Brankov, B. (2019) ‘Common areas in development of multi-family housing’, Arhitektura i urbanizam, 49, pp. 32–39. https://doi.org/10.5937/a-u0-22134.

The existence of shared architectural space does not ensure collective life. Brankov compares three twentieth-century experiments in multi-family housing: the Narkomfin building, the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille and Walden 7. Reading them through changing household structures and social aspirations, the article examines how communal programmes, internal streets, galleries and roof spaces sought to move selected functions beyond the private flat. It also registers gaps between design intentions and the spatial qualities that actually encourage meeting: a corridor called a street does not thereby acquire the generosity or programme of one. The analysis is comparative and architectural rather than an ethnography of current residents. Its distinctive operation is to treat the internal common area as a contested urban scale, neither simply domestic nor automatically public. For studies of neighbourhood experience, collective space must be described through access rules, everyday uses and maintenance as well as floor plans. The architecture of possibility can be ambitious and still remain underused.