With co-living units that stack like LEGO bricks, ReHome offers solution to housing crisis

A while back, we featured Commune — a French startup focused on creating co-living buildings for single-parent families. Commune combines the benefits of private and shared spaces and facilities and was designed by French architectural firm Cutwork. Targeting a far wider audience, Cutwork is now applying similar co-living principles to address the global housing crisis.

ReHome, as the concept is called, was initially developed with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit to quickly build homes in Ukraine, starting in Lviv. While the Lviv project is on hold, Cutwork soon realized the concept's potential as a solution for the massive shortage of affordable housing worldwide.

Each prefab unit measures 27 m2, and the modular blocks can be stacked like LEGO bricks to create residential buildings of up to six stories in significantly less time than conventional construction. A single unit can house up to four people in emergency situations; a double can house six. Separate 27 m2 units function as communal entrance areas, terraces and community kitchen and dining spaces. If and when housing becomes less scarce, non-load-bearing walls can be removed to create larger homes.

Cutwork is seeking partners and developers interested in incorporating ReHome to rapidly build flexible housing wherever it's needed.