Explorations on Residential Resilience—brf Viva 2011-2019

There is a mounting demand on housing providers to contribute to the current challenges of social sustainability in residential situations and to deliver practical demonstrations and experiments in this field. One such example in Sweden has been initiated as a research informed project develop­ment process by a cooperative housing company in Goteborg, Sweden. The major acting enabling factor behind this initiative is Riksbyggen EF in close cooperation with the University of Gothenburg and the innovation centre at Chalmers. During a period of eight years a trans-disciplinary collaboration project, involv­ing different inter-disciplinary academic actors of Chalmers University of Technology at large―and the department of Architecture in particular—as well as the University of Gothenburg―a building project comprising 133 apartments situated at Chalmers campus has been finalised in autumn 2019. The unfolded intricate process of a transdisciplinary dialogue between different partners and stakeholders, academic and professional, even extended to local inhabitants, future residents and students, might be considered the key to the alleged virtual success of the project. It has specifically made it possible, through the exploration of new ways of knowledge co-production, to materialize far-reaching residential qualities realized within a context of high profile sustainable performance, in social, ecological as well as economic terms.