<< One of the things that’s most exciting to me about intentional communities, in terms of its application to the wider culture, is we are learning something about [how to disagree about things that matter and have that be a good experience].

I think the hunger for alternate ways to make political decisions, to make them even just on the family level, never mind the village level or the neighbourhood level. You can ratchet all the way up to the international level.

But first, if we’re going to object to making war on the international level, we have to learn how to not make war at home and with each other. That means how do we live on a day-to-day level a cooperative life when we disagree? Nobody needs help when everybody thinks the same way. It doesn’t even make any difference how you make decisions. That’s not the hard part. It’s when we’re facing non-trivial differences and doing that moment differently and actually feel more connected afterwards…

Once we learn better and better how to do that, then I think we’ll have something irresistible to change the world with. >>

Laird Schaub, community coach, living in Sandhill Farm, US (in: interview by David Sheen,2010)

 *****

<< More than thirty years after the first cohousing community was built in Denmark, less than 1 percent of the Danish population lives in cohousing (although, according to a recent national housing study, 40 percent of the population says that it would like to).

However, the full spectrum of the housing market has seen its influences. Almost no Danish multi-family housing project is designed today without at least the involvement of a focus group. This process nudges a project toward a more livable outcome, every time. […] While they might not be cohousing, cohousing is the development model.

Similarly, residents elsewhere […] have a say in their existing neighborhood. For example, on streets with single-family houses, the residents might vote to create a car-free zone. […] This one, seemingly small, choice facilitates community and fosters neighborly relationships in a dramatic way. Residents walk past play areas, sandboxes, picnic tables, and front porches and say hello to their neighbors on the way home. And as people get to know each other, the neighborhood is transformed into a community.

It is not difficult to imagine that the legacy of cohousing in America will be much more than cohousing itself, as is already true in Denmark. >>

Charles Durrett, cohousing architect, US (in: ‘Creating Cohousing’, 2015)

 *****

<< De Muze, een woon- & zorgcentrum voor bejaarden, articuleert zich door een achtvorm met inwendig twee patio’s, dewelke openheid, laagdrempeligheid, licht, lucht en ruimte creëren. […]

De woonkwaliteit wordt niet bepaald door louter de inrichting van de kamers, maar door de toegevoegde waarde in gemeenschappelijke delen. Kamers worden georganiseerd in clusters waarbij elke cluster een eigen keuken, eet- en zithoek heeft. De refter aan de straatkant wordt ingezet als mini gemeenschapshuis dat uitnodigt tot interactie met de omgeving. De mogelijkheid bestaat om hier later aansluitend een kinderdagverblijf te organiseren, hetgeen de band van de bejaarden met de buurt versterkt. De tuin rondom het gebouw vormt een zachte sokkel voor het zorgcentrum en ontplooit zich volgens de principes van een cohousing-project. […]

Zo is er naast een aangelegde tuin die zich als park laat beleven ook een moestuin en boomgaard aanwezig. Deze verschillende tuintypologieën vormen zo het decor waartegen het sociale leven, met de bewoners van het centrum en buurtbewoners […] zich kan afspelen. >>

David Driesen & Tom Verschueren, dmvA-Architecten, Mechelen, B (in: ‘WZC, De Muze’, website ‘de Architect’, nl, 2017)

 *****

<< We hope to attract commercial developers to the conference so they can embrace our model! Given that financing and planning [for cohousing] in many cities often requires the involvement of commercial developers – as well as the challenges of self-developing communities – it behooves us to partner.

Cohousing isn’t a legal term we can enforce. Occasionally you will see the term cohousing included in a commercial development that only offers common amenities, with no shared governance or intentional community. Rather than sinking effort into countering those developments, we put our energy into educating the public about what cohousing can offer in creating a culture of caring and sharing, and building resilient, sustainable communities.

Coho/US launched a “more than cohousing” initiative this past year support the creation of cohousing or cohousing-like models with an additional social-economic mission, as well as cohousing-like models that encourage human interaction, but may not have cohousing type self governance and/or design participation. >>

Alice Alexander, Executive Director of the Cohousing Association of the US and co-founder of the Durham Central Park Cohousing Community An Interview With Alice Alexander About The National Cohousing Conference, blog of the US Cohousing Association, 2017)

 *****

<< Many of the experiments in cohousing are extremely valuable to a society so distracted by materialism and so shell-shocked by the frantic American lifestyle. What kind of experiments am I talking about? Consensus decision-making; participatory design; alternative sources of energy; alternative sources of information; shared resources and designs that reduce each person’s ecological footprint; aging gracefully and vigorously; neighborhood activism in surrounding towns and communities; and collaborative management of neighborhood resources, to name just a few. In general, residents of cohousing are living actively rather than passively. >>

David Wann, writer, editor, filmmaker, lives in Harmony Village Cohousing, US (in: ‘Reinventing Community – Stories from the Walkways of Cohousing’, 2005)

 *****

<< L’intérêt de l’association [Eco-Quartier Strasbourg] pour les copropriétés est arrivé en même temps que le développement des projets d’habitat participatif à Strasbourg. En effet, je me suis rapidement rendu compte que l’habitat participatif dans sa forme actuelle était réservé à une petite part de la société, que de nombreuses personnes n’y songeraient jamais, pour plein de raisons. Les gens qui découvraient l’habitat participatif étaient séduits par le concept, mais ne pouvaient pas forcément rejoindre de tels projets. C’était aussi une volonté des volontaires d’Eco-Quartier Strasbourg de toucher d’autres publics et de sortir de la zone de confort en suitant un entre-soi qui est souvent reproché, parfois à raison, aux groupes d’habitat participatif. L’idée d’étudier les copropriétés a alors émergé. >>

Bruno Parasote, habitant d’Eco-logis, habitat participatif à Strasbourg, F (dans : ‘Guide pratique pour une gestion durable et participative des copropriétés’, édité par Eco-Quartier Strasbourg 2017)