Commonality: New Housing Models for the Adaptive Reuse of Offices for Collective Student Living

Purpose and goal:

The recent pandemic, the shift to working from home, and an unstable economic climate has resulted in high office vacancy rates in Stockholm and across Sweden. At the same time, a severe shortage in student housing exists. The artistic research project Gemensamhet (2021-2023) has confronted this dual challenge through the design and development of attractive and experimental collective student housing models that support togetherness and can be implemented on a floor-by-floor basis in existing office buildings.

Expected results and effects:

The primary research outcome was an architectural strategy that will support Vasakronan in their work with the conversion and adaptive reuse of parts of their stock of office buildings. The three models of experimental housing developed by the team offer students a home environment where they can spend time alone and together. The rich visual material that was generated guarantees a broad uptake within the property development field and the academic journal article demonstrates the capacity of artistic research to advance social sustainability.

Approach and implementation:

Gemensamhet has deployed design as a research method, tackling complex real-world problems such as loneliness, empty (and thus unsafe) buildings and neighborhoods and the climate impacts of demolition and construction. Through regular workshops, study visits, archival studies, and long interviews with architecture students in four cities in Sweden, the team has developed a strategy in the form of 3 models, which were tested in relation to 3 existing office building case studies.