SUNSITE

At the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne a few weeks ago I came across this concept called co-housing.

Intrigued we went to a meeting where the concept was being introduced and I have to say, I like it. The idea is that you build up to about 20 homes and add to it a common house that everyone owns together and shares. This way people can have several common rooms where you do stuff together.

The community of the co-housing inhabitants will them selves decide on all matters pertaining to matters of the common areas. The idea is to create a small scale community like you have in small towns and villages within the city and by sharing resources you can actually have more space and stuff without having to own it your self.

Apparently many of the cohousing communities also tend to become very environmentally aware. Waste and water usage become better managed. Anther aspect I love about these concepts is how these housing projects are designed to have no vehicle roads inside the main area. In Melbourne you never see a neighborhood / collection of houses that don’t vehicle access practically everywhere.

These cohousing things reduce roads and parking spaces to a minimum by having joint parking at the fringes and green areas taking up most of the space rather than (a few well selected words here) roads. The green areas are often designed to grow edible things. Olive trees, fruit trees, grape vines, vegetable gardens, herbs and cabbage grow inside the collective and the residents are able to use them from the gardens rather than buy them in shops. This by it self is just about as green as any green project gets.

We are very much into this concept, it sounds like something we would like to be a part of. In Melbourne there is as yet no such place but there are two projects under way now. One in the Dandenong area and one in Heidelberg. This concept is now quite developed in Denmark and some other European countries though and if the Australian ones will be equally successful our next home might just be in one such community.

+ Superbia, an article on cohousing
+ Canadian Cohousing network