Significance of territoriality in spatial organization of coliving communities

Abstract

The issue that the research focuses on is spatial organization ofthe coliving housing concept and the role that territoriality playsin their typological determination. Past research of co-livingconcept did not result in a clear systematization of the concept.By comparative analyses of characteristic examples it can beconfirmed that in practice, a wide variety of relations betweenthe main functional groups is present (common, shared andindividual spaces) and that through links between all of them,different types of the coliving concept are generated. The mainthesis of this paper is that the primary parameter, serving asthe base of different concepts of coexisting in a shared space,is the “experience of territoriality” i.e. the level of tolerance thatspace users have in their readiness to share the same space andcontent with unknown individuals. The main contribution of thepaper lies in determination of six characteristic types of colivingcommunities. The importance of this paper is reinforced not onlyby the fact that it initiates the possibility of further theoreticalresearch in the housing sphere, but also in its practical usagein spatial and functional organisation of coliving and cohousingspaces. The presented concepts and classifications can serve asthe basis for the definition of new programmes and the designof coliving objects.