6-month internship opportunities at the cohousing company
For Architects, Urban Designers, Planners, and Aspiring Cohousing Professionals
In Nevada City, CA
READY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
The Cohousing Company, a renowned architecture firm that brought cohousing to the U.S., is offering a unique opportunity to join their team for a paid 6-month internship in 2024. The post is suitable for architects, urban designers, planners, housing specialists, and aspiring cohousing professionals at any stage of their career, committed to immersing themselves in cohousing with a view to applying the processes and practices of cohousing in their career.
INTENT
The intent of the internship is to give the right candidate the opportunity for professional growth while they contribute to a studio doing cutting-edge design work in cohousing and other community-enhanced design. You will be contributing to the completion of real projects and unlike the majority of jobs, this internship provides a much wider array of experiences designing cohousing and multi-family housing as well as various writing projects – we have published 15 books about housing and planning in the last 32 years. In this internship, you would be an activist and an organizer, as well as an architect. The internship is not “limited” like typical entry jobs are, nor is it like school. You’ll do a little of everything, from designing to land use planning to editing books on sustainable design, all in the context of community-enhanced design as a basis to building a viable and sustainable society. We design cohousing communities, affordable housing, and childcare centers, as well as town planning.
We take the internship and the growth of the individual intern very seriously. Interns learn specific design information and techniques and develop skills not readily accessible to someone fresh out of school, or typical architectural practices, such as participatory design and sustainable architecture in the production of inexpensive multi-family housing. An internship at The Cohousing Company is an opportunity to participate in an office with a distinct social agenda—promotion of community, creating more sustainable environments and contribution to the human experience. “If it doesn’t work socially why bother”, is our mantra. It turns out if you can make it work socially, then cooperation will allow other goals like sustainability to more readily fall into place. Within The Cohousing Company framework there is opportunity for interns to explore their individual interests and their role in the fields of architecture, planning, and environmental design.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
It is our aim always to honor natural resources and to facilitate environmental design of the highest standard possible. We strive to make the buildings and environments beautiful and to employ energy and resource-efficient building techniques at all times. We specify low or non-toxic materials. And just because we are designing state-of-the-art housing does not mean that it is okay if the roof leaks—construction and architecture are one. In the end, we attempt to practice the art to its highest level. Once we agree that a proposed project is congruent with our basic philosophy and values, it is then our intent to fulfill it to its highest potential. This is where the intern comes in—developing models, sketches, research, and other means by which we can see, and thereby solve the problems and challenges posed by each project always trying to take the design to the next level.
PROJECTS
The Cohousing Company intern is engaged in whatever projects are currently on the boards. This usually includes cohousing projects (mostly schematic designs), an affordable nonprofit housing project (activism), a planning project, and a book project. Usually, each intern performs a research project, such as a post-occupancy evaluation project or similar.
EXPERIENCE AND EXPECTATIONS
We expect that you come to the internship with basic drafting and architectural presentation skills. We are a Macintosh office and use Vectorworks, SketchUp, Photoshop and InDesign – it is important that you know these programs prior to interning here, at least the basics. Vectorworks has a free one-month trial: if accepted, we would ask that you utilize this monthlong trial period to learn Vectorworks prior to starting the internship. If a foreign student, we would also ask that you be familiar with the feet and inches system, and of course to be fluent in English.
The internship is designed for someone with an undergraduate or Master’s degree, though we are open to current undergraduate students as well. Our interns are sometimes a practicing architect and often after they have started working in the studios of other architects. We have had interns just out of college, and interns who have already practiced architecture for many years—both have been successful.
THE OFFICE
We like a friendly, informal atmosphere. Our office has a full kitchen for your lunch preparation as well as many fine local cafés. We are fully in-person at the office, and everyone is fully vaccinated.
Compensation: Interns are paid $16.00 per hour. Ideally, we would like you to stay with us for 6 months but understand the commitments of school and will accept a minimum of 3-months. If you are unable to do the full 6 months, we urge you to split the internship into two 3 month periods which could take place over 2 summers. There is no obligation to do so, we just find a longer period here allows for more in-depth participation into our projects. The intern wage demonstrates more than anything else, that this is a steep learning curve scenario. You will learn a lot that you are not currently familiar with. I thought that I would learn what I needed in 6 months in Denmark but stayed for 13 months for no pay. In recent years, we have had extremely qualified interns who were able to grow extensively from their previous experiences, and go forth and implement high-quality, yet affordable, multi-family housing, and highly functional neighborhoods.
Future Employment: Many interns have gone on to work for us. We give employment preference to former interns, but it depends on the nature and volume of what is on our boards at the time. We encourage interns to keep in touch with us; over the years several have come back to work here.
Evaluations: Chuck Durrett will meet with you at the end of each month to discuss how the internship is going. The focus is the growth curve and critical reading (2-3 books per month). The last meeting will concentrate on what you want your professional trajectory to be and how we can help you accomplish it. In the past, our letters of recommendation seem to have been helpful. There is a thorough evaluation after the first month. It has happened that we had to request an intern to leave after less than a month, though that is extremely rare (only twice with 60 interns).
LIVING IN NEVADA CITY, CA
This is an in-person position in Nevada City, CA. Regarding accommodation, there may be opportunities to live in a cohousing community or you could also find housing accommodations independently in town. If you stay in Nevada City Cohousing, the rent is generally less than market-rate. There would be an expectation of contributing 4 hours of common work and cooking one common dinner per month.
RECOMMENDED FOR INTERN CANDIDATES:
Read Cohousing Communities: Designing for High-Functioning Neighborhoods (Required)
Read The Senior Cohousing Handbook, a Community Approach to Independent Living
Understand Vectorworks CADD program
Foreign candidates: Be familiar with the feet and inch system
Foreign candidates: Absolutely must be fluent in English
Please peruse this website to familiarize yourself with our new projects, as well as our latest literature projects.
APPLICATION:
The Cohousing Company is offering a rolling application process, please send a resume, cover letter, and portfolio expressing interest in learning about cohousing and proposed starting dates, to charles.durrett@cohousingco.com.
Thanks so much for considering an internship at The Cohousing Company. The internship is a great way to grow as an architect or planner, and more importantly, add to the small covey of architects that are competent at community based and participatory design and that make new cohousing communities a great success. We look forward to hearing from you!
Charles Durrett
Principal, AIA