Let us remind you that the theme of the 17th Biennale of Architecture, which was transferred from the past to this year, is “How we will live together”. The Scandinavian participants answered this question of curator Hashim Sarkis literally: the exquisite national pavilion designed by Sverre Fehn will turn into cohousing for the duration of the Biennale. For this, innovative open-source wooden structures designed by the Norwegian architects Helen & Hard with the participation of the Swiss engineer Hermann Bloemer will be built into the semi-open space of the building.
The exhibition “What we share with each other. The Cohousing Model”is devoted to the topic of shared,“communal”housing and the boundaries of its“socialization”. The result of this research will be useful for new projects of this kind, especially relevant in a post-pandemic situation, when it became clear that "the luxury of human communication" is really a luxury. In addition, such a scheme allows solving a number of environmental and social issues.
But the line between personal and social life is a delicate and important thing, depending on many reasons and conditions. Therefore, the partners of Helen & Hard, Siv Helene Stangeland and Reinhard Kropf, do not think theoretically, but took volunteers as "co-authors" - eight of their tenants who turned out to be very successful
co-houseing Vindmøllebakken in Stavanger. Therefore, right at the Biennale, they will find out what part of their daily life these eight Norwegians are ready to share with each other, as well as with the visitors of the exhibition.
Shared housing of this kind, as the curators explain, is not at all a utopia. It is based on the “Scandinavian” model, where the tenants who own their apartments share a variety of infrastructure and are united in a community. Such a scheme appeared in the 1970s and has spread since then in many countries of the world. The aforementioned Vindmøllebakken is especially distinguished by its “vibrant local democracy,” and we wrote about a similar house - a voluntary commune in Helsinki.
