Case 5 from Germany Amaryllis Co-operative Society ... - ICA Housing

Staying with children 25 % 30 %
Senior citizens residence 44 % 24 %
Rearrange current dwelling 34 % 41 %
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The search is on for new forms of joint dwellings like multi-generation dwellings
preferred in comparison with the classical model of shared flats with a
common kitchen and bathroom. The demand for multi-generation housing is
growing (between 2005 and 2006 by 50 percent). Today, most elderly people do
not want to be taken to senior citizen residences with stationary care. They want
to live in a community, see what happens outside, communicate with others and
visit one another. The problem is to find the right social distance between
neighbours. Professional advice in this regard may be beneficial.
The attitude of persons living in such multi-generation settlements should be:
“We do not live here to help others, but we do so to meet our own needs”.
In such housing projects, the question of ownership is important. Individual
ownership of dwellings encourages egoism. Planning for flexibility is equally
important. Flats have to be built in such a way that one large flat can be converted
into two small flats plus guest apartment. Such designs have been developed
by architects specialized in designing multi-generation houses for heterogeneous
groups of inhabitants, e.g. an old villa can be subdivided into 11 tworoom
apartments plus 300 m 2 of common space. In this case, 11 ladies aged between
69 and 85 years live in a self-organised housing community. The old villa
was offered by the city government to be used free of charge for a period of 25
years, provided that the cost of renovation (€ 1 million) were covered by the inhabitants.
A loan taken for this purpose by the residents is paid back by a supplement
to the monthly rent.
Need to make a choice in time
For elderly people living in their old large flats or houses, the moment comes
when these flats become too large and living becomes too lonely. When moving
into smaller flats this means to leave the well known environment and most of
the old furniture behind, one had for the past decades.
The Amaryllis project
The leading idea of Amarillys is: When getting old one should not live alone, but
rather together with others. This can be achieved by moving into a multigeneration-project.
The first step was to join an association of persons with similar needs – the
Amaryllis Association, formed by three couples in Bonn in the 1990s. The object
of this association was to allow old and young persons with and without