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• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Company towns were an efficient model for accommodating work and living in the 19th and 20th centuries. The shift in labour from material to immaterial and, more recently, the digital revolution have made working from home possible, making the company town model redundant. However, suitable, affordable housing is harder to find nowadays, especially when people also work from home. Employers, in turn, have difficulty attracting and retaining suitable employees. The provision of housing can be advantageous for both employee and employer. This dissertation aims to research how the company town model, integrating labour and living on a large scale, is relevant to tackle the previously mentioned problems and in which ways it can regain relevance. Specifically, it investigates whether it in light of the shift in labour is a relevant model to accommodate immaterial, white collar work. In this context, immaterial work is work that can be done from home. To test the hypothesis that the model is relevant again, a research case was picked to be investigated: the Adidas company headquarters in rural Germany. The headquarters are a company town model and facilitate mostly immaterial work. Firstly, there was a spatial analysis carried out to understand the site, its development and motivations. Secondly and thirdly, an analysis of the employer’s vision and interviews with employees working at the headquarters were conducted. The results showed that it is a complex matter, in which for example the model worked for one employee for a certain reason, and not for another because of that very reason. Although it might be interesting for Adidas to focus on housing, they have no future plans at the moment. As a result, the outcome shows that the company town model is not (very) relevant to tackle previous problems of housing. If the model is to gain relevance, the working week, for example, needs to be approached with more flexibility, with employees staying overnight a few days a month in the office.