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By Nancy Levinson
<br />I n 1984, two young architects from
<br />California, Kathryn McCamant and
<br />Charles Durrett, traveled to Denmark to
<br />study a new kind of quasi-communal
<br />housing called bofoelleshaber, or "living
<br />communities." First built in the early
<br />seventies, these communities, which the
<br />Americans dubbed "cohousing," are now
<br />well established in Denmark; about 125
<br />exist there today, and more are planned.
<br />Similar projects have been built in Nor-
<br />way, Sweden, France, and Germany.
<br />McCamant and Durrett describedwhat
<br />they saw in Cohousing: A Contemporary
<br />Approach to Housing Ourselves ~ 1988, Ten
<br />Speed Press, Berkeley, California). The
<br />book is a detailed study of a type of
<br />multifamily development in which a
<br />group of private households shares a
<br />variety of facilities and open spaces. The
<br />idea is to combine the privacy and. satis-
<br />faction ofindividual homeownership with
<br />the greater social richness often found in
<br />communal living.
<br />Since then, the book has become the
<br />• bible of a small but growing cohousing
<br />movement in the U.S. Its authors, who
<br />now run a design and consulting firm
<br />called the Cohousing Company in Berke-
<br />ley, estimate that about 70 groups have
<br />formed in the past two years. While most
<br />of the projects are still in the talking
<br />stages, one is just about ready for occu-
<br />Cohousing is catching on in the U.S.
<br />In Ga(ayette, Colorado:
<br />Houses will occupy 5.5 acres
<br />of the 43-acre site. The rest will
<br />contain a convnon house, gnrdens,
<br />and orchards-along with eight acres
<br />o(open space to he deeded to the city.
<br />pancy, and construction is due to begin
<br />this summer on several others:
<br />• Muir Commons in Davis, California,
<br />is the first cohousing project to be com-
<br />pleted in the U.S. Built as part of a larger
<br />development of traditional detached
<br />houses and designed by Sacramento ar-
<br />chitectDean Unger, it consists of clusters
<br />of two-story attached houses, 26 in all,
<br />organized along aneight-foot-wide street,
<br />closed to all but service vehicles.
<br />• Benicia Waterfront Commons is a
<br />27-unit development in the Bay Area
<br />suburb of Benicia, designed by the
<br />Cohousing Company. This 1.6-acre
<br />--"community will group two- and three-
<br />story attached houses, from 600 to 1,500
<br />square feet, around a courtyard and a
<br />3,900-square-foot common house. Prices
<br />go all the way up to $300,000.
<br />• The Doyle Street Cohousing Com-
<br />munity is an adaptive reuse of a 7,700-
<br />square-foot factory in Emeryville, another
<br />Bay Area town. This one, also designed
<br />by the Cohousing Company, will have 12
<br />units, ranging from 720 to 1,500 square
<br />feet, and 2,200 square feet of interior
<br />common space.
<br />• The Winslow Cohousing Group is
<br />building a 30-unit community on a five-
<br />acre suburban site on Bainbridge Island,
<br />near Seattle. The houses are arranged
<br />along two pedestrian streets; at the in-
<br />tersection is the 2,400-square-foot com-
<br />mon house. The developer is the non-
<br />profit Northwest Community Housing
<br />Foundation.
<br />• The Colorado Cohousing Corpora-
<br />tion will erect a 42-unit development of
<br />passive solar, energy-efficient houses in
<br />Lafayette, just outside Boulder. Conceived
<br />of as a "model environmental community"
<br />by solar designer Matt Worswick and
<br />several architects in the group, it's being
<br />assisted by the U.~. Environmental Pro-
<br />tection Agency, the Colorado Office of
<br />Energy Conservation, and the Public Ser-
<br />vice Company of Colorado.
<br />The Danish experience
<br />The Danish cohousing movement, whose
<br />history is described by McCamant and
<br />Durrett, started in the mid-1960s when a
<br />Copenhagen architect named Jan Gud-
<br />mand-Hover began meeting regularly
<br />with a group of friends to discuss alter-
<br />natives tocontemporary city and subur-
<br />banhousing. Members of the group were
<br />particularly influenced by Thomas More's
<br />16th century classic, Utopia, and its vi-
<br />sion of cooperative life. They dreamed
<br />about recreating the traditional Danish
<br />village, whose design and small scale en-
<br />couraged spontaneous, daily socializing.
<br />Gudmand-Hoyer's first design, for a
<br />suburban community of 12 private, de-
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