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Inspiring cohousing communities

The Archive wanted to build a cohousing community. This is a collection of successful projects that I find inspiring.

Cohousing Communities

Trudeslund

32 units, suburban, great common house.

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Jerngarden

8 families, urban, they've joined their backyards.

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Jystrup Savvaerket

21 units joined by a glass-covered street! Each unit has a "supplementary room" that may be used as guest room, home office, storage, etc.

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Bondebjerget

4 separate villages of 21 units each. Villages have their own identities and have friendly competitions.

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FrogSong Cohousing

30 units. Main building is mixed-use (ground floor is a coffee shop) in downtown Sonoma County.

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Hearthstone Cohousing

32 unit urban infill project in an old amusement park.

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Doyle Street

12 units in a refurbished factory in Emeryville. Overcame fierce neighborhood opposition and has since received praise from their once-enemies in local government and nearby NIMBYs.

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Berkeley Cohousing

Features cottage-like smaller homes in backyards. As of September 2019, it became legal to add 1-2 cottages to single-family zoned land in California and rent them out separately (these are called "accessory dwelling units" or ADUs). ADUs are a big f'ing deal and make neighborhoods like Berkeley Cohousing much easier to build.

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Swan's Market Cohousing

Another redevelopment, this one in an old warehouse.

Located in Downtown Oakland.

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Many of these villages are described further in Creating Cohousing, by Durrett and McCamant. My book highlights can be found on this page.

Other inspirations

Bell Labs

Embassy SF

Tuxedo Park

Pacific Science Institute

Cottage communities

Tiny homes made the last development incredibly cheap! The only building you really need to design is the common area - perhaps you could scale up or down flexibly by adding tiny homes on an as-needed basis.

Stochastic Labs

You can apply for seed funds for a creative tech venture (we take no equity) or to be an artist/engineer in residence.

Agapolis