Functional what?! Jaffe what?!
As a little flatshare of 6 adults within the houseproject GoMokry* we practice a little different way of living together, namely “functional living”.
The word functional might at the first impression seem very impersonal and make one assume distance as in a shared flat where people only live together to reduce costs. But functional living (german: funktionales Wohnen) has little to do with this. We experience and live it differently, but more to that later on.
First, let’s explain what functional living is about:
We share five rooms and one big living-kitchen area, whereby the rooms aren’t assigned to people but to functions. Living like this is for us an attempt to question and break up normative forms of living. In times of extreme scarcity of housing and increasing rents in the cities we see functional living also as a reasonable approach – quasi of necessity – as space can definitely be used more effectively. But still structural inequities make a by far bigger difference than if a shared flat is used in a functional or classic way: just remember all the endless big houses and apartments of the rich or the numerous strategical vacancies in the city. However our focus is the personal experiment, next to the political and economical questions that are connected to this way of living.
The personal space of every one of us extends across several rooms, which enables us to use different rooms for different activities.
The heart of the apartment is our living-kitchen area. Here most of the life happens. From cosy breakfasts to periodical plenaries but also just hanging out, having conversations, exchanging views and opinions or organizing daily life, all this happens here.
Adjoining to it are the two sleeping rooms. Everybody has their own bed and as necessary a cupboard, dresser or shelves with the dearest items. Thereby results an atmosphere of comfort which precisely isn’t separated to the other people by walls.
The quiet-room is our safe haven for retreating. A comfortable space containing a bed, desk and a lot of plants, which we organize as necessary via a little blackboard for notes on the door or via direct agreements.
The music-room has access to our balcony and is a separate living room with couch and several instruments, which is also used for movie-nights and the such.
In the fifth room you find our office and workshop. Here our both privately and collectively used working-spaces, tools and materials for manual and arty projects are located.
Thus there is no physical space that is “mine”. If I need room for myself, I need to actively create it. This happens for example by deciding to go to the quiet-room or by communication with my flatmates about my need to not have conversations right now, even though we might be sharing the same room at that moment. To learn and practice this is perceived by some of us as (of course often challenging) enrichment.
At the same time it is also experienced as enriching to not necessarily withdraw to a single-room in challenging moments but to stay in contact with each other.
By means of collectively used rooms the life together gains a communal and intense nature. Encounters and communication don’t have to be organized so much but unfold automatically through this way of living together. Sometimes it still happens that everybody is out and about, which at times also can be enjoyable.
Our functional-living-project was originally founded as the so-called “Jaffe” in the Jaffestreet 12 more than 10 years ago. Whereat the constellation of inhabitants changed again and again over time. With the moving into the houseproject GoMokry* the “Jaffe” has started into a new era.