Communal spaces
Communal spaces are often underused because people aren’t aware of them or don’t know how and if they can use them. Communal space needs to offer something additional to the home for residents to use it. We learned there is also a desire to get to know a wider range of people in the building than immediate neighbours.
From talking to residents we found they saw an opportunity for indoor communal space to bring people together. There’s an opportunity for public-facing facilities to include resident engagement. We brainstormed ‘How can we take advantage of underutilised spaces to benefit TVH, our residents and the community?’
We began prototyping ‘Open Living’ – A digital exploration for finding ways to increase use of internal communal spaces for individual and community activities. The open living service can enable internal spaces to be used for group or individual activities.
Impact Evaluation
Residents view an internal communal space as nice-to-have and would not necessarily use it on a regular basis. An online booking system and suggested activities would help promote it. Stakeholders rated this fairly low, and considered this to have both a mid-to-high ‘impact on residents’ and ‘effort for TVH’.