Designing Community-Enhanced Neighborhoods: The Architecture of Cohousing
An Antioch University Professional Development Certificate With Charles Durrett, AIA
With this class, Charles Durrett will impart his wisdom and knowledge from designing over 55 cohousing communities in North America (and probably more than anyone in the world) to give every cohousing designer a leg up if you’re going to design a new cohousing community and want a high-quality, high-functioning cohousing community.
LIVE Webinar Series / 4-weeks / $250
Thursdays November 2, 9, 16, & 30, 2023
9:30 am - 11:30 am (Pacific Time) / 12:30 pm - 2:20 pm (Eastern Time)
In North America, too many cohousing projects fall short of the potential of a healthy community that fires on all cylinders. This can be due to many factors, from as big as the site plan of the whole community to seemingly small but key details that provide the right acoustics either between the houses or to prevent too much noise in the common house.
This class will also be utilizing his latest book, Cohousing Community: Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhood, as the main text of the class. This book is chock-full of more than 100 case studies, and all of the lessons learned from the good ones—giving readers a perfect point of departure and setting them up for success when they create their own communities, while still leaving it up to the creativity of the designer and their ability to understand the subculture of the group.
These are very efficient designs, but more importantly an efficient process, creating buy-in both financially and emotionally. Architects have designed these excellent environments efficiently and made a living. Architects have muddled without these tools and lived, but went bankrupt, because the process took too long, or they got sued, or both. At 55 cohousing projects, we have designed cohousing longer than all else in North America. We’ve certainly learned how to get it done—that’s what we are sharing with this class.
We live in cohousing. We hear from our neighbors what works and doesn’t all the time, and we will share that with this class. We hear from the residents who live in all of the 55 cohousing that we have designed. We are in contact with them all of the time, so we can ensure that their cohousing communities are sustainably high functioning.
If you’re going to do a cohousing—do it right, and this class will give you the tools to do so.