Comparison Between Taiwan Housing and Dutch Co-housing

Abstract

Taiwan has faced severe housing commodification, unaffordable housing prices that have fueled widespread anxiety about the future, rapid aging, standardized public amenities in residential complexes, and increasing neighborhood alienation. Additionally, the traditional market logic, which is developer-led and focuses on building first and selling later, has become insufficient to address the diverse and increasingly complex housing needs of the population. Therefore, co-housing, a model based on the principle of “people gather first, co-design, then build houses,” which emphasizes shared visions and values as well as participatory design, has emerged in Taiwan as a potential “third way” challenging the dominant market logic. However, due to many obstacles, its implementation has been largely unsuccessful.

This research compared the practices of co-housing in the Netherlands and Taiwan. A mixed-methods approach was adopted: on the one hand, desk research and semi-structured interviews were conducted on two case studies - Iewan in the Netherlands and Yuanhe in Taiwan; on the other hand, a questionnaire survey was used to examine Taiwanese residents’ awareness of and attitudes toward co-housing. The analysis was guided by four conceptual frameworks: “Contextual Factors”, “Driving Factors”, “Visions and Values”, and “National Cultures”.

According to research findings, although both places originated as a response to inadequate housing systems, co-housing in the Netherlands originated from a social movement that emphasized bottom-up participation and lifestyle, with a more mature institutional support system; in Taiwan, however, it was mostly government-led and faced challenges such as an imperfect system and insufficient social acceptance. Taiwanese survey results indicated that despite a highly collectivist culture and public reservations about co-housing models (such as management and interpersonal conflicts), acceptance or participation willingness would gradually increase due to the actual co-living experiences and policy support. The Dutch Iewan case exemplified the philosophy of “people gather first, co-design, then build houses” and a stable governance mechanism; the Taiwanese Yuanhe case was a co-living experiment within the social housing framework, demonstrating the potential to break away from traditional thinking, but it was constrained by policy timelines and cultural promotion challenges.

The conclusion of this research points out that co-housing in Taiwan should be regarded as an important housing “option”. Its value does not lie in rigidly replicating foreign systems and models, but rather in local adaptation, cultivating promoters, breaking the mindset that “homes are built before communities are formed,” and strengthening social connections and the quality of communal living. The research also points out that co-housing should not only be used as a stopgap measure to solve urgent housing market needs but should also become a “third way” that combines “top-down policy support” and “bottom-up community participation.” The limitations of this research include questionnaire sample bias and the ambiguity of the definition of co-housing. Future research should expand the sample, include more stakeholders, and use participatory design methods to explore locally appropriate housing types.