All Doors Lead to the Kitchen – Sustainability and Wellbeing Challenges in a Shared Centrepiece of Living

Paper in proceedings, 2019

The kitchen figures a central place in the home where a significant share of a household’s resource consumption takes place. Sharing the kitchen between multiple households has potential to bring positive sustainability effects due to more efficient use of both material resources and energy. The concept of shared kitchens has, however, thus far had a limited diffusion. This paper explores the potential of shared kitchens as a future sustainable living environment by studying user experiences from a Living Lab setting. It builds the base for an overarching larger European collaboration on how future shared kitchens should be designed in order to support everyday practices while optimising the conditions for achieving positive impact on both sustainability and wellbeing. Findings are presented from five focus areas concerning different use contexts: (1) accessing, (2) cooking, (3) living and socialising, (4) storing, and (5) cleaning.