The New Normal era following the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped everyday life around remote work and individualized living, while single-person households have increased rapidly in Seoul. For young adults, who form a substantial share of these househo...
The New Normal era following the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped everyday life around remote work and individualized living, while single-person households have increased rapidly in Seoul. For young adults, who form a substantial share of these households, housing problems extend beyond affordability and floor area to social isolation and the absence of everyday relationships. This study examines co-living as an alternative urban housing model for young single-person households in Seoul, understanding it not as a simple combination of private rooms and shared facilities, but as a spatial system that coordinates independent living, selective interaction among residents, and connection with the surrounding neighborhood.
As an analytical framework, co-living space is divided into three domains — private, shared, and community — and examined through four planning characteristics: multi-functionality, convenience, comfort, and interactivity. Applying this framework, seven domestic and international cases were compared by scale, from large-scale cases such as lyf One-North and Episode Suyu 838 to small-scale cases such as Dozen Doors Coliving and Bay State Cohousing. The analysis shows that scale is a planning variable that determines the composition of private units, the placement of shared spaces, and the formation of community contact points. While large-scale co-living expands daily life through diverse facilities and programs, small-scale co-living compensates for its limited area through self-sufficient units, shared spaces integrated with everyday circulation, and contact points formed at stairs, corridors, and boundaries. From these findings, three planning directions were derived: securing the independence of the private domain, designing for everyday encounters, and connecting the building to its neighborhood.
These directions were applied to a design proposal for a 118.00㎡ lot in Yongmun-dong, Yongsan-gu, adjacent to the Gyeongui Line Forest Park. The four-story building for six residents consolidates the core on the south side and opens living spaces northeast toward the park. Each micro-unit of approximately 12.12㎡ or 16.15㎡ contains sleeping, bathing, cooking, and storage functions, allowing residents to use the flexible common space on each floor by choice. The open ground-floor lounge connects to the pedestrian flow of the park, and the section is organized as a gradual transition from public to private. The regulatory review also revealed that neither the rental-type dormitory nor the multi-living facility can be directly applied to small lots under the current use classification, indicating the need for institutional refinement.
This study presents planning directions and an architectural prototype for small, neighborhood-embedded co-living, in contrast to the large-scale supply that has dominated the Seoul market. Future research should include post-occupancy analysis of shared space use, studies on operation and community maintenance, and application to various lot types in Seoul.