Major social, demographic and environmental changes are currently having a significant impact on the needs of the living environment. On the one hand, urbanization and ecological efficiency focused on climate change require an increasingly dense urban structure, challenging the functionality and comfort of the environment. On the other hand, changes in family structure and ageing increases the need for targeted social support and contact. In addition, changes in working life, such as the increase in part-time employment, self-employment and teleworking all affect the use of living space facilities and services.

All of these factors create a new kind of tension between housing-related privacy and community solutions. The Housing in Change project focuses on how the living environment responds to the needs of its residents in a holistic way in this changing situation. The project consists of two parts:

Shared spaces as social infrastructure (project 1) focuses on the characteristics of shared spaces in residential buildings and what kind of spatial-functional entities they form when viewed at the neighbourhood level.

With regard to private dwellings, we investigate dwelling blocks as adaptable over time (project 2) to examine the adaptive potential of blocks of flats, i.e. how dwellings are able to meet the changing needs of their residents. The potential to adapt is not limited to dwellings that were originally designed to be flexible. 

In the first phase of the study, we reviewed the housing stock and formed  criteria on the basis of which we have defined the buildings into groups, and selected from these groups 10 blocks that are representative of the entire property stock for further analysis. The next step is to learn more about these sites, and their spatial and social features from the perspective of residents’ daily lives.

Key outputs

• Project report (in Finnish) Living in change: Apartments and shared spaces in the neighborhood in the everyday life of the residents

• Master’s thesis How are you tomorrow? : Exploring shared spaces as means to build up social capital and communal resilience in housing, (Elina Luotonen)

• Master’s thesis Remote working in an apartment building: Examining the conversion flexibility of apartments and the guidelines for designing remote workspaces (Wilma Blomgren – in Finnish)

• Research Paper Housing Design Quality in Finland: room for improvement

• Popular article Laadukas asunto tukee arjen muutoksissa