“I want to know the whole community but become best friends with my neighbour.”

A strong social foundation is the centrepiece and fundamental goal of architecture. Collaborative housing needs to facilitate multiple dimensions of social interaction – from neighbours, to groups, to the community at large.

Social and cultural life are diminishing in Melbourne today as more families move into detached housing and can live in isolation with the sophistication of modern technology. The Microcosm draws from inner courtyard housing and Tu Lou typologies to facilitate a socially sustainable community in Brunswick West. Here, sense of belonging, human interaction, and bonds develop through the establishment of micro-communities and multiple layers of social responses – user participation in the process of design, shared spaces and amenities, and social thresholds – to bring long-lasting richness and quality to the life and wellbeing of the individual, the community, and the wider society.