Collective Residential Spaces in Sustainability Development: Turkish Housing Units within Co-Living Understanding

Abstract

Housing models that target rather typical family structures are increasingly failing to meet the needs of the new social changes regarding the rapid urbanization due to the mass-migration to cities, the lack of affordable housing, and the adoption of the sharing economy practices. As an architectural counterpart of the social dimension of sustainable development, co-living is introduced as a connected way of living, enabling sustainable living practices through efficient use of resources and space while sharing consumption. With respect to this, adapted collective residential units (namely informal co-living environments) come into use in places where affording a house becomes a challenging aspect and the conventional residential units do not reflect the transforming social demographics and economy. The reflection of the requirements of changing social and economic structures on urban settings can be seen in Turkish houses as well. This research, accordingly, focuses on co-living environments in Ankara, Turkey that were transformed from typical single-family residential units by its residents. Through investigating these co-living spaces, it is aimed to contribute to the current understanding of co-living practices, explore the spatial, economic and social underpinnings of these living models, and their relevance to the sustainable development while presenting initial findings regarding spatial use that can be of guidance for future co-living design processes.