In-between space and the architecture of encounter in cooperative housing in Uruguay

Abstract:

This article examines the intermediate space as a support for collective life in housing cooperatives built in Montevideo during the 1970s. It studies how spatial operations: active thresholds, habitable pathways, and shared uses; configure an architecture of encounter between the private and the common. Drawing on a genealogy that connects courtyard houses, tenements, and modern housing, three cases from the Uruguayan cooperative system (VICMAN, AFAF 3, and CUTCSA I) are analyzed through a methodology that combines morphological study, on-site observation, and comparative diagrams. These diagrams help identify patterns and establish links between diverse design strategies. The intermediate space is not conceived as a functional leftover, but as a social infrastructure that sustains communal life. The research also incorporates the category of edge, understood as an interface between housing complex and city, crucial for assessing urban porosity. As a disciplinary contribution, the paper argues that cooperative housing, in its spatial and participatory dimensions, offers valid lessons for rethinking collective dwelling. In a present marked by social fragmentation, urban loneliness, and housing crisis, these experiences do not provide replicable models but sensitive principles for designing proximity, relationships, and shared care.

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