Madison Cohousing Conference Recap, Upcoming Classes, & Other Important Updates | |
Charles Durrett during his presentation: Cohousing Design A–Z | |
Cohousing Conference in Madison, WI Recap
August 26–28, 2022
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This year's cohousing conference in Madison was a great success!
From the pre-conference intensive to the multitude of information sessions by the cohousing professionals and experts, the 2022 Cohousing Conference was overall a rich, inspiring, and learning experience for us here at The Cohousing Company.
| We took away many valuable lessons from this conference, not just from the professionals and their practices, but also from the cohousers themselves. It was truly gratifying and fulfilling to see the impacts that cohousing has on so many people's lives, and we are proud to be a part of this movement—the movement for more cohousing and high-functioning neighborhoods. |
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Cohousing Communities:
Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhoods
The new definitive book on cohousing and high-functioning neighborhood design is now available through Wiley and Amazon website @ $39.95. Right now you can use the code ARC20 at checkout for 20% on Wiley website as well.
Buy from Wiley Buy from Amazon
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Other Updates in Cohousing: Table of Contents
September 2022
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- AARP Virtual Spotlight – Cohousing Creates Community
- How Cohousing Can Help Solve Affordable Housing and Homelessness withCharles Durrett Podcast
- A Solution to Homelessness in Spokane Presentation, November 3rd, 2022
- The Importance of Group Participatory Design in Cohousing
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AARP Virtual Spotlight – Cohousing Creates Community
Tuesday, September 20, 2022 | 11:00 am – 11:30 am EDT
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September 20 is AARP’s next Equity by Design – Principles in Action spotlight.
The series presents case studies of global innovations that redress historic inequities in housing and community models and advance enabling design.
Register for these opportunities to dig deeper on the innovations by conversing with the principals behind the work! Read the case study on how cohousing creates communities and join us in discussion with Casey Bastiaans of People of Color Sustainable Housing Network in the Bay Area, Charles Durrett of the Cohousing Company in Nevada City, CA and Stig Hessellund of Realdania in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Register here: https://bit.ly/3T86v3D
Read the Case Study here: https://bit.ly/3TT76Xf
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How Cohousing Can Help Solve Affordable Housing and Homelessness with Charles Durrett
Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast with Ethan Waldman
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Charles Durrett explains what cohousing is, how it’s funded, and how the communities are set up. We also discuss how tiny house cohousing communities are a solution to homelessness and how any concerned citizen can use the cohousing model to solve the issue of homelessness in their own area.
Listen to podcast by playing the video above, or visit Ethan's website at:
https://www.thetinyhouse.net/charles-durrett/
Additional Resources on the topic:
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A Solution To Homelessness in Your Town
"Charles Durrett has turned an idea on its side to provide an out-of-the-box solution to truly solve homelessness. Durrett applies a community approach that rebuilds lives and community while offering practical sheltering solutions, rather than simply providing industrial-type low-income housing.”
Pamela Biery, writer, advocate, pamelab.com
Purchase a copy from oroeditions.com
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Antioch University 4-Part Live Online Program
How to Address Homelessness in Your Town
October 11, 18, 25, & Nov 1, 2022
This course is about taking an activist role in getting new communities built for people who are experiencing homelessness in your town.
Register here
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A Solution to Homelessness in Spokane Presentation
November 3rd, Robinson Teaching Theater, Whitworth University
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This event will focus on a specific type of solution using “community first” as a priority concept and including people exiting homelessness in the design and development of the project.
Presented by Charles Durrett, architect, author, and advocate of affordable, socially responsible, and sustainable design. Charles has made major contributions to community-based architecture and cohousing in North America and around the world, including Haystack Heights in the Perry District in Spokane, as well as the recently completed 70-unit project in the town of American Canyon for previously unhoused folks.
New Hope Resource Center and Whitworth University are partnering to host this event, and we invite you to join us to learn, discuss, imagine, and begin implementing solutions to the homeless crisis North of Spokane. Let’s spread the word of caring and sharing with others - we all need hope and more possibilities for housing, especially affordable and supportive housing.
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Location
Robinson Teaching Theater,
Weyerhaeuser Hall, Whitworth University
300 W Hawthorne Rd, Spokane, WA
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Date and Time
Thursday, November 3rd, 2022
7:00 PM
Presentation will be recorded.
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The Importance of Participatory Design in Cohousing
An Anthropological Act of Designing a High-Functioning Village
| Diversity plays a big role in high-functioning neighborhood—creating the full compliment of possibilities and solutions. | |
No matter what other people tell you—be it developers, architects, development consultants, marketers, or project managers—the group participation in design is the number one indicator of success in cohousing community. It is the only way that you can design to best represent the culture of the group—and not just who they are now, but also who they want to be.
Here's an excerpt from various chapters of our latest book Cohousing Communities: Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhoods which talks about the importance of participatory design in cohousing communities:
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Chapter 5
Intergenerational Neighborhood Design
Private Houses Design
A house is a part of our psyche, our self-image, our day-to-day comfort—our happiness ... If basic cohousing math holds true, which it usually does, 1+1 = 3. That is, when we sit down with a group of say, six households (around ten people in total) with the intention of creating the exact same awesome dwelling, the house has the benefit of numerous creative people serving up ideas that, when facilitated well, are synthesized to realize the best of the ideas of everyone at the table.. the real magic happens when I sit down with the ten people who are all interested in the same thing—a great house.
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Chapter 9
Senior Neighborhood Design
Common Houses Design
Never am I more excited about community-enhanced design than when I watch 40 seniors spend two full days to decide which common amenities outside of their houses and shared with the entire neighborhood, will make their personal lives more practical, more social, more healthy, more convenient, more supportive, more economical, more interesting, and more fun. “It’s just a building!” No, it’s a reflection of who we are—it’s a reflection of our culture, and it’s a reflection of who we want to become.
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Books have played a major role from the beginning in terms of getting cohousing to this country and built in your town, starting with our first book Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves (The European Story). Bookstores normally play a key role in culture change in general, and cohousing is no exception.
Many groups have contacted the publisher (New Society Press) directly to get bulk discounts, and I find that successful projects get started when lots of folks do their homework. I usually need to give a dozen copies of Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities and/or Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living away to planners, banks, neighbors, mayors, new residents, local architects, builders, and so on—to give them context. It saves the group thousands and thousands of hours, dollars, and delays. Cohousing is more than a sound bite; it is cultural pivot, and it takes folks doing some fun research first. Seattle and the surrounding areas have about a dozen cohousing communities largely because the bookstores in town have sold more than 1,000 copies of Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities and the San Francisco area has over 20 cohousing communities because the book have sold more than 2,000 copies.
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