Taking Matters into Their Own Hands: The Vauban Housing Community (1993–2003), Ekostaden Augustenborg (1998–2002), and Marmalade Lane Co-Housing (2006–2018)

In 1993, a small community group in the southern German city of Freiburg developed ideas for converting the former site of military barracks into a car-free and ecologically based housing estate. The resulting “Quartier Vauban,” citizen-driven and based on co-design and self-help principles, quickly became known as a model for ecologically and socially sustainable housing. A few years later, Ekostaden Augustenborg in Malmö, Sweden, was re-designed with residents’ input as a retrofitted and ecologically focused housing estate in Malmö, Sweden, while in 2006, a citizen group in Cambridge, U.K., developed ideas for a co-housing community that became known as Marmalade Lane. As in Vauban, self-help and ecological features were central to the concept, which stresses social and community benefits for the residents. This chapter traces these groundbreaking projects and discusses the financial and social mechanisms by which they were planned and created. A special focus is on the projects’ social sustainability and how this has been ensured over the years.