Contemporary Trends and Motivations for Creating Co-housing in the Countryside: studying four Danish Groups Constructing Co-housing

Based on qualitative case studies of four Danish intergenerational co-housing groups in different stages of building up communities, the paper examines the trends and motivations for involving in, creating and finally moving to co-housing in the countryside today. Co-housing is on the physical level formed as a group of private dwelling units extended with substantial common areas. On the social level, co-housing balance between communality, of doing things together, and of individual living. The paper analyses the diverse choices for future residents to invent or take part in a co-housing project combining this with an urban-rural migration decision. A number of factors come together, for example the element of life-cycle-changes, self-organisation of the groups, wishes for more sustainable and social living. The distance to the city, where most of the residents have moved from but many still work, also plays a part. The study ends by analyzing three different approaches to life and dwelling situation, which was observed in the groups. The co-housing groups were followed over a period of approximately two years, while they established. Three of the projects have been constructed, while one failed to establish. The methods were informed from ethnography combining a visual-sensory and multi-sited approach.