Housing developments consist of a variety of building elements, objects and open spaces. Design of such features can facilitate encounters among people and convey messages about the behavior appropriate to particular space. This paper investigates how design of blocks of flats can facilitate a sense of community among residents in urban housing developments, based on a small-scale exploratory study of two housing schemes in Canary Wharf, London, UK. Community has traditionally been characterized as being bound to place, holding shared values and being tight-knitted, thus evoking a feeling of nostalgia in our modern society which is full of uncertainty and insecurity. Today, community takes new forms: it is based on people’s cultural attachments, rather than their innate social orders. Community is now more heterogeneous and is ‘occasional’ in nature. Our conclusions are that the physical design of the building can promote the sense of community and communal activities among residents. We also emphasize that community is sought by most of our respondents ‘on selective terms’, and as such, design also needs to reflect residents’ diverse perceptions of community. Copyright © 2011 IAHS.
