Project: InCommon – Reconceptualizing Individual and Collective Housing Preferences
Positions: 2 Full-Time PhD Researchers (1.0 FTE)
- Duration: 48 months, fixed-term
- Start date: 1 October 2025 (or as soon as possible thereafter)
Are you passionate about housing, sustainability, and social change? Join an international, interdisciplinary research team at TU Delft and explore how shared and collective living could redefine the future of housing. Through a groundbreaking mix of quantitative, qualitative, and design-led methods, your research will contribute to shaping housing models that respond to the social and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
Project Overview
The two PhD positions are part of the research project InCommon – Reconceptualizing Individual and Collective Housing Preferences. This project investigates the potential for housing models based on sharing and collectivity—such as cooperatives, cohousing, and ecovillages—to gain broader appeal and adoption across society. These collaborative housing models aim to decommodify housing, reduce environmental footprints, and strengthen social cohesion by encouraging shared living arrangements and communal practices.
The key questions guiding this project are:
- Is collective housing the preference of a niche group, or could it appeal to a wider public?
- What motivates people from different backgrounds to live collectively, and under what conditions?
By combining innovative mixed methods—including surveys, interviews, mapping, co-design workshops and the production of a documentary—InCommon will develop new ways to define and measure housing preferences, ultimately contributing to a deeper understanding of how housing systems can better reflect evolving societal values.
You will be supervised by Dr. Darinka Czischke (principal investigator), Dr. Joris Hoekstra, and Dr. Harry Boumeester, and work closely with each other in a collaborative team environment. You will also be affiliated with the Co-Lab Research group and the Comparative Housing Research Expertise Centre at TU Delft. Together, you will co-organize two key project activities:
- The Theory Building Lab: A forum for engaging with leading housing researchers across Europe in the discussion of InCommon’s findings.
- The User Engagement Lab: A platform for collaboration with stakeholders from the Dutch housing sector.
Position 1: PhD Researcher – “Understanding collaborative living: values, motivations and demographic factors”
Key Responsibilities
- Investigate the effective demand for collaborative housing (i.e., among people already living in such forms or currently seeking them).
- Characterize existing collaborative housing supply using data from the Co-Lab Mapping database.
- Identify and analyse demand through resident interviews and surveys to develop ‘inhabitant profiles’.
- Apply the Means-End-Chain methodology to uncover fundamental motivations behind housing choices.
- Contribute to the production of a documentary showcasing the project’s process and findings.
Requirements
- Background in social sciences, geography, economics, or urban planning, with affinity for housing studies.
- Strong methodological skills (quantitative and qualitative):
- Data collection and organization
- Survey design, deployment, and analysis
- Interview design and qualitative analysis
- Proficiency in Excel, SPSS, and other statistical tools
- Full fluency in English; Dutch proficiency highly desirable
- Ability to communicate complex findings to diverse audiences
- Excellent organizational and collaborative skills
Position 2: PhD Researcher – “Identifying the potential demand for collaborative living: changing housing preferences and architectural typologies”
Key Responsibilities
- Investigate the latent demand for collaborative housing (i.e., among those not currently living in such forms).
- Use a novel, mixed methodology combining the Means-End-Chain method with design-led action research.
- Conduct interviews, surveys, site visits, and co-design workshops with a sample of households.
- Collaborate with TU Delft Architecture students to create conceptual plans and models for new housing typologies.
- Develop theoretical interpretations of findings and contribute to the formulation of future housing models.
- Contribute to the production of a documentary showcasing the project’s process and findings.
Requirements
- Background in Architecture (design skills essential) with interest in housing research.
- Strong methodological skills (quantitative and qualitative):
- Survey and interview methods
- Focus groups and workshop facilitation
- Experience with qualitative analysis software (e.g., Atlas.ti, NVivo)
- Full fluency in English; Dutch proficiency highly desirable
- Ability to communicate findings to academic and non-academic audiences
- Strong organizational and teamwork skills
For more information and to apply: