Une architecture communautaire contemporaine : idéologie, spatialité et appropriations du modèle du cohabitat

Abstract

Adopting the perspective elaborated by Lefebvre and Remy to sociologically study the role played by the built space in collective life, this article problematizes contemporary community architecture as a vector of social inequalities at the level of inhabiting. Relying on documentation, observations and interviews gathered about recent cohousing projects, it first shows that its spatial vocabulary reflects a neoliberal, localist and affinity-based idea of social integration. Then it documents the pragmatical reception of the spaces typical of this architecture by the public concerned. The general idea is that those spaces carry normative prescriptions linked to the opening up of the domestic sphere and voluntary participation, in fact better grasped by more privileged people and favouring the updating of their own standards of inhabiting.

Keywords

• cohousing
• community architecture
• common spaces
• neighbourhood sociability
• opening up of the domestic sphere