• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.133-146
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• 2011

This study evaluates common activity and quality of life in Swedish cohousing units to examine whether Swedish cohousing functions properly or not. A questionnaire survey was fulfilled during the autumn of 2010 in G$\ddot{o}$teborg Sweden. The subjects of study were 12 of 44 cohousing units in Sweden that included 4 of the +40 cohousing and 8 of the mixed-age cohousing. A total of 242 of 353 distributed questionnaires were collected (68.6%) and analyzed by SPSS statistical program. The findings are as follow: 1) General characteristics of the respondents are that they are mostly healthy, evenly aged from age 50s to 70s and highly educated with significant proportions of academics and civil workers. There are more females than males and more singles than cohabitants. 2) The most frequent and preferred common activity is a common meal followed by a coffee meeting. A common dinner, the 'hub of living together' is held almost every day or at least a few times a week. A common meal is considered one of the most important activities because of practical and social advantages in that residents can save time and cooking costs as well as engage in social contact. Referring to evaluation of frequency and content of common activity, more than a half of the respondents prefer the current situation. 3) All of the variables (except health conditions and education level) affect participation in common activity with statistical significance. 4) Most of the respondents indicate a high level of life satisfaction and are willing to recommend others move to cohousing. They agree that there is more mutual support among residents in cohousing units than in a conventional community. In conclusion, Swedish cohousing units function successfully as they have pursued intentional community ideology and most of the residents are proud of their current living situations.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.1-19
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• 2003

In Scandinavian countries, where the society experienced change of typical nuclear family structure and higher vocational activity rates of married women earlier than East Asian countries, cohousing scheme has been evolved as an alternative housing to reduce housework for working women, and to reduce loneliness of elderly people who stay in their own homes. They can promote active mutual relationship among residents in the community. Korean family structure has been stemmed to more like extended family, but the tendency to live independently from their married children is getting more and more common in new cohort of senior citizens who are active, healthy, economically stable and higher educated. Korea has been industrialized rather rapidly since 1970's and faces to many societal phenomena about quality of life for senior citizens. Introduction of alternative housing solution for these senior citizens is necessary in Korea. In this paper, Danish senior cohousing scheme, particularly, self-work model project is described about its design feature in accordance to site planning, common facility, and dwelling unit. Aiming to mutual support and more frequent social contacts among residents, self-work model cohousing scheme has different design concept from the service mode scheme. Information about design feature of senior cohousing was collected from the published data with drawings and from field survey to 10 exiting projects in Denmark. Of those, 5 projects were described as a case study. It, hopefully, could provide practical information for architectural design when establishment of senior cohousing schemes start in Korea in the near future.