Together we build - how empowerment, relations and inclusion grows from building side by side.
By building houses together, we also build relations, strong communities and individuals. What you create with your hands stays as a physical proof of your skill. For five years, Egnahemsfabriken has strived to learn people how to build houses together. In this example we will present our purpose and goal: to help people, especially the ones with a low income, to build their own home by organized togetherbuilding. Along the way we have seen the strenght of the method for the future.
National
Sweden
Municipality of Tjorn
Municipality of Orust
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
EAFRD : European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development
We have got funding for another project: developing our gardens and learning people how to grow their own vegetables in 2022-2023, totally 40 000 Euro ( 440 000 SEK) by Leader, that is co-funded by EAFRD.
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Egnahemsfabriken Tjörn Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Tinna Last name of representative: Harling Gender: Female Nationality: Sweden Function: founder of Egnahemsfabriken in 2017, president of the association Egnahemsfabriken Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Egnahemsfabriken, Mjörn Röd 10, 471 73 Mjörn Town: Mjörn Postal code: 471 73 Country: Sweden Direct Tel:+46 73 656 11 92 E-mail:tinna@egnahemsfabriken.se Website:https://tjorn.egnahemsfabriken.se/
Co-building as a method for empowerment and resilience, house building and learning.
The project we will present is focused around the building of a house for a young girl, Ellen, who needed her own home. It was built within the project " We build together" (attached report: Can co-design and co-building help make collaborative housing more affordable?). Ellen’s house was designed with our co-creative method and then built at a co-building camp at Egnahemsfabriken together with a group of people of different ages and experience. This project also sourced and built an outdoor kitchen together with a group of young volunteers, both immigrants and locals, designed as part of a co-creative process with the youngsters and volunteer architects.
The co-building method has been used in several other projects: Eds andra kiosk (https://tjorn.egnahemsfabriken.se/byggprojekt/eds-andra-kiosk/), in the educational program “Vi bygger tillsammans” where we builded together with students (https://tjorn.egnahemsfabriken.se/byggprojekt/gronskan/). We are currently leading a project “Egnahem för alla” (funded by Vinnova, 2021-2023, Dnr 2021-02916) where we are exploring if co-design and co-building can be used on a larger scale. In this project we will build a community with 18 houses for a group of people of different ages and back-grounds, all of them working within a limited budget (https://tjorn.egnahemsfabriken.se/byggprojekt/egnahem-husebybergen/ ). In the project, we are working together with the Orust municipality as well as two financial institutions: Ekobanken and Mikrofonden. In the project we use our co-creative design method and experiment with a new way to design a small community of private houses, based around shared functions and a communal house.
All our projects throughout the years have focused on how we can solve and meet the many challenges that we face. By working and acting together, we build self-confidence in ourselves and in the society we live in.
co-building
empowerment
equality
integration
resilience
Sustainability is one of our main goals overall. Both ecological and social. By being careful with our shared resources and to take care of each other, we stand stronger to solve challenges together. We build as much as possible with recycled material.
* CO-BUILDNING. By building and designing together social sustainability occurs. During the design-process and collaborative building weeks people from different countries, background and ages worked side by side and relations were built as well. We believe that in working together physically and with a common goal you feel a strong inclusion. In a larger context this will contribute to more sustainability in our communities and overall society.
* EMPOWERMENT. By building house together, you also build people by collaborative learning. To build side by side strengthen relations, but also your skills, the gives a feeling of self-confidence by knowing how to build a house. It´s no rocket science, but we are often taught that we need experts for everything and forget our own power and competence.
* EQUALITY. By working side by side and co-building the differences according to gender, ethnicity, languages, culture, or experiences erases. You learn from each other and in the building process people help each other. With equal knowledge and skill makes equality grow between people. Knowledge is power and gives you more ways of function with others.
* INTEGRATION. In the early summer camp with youngsters we have mixed young immigrants and locals, and after just a week of co-building we have seen how they cooperate without any problems, even if they don´t speak the same language. Something connects you to each other when you physically build together. People become friends when they must solve practical tasks. In our method we call it "integration by creativity."
* RESILIENCE. Knowledge and having a collective experience by shared building-process makes you strong inside and the practice stays in your hands.
* CO-BUILDNING. by the co-creative design process between young amateurs/common people and students (the builders) and an expert (the architects) the learning goes back and forth between the groups. In both building a kitchen and Ellen’s house this co-designing process led to a deep knowledge about what the house need to be. Along the process, based on the ones who is supposed to use the kitchen or live in the house, the result is truly based on needs and dreams. The aesthetics values go together with function. Overall based on recycling, the supply of recycled material, also have impact on the design.
* EMPOWERMENT. To design and have control/power to make decision one’s house gives a large feeling of self-confidence. Both building the outdoor kitchen and building Ellen’s house were done by a collaborative process. Even Ellen were only 16 years old when she worked together with the volunteer architects, she rapidly had a strong trust in her own will and voice. We could notice the change, how she was given and took active part in decision making.
* EQUALITY. By working together by co-building and co-design as a bridge between gender, culture, age and skills the method contributes equality between the participates, since building together need hands and the practical, physical work to be done. A lot of differences between people which can be hard to overbridge in for example social life, comes natural in this process. Differences doesn´t really matter when you for example need to lift a wall together.
* INTEGRATION. Se the above text according to equality, clearly different culture and language is not a obstacle for building together. You also teach each other different building culture and solutions. In designing Ellen’s house the young people at the building summer camp were both immigrants and locals.
* RESILIENCE. Throughout the projects regular evaluations we could see how the young participants had faith in themself and the group of building a house
Another of our goals in our daily work, in research and projects, is inclusion. What we strive in, convinced that inclusion is the key to strong, safe and welcoming societies.
We want to increase inclusion between different groups, for example young people from different cultures, who doesn´t have any natural meeting points in the community. In the project “We build together the focus group was primarily young persons with different background and culture, working together with volunteers, mostly adults, both men and women. By making things with your hands, building and being creative, integration occurred, with new relations and friendships. The project was a cooperation between civil society, the municipality of Tjörn, volunteer architects, artists, educators and Egnahemsfabriken´s project team. It didn´t cost anything to participate and the food we ate together were to a low cost. Since Egnahemsfabriken is situated close to bus stop people from outside Tjörn, like Gothenburg, could easily reach us.
We think this method of bringing people together, learning from each other, both professionals within different fields and amateurs, is a success for inclusion, between people living on the island Tjörn, and to connect rural and urban communities.
We hope to inspire and show how this can be done, by building-together, not only for the supply of houses, but as a contribution to togetherness and strong communities, where people feel included.
The building of Ellen´s house together with the youngsters and Ellen´s family was also an open call for volunteers to join and learn how to build. The volunteers and the youngsters were than building together, and meals and coffee for was financed by the local bank and the church. Once a week during the building process during the summer, the activity “Byggonsdag” (Building-wednesday) open for everyone to participate in, included more from the local community to learn, share and join the process.
Altogether, the initiative “we build together” contributed to spread the knowing of Egnahemsfabriken as a place for everyone to learn and come together, and a place for small house production. A place where people can get help with a large amount of own work input in the building process. As a organization we on our part, have learned a lot of the method, by working with all different groups av people.
Overall, the result and benefits for citizens and the civil society is:
• Cheap housing
• Empowerment for each person involved.
• New skills for us as an organization and the participants.
• New friends
Spread by the conference Socialt byggande (social building) 2019/2021/2023 that Egnahemsfabriken is producing together with other cooperation partners such as the university of Gothenburg (read more at www.socialtbyggande.se)
EUROPEAN LEVEL: Many visitors from other countries. Volunteers from all over Europe. Work with Quatorze ( read more at: http://quatorze.cc/)
REGIONAL LEVEL: Funding from Vinnova and Formas. Egnahemsfabriken is high-lighted as a good example on innovation by Boverket (https://www.boverket.se/sv/samhallsplanering/arkitektur-och-gestaltad-livsmiljo/argument-nyttor/samhallsutmaningar/innovationer-och-samverkansmodeller/innovation-och-social-sammanhallning/
REGIONAL LEVEL: Chalmers, Rise- researchers, the Västra Götalandsregionens craft initiatives for sustainability
LOCAL LEVEL: We cooperate with many different organizations in the civil society, such as the local association for transition, the church, the municipality of Tjörn and Orust (both cutlture and immigration department) private persons and companies. We also have a lot of local volunteers at Egnahemsfabriken.
Architects – in the co-creative design process the architects is playing a big role in the work. In this project the architects were from different countries and levels of experience. Ellen´s house was a teamwork with all the architects with Ellen in the lead.
Students – participate in the co-creative design-course and some of the architects were students in their final year.
Carpenters – educators and keypersons in building both the outdoor kitchen and Ellen´s house. Led the practical work in the building -process.
Designers & artists – some of both groups were involved in the co-creative process and as volunteers. Brought the eye of an artist and aesthetics focus in building a house and kitchen, which we found very valuable.
researchers – the project “we build together” was a research -project, therefore we had researchers following the work for documentation and results. In the attached file, the researcher try to answer the question “Can co-design and co-building help make collaborative housing more affordable? Her presence during the project added a sense of importance, in finding ways of create more homes for more people. Especially since the target groups were in the project.
Photographer – The project was documented in video and pictures, by two professional photographers and filmmaker. To be able to present and visualize the initiative for more people outside the group, for example when we presented Ellen´s house for the politicians in the municipal council at Tjörn.
chef- having meals together and share the dinnertable is an easy, nice way of connecting.
We worked side by side, helping each other out and listening to each other’s skill, no matter age, professional background or gender. The added value was apart from a strong sense of pride over the project as everyone’s project a feeling of being able to learn from each other and being able so resolve any obstacles occurring in the group.
To co-build and co-design houses are an uncommon way of building houses. Building houses on your own is in Sweden only for the wealthy people but many people, especially young people a bit elderly women are very interested in being able to cut costs and in the same time live the way they want, after their own needs and dreams. They are all willing to put time into the project and there are many people who want to help out and in the same time learning how to build. Those people are often open to live smaller and often want to work with both recycled materials and ecologic materials. By helping people to draw and build their own houses in a co-building method we want to show that this can be a way of creating own houses for groups that today have a problem finding affordable houses that fulfill their dreams and needs. And in the ongoing project “Egnahem för alla”, cooperating with the municipality of Orust, we also show that it is possible to scale up this innovation by working together with a municipality, and thereby being able to offer plots at a low price.
Historical in Sweden, the Egnahems-movement started in the end of 1800 in rural areas, but later on, around 1920 reached the urban areas were both overcrowding and housing shortage. The system was based on the government- subsidized, while the municipality contributed with land. The people who was supposed to live in the house contributed on their side with a lot of work in the building-process. We are trying to create av modern, updated version of the movement, hundred years later. In a total different time and structure, but with the same problem with lack of homes for people with limited budget. And in a time when we also need to take care of the earth, be careful with resources and looking for new, sustainable ways of living and building, based on environmental care and more sharing of knowledge, land and more self-sufficient. Our homes and way of building habitats are connected.
The methods of co-building and co-creating design can be replicated and upscaled in almost all countries with a lack of cheap housing. Building your own home with other people also make it easier to use reused material, since it is a small scale project and you can use the material you find as a part of our design-process.
We want to build a strong structure for co-building and supporting self-builders. A model and solutions for the groups having hardest to get a home of their own, especially since the homes for rent is declining. This is a major question of equality.
In Sweden we are a rare place of having an educational platform within the field.
Egnahemsfabriken is a supporting-structure for self-builders, a center for transition, self-sufficiency cultivation and ecological and social sustainability, based on a co-creative organization. Our lead star is doing, rather practical than theoretical.
So, the methods main approach is:
* Learning by doing
* Empowerment for each one and make everybody gain the feeling of competence.
* Co-creative processes
* Togetherness, side by side we feel stronger.
Egnahemsfabriken’s experience and previous research about co-design and social inclusion forms a method based on this:
1. food as magnet
2. learning by doing
3. integration through creativity
4. co-building
5. handle master suppression techniques
6. co-vizualise the results
read more in the publication describing the co-crative design method: https://codesigncities.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Create-your-own-home-eng-print-2021-05-27.pdf
Today it is a lack of good, aesthetic, creative and sustainable houseproduction, in cities and also at the countryside. Here at the westcoast of Sweden the problem is that land and house is very expensive which neither young people or immigrants can afford to buy or rent. Therefore has our goal been to form at method for co-building for this solution, were people by contributing with there work, co-builds and co-creating design can form a home for themselves. This method and way of thinking, work and act, can be used everywhere were people need somerwhere to live and have support to do so. The dream scenario is a cooperation between the the muncipality supporting/landowners and a supporting structure/method for selfbuilders. For helping people with less money, but more time and will to build, combine this two factors for creating homes for more people. This local solution thereby can meet global challenges wherever there are a lack of houses and homes.
We wish to implement to people that everyone can build and design their own house. To give a reminder of the strength of each one. Therefor we do and we teach. We have already built several houses with the method, and we have done several education programs in co-building so far (building camps summer 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, “Eds andra kiosk summer 2021”, education for five weekends spring 2022 at Egnahemsfabriken and the eduaction programme "Tillsammans bygger vi" in the semester of the autumn of 2023, together with the folk high school Billströmska. This education with Billströmska will be held again for one year, starting in the autumn of 2023 and the weekend education will be held the spring 2023. We have also had three educations in the co-creative design method, and we will do another course this fall of 2023. In the ongoing project “Egnahem för alla” we will upscale the method of building together and severel of the houses will be designed with help of our co-creative method.
