi-panel (two rounds) drawing on insights from academic and practitioner experts from the selected countries, review of several national databases, and a validation workshop with our research partners, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Research process of the Co-Lab Mapping project (source: the authors)
The project was awarded with a grant by the Creative Industry – KIEM programme, a NWO programme whose purpose is to encourage and facilitate fundamental and industrial research. In the past, from January 2018 to December 2019, this project was funded by the Delft Technology Fellowship, granted to Dr Czischke in 2014.