Assessing the Quality of Life Within Communal Living
Introduction
Co-housing schemes are intentional, resident-managed communities striving to achieve deep social cohesion. While collective decision-making undoubtedly empowers residents, the practicality of ensuring every single voice is heard can often spark operational frustration.
This post explores LILAC (with reference to ‘The Collective’), a pioneering Leeds co-housing project, assessing where its community-led model thrives and where it inherently falters, drawing brief comparisons to wider UK schemes.
Image: LILAC Co-housing, Modcell
Decoding Quality of Life
Quality of life is fundamentally a multidimensional metric of individual well-being. It encompasses physical health, mental state, social relationships, financial stability, and environmental surroundings (Teoli & Bhardwaj, 2023). In the context of communal living, these critical factors become deeply intertwined.
Inside the LILAC Community
During a primary site visit to LILAC, their incredibly close-knit social fabric was apparent. Residents hold assigned maintenance and social roles, fostering shared purpose and deepening their connection to the built environment. We also discovered a touching local tradition. When a resident is unwell or welcomes a new baby, neighbours provide meals for two weeks. This actively demonstrates how communal living can combat urban loneliness and safeguard long-term mental health (Byrne, 2024). In addition to this, within LILAC they have a building known as the common house which is a communal space open to all and various activities take place. This ranges from movie nights to meetings on how to help improve the community. They do also offer rooms that can be used as offices for professionals which highlights how the space can be multipurpose.
The Costs of Closeness
However, this extreme proximity can also be LILAC’s vulnerability. A highly supportive atmosphere can occasionally tip into overwhelming social intensity, risking a fatigue that degrades overall well-being. From the site visit of LILAC, we were informed that the houses ranged in sizes and the number of bedrooms and after taking a tour of a 2-bedroom house although it had all the necessary facilities it was still small. This does highlight a potential issue with communal living with a lack of space.
Furthermore, spatial constraints remain a systemic issue across UK co-housing. At ‘The Collective’ in London, residents reported private rooms so severely cramped they lacked the floor space necessary for basic osteopath-prescribed health stretches (Agbonlahor, 2018).
Image: Room at ‘The Collective’, BBC
Spatial and Environmental Theory (SET)
These communal dynamics are best evaluated through Spatial and Environmental Theory (SET), which asserts that physical space is a socially produced entity (Gabrielson et al., 2016). SET underpins the foundation of co-housing, deliberately blurring transitional boundaries between public and private realms. Theoretically, this spatial design enhances human quality of life by aligning social infrastructure with environmental harmony.
Final Thoughts
Communal living undeniably offers a compelling, structured, tight-knit community support at the direct expense of physical space and personal privacy.
Ultimately, determining whether this housing model elevates quality of life is highly subjective. While it provides an incredibly enriching haven for those seeking constant connection, an independent introvert might simply find the experience overwhelming.
