‘People always gossiped about our sleeping arrangements!’ How 100 people share a happy home in the Netherlands

Geoffrey and Esther Maher with their boys. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

I meet Konstanze Winter in Delft, a canal-encircled city in the Netherlands best known for its distinctive blue-and-white pottery. We are in the Tanthof quarter, one of the Netherlands’ so-called “cauliflower neighbourhoods” beloved of 1970s town planners. These were conceived as an antidote to the rigid grid layouts and tower blocks of the era, featuring low-rise architecture and maze-like streets that are said to resemble the cruciferous vegetable when viewed from above.

Centraal Wonen Delft, one of the longest-established and most experimental Dutch living projects, blends right in here. A cluster of low-rise blocks decked with strips of bright colour, it could be mistaken for an extension of the neighbouring primary school.