From Co-Living to Cohousing and Back to Baugruppen
Co-Living, Cohousing and Baugruppen - Image courtesy of CoEverything.
What are Co-Living, Cohousing and Baugruppen?
There are so many housing options beyond the default “American Dream” of living in a single family home and paying for the whole thing by yourself. A few of our favorite community housing alternatives include Cohousing, Co-living and baugruppen. Cohousing is living in a private home on shared grounds, sharing common buildings such as a gym or dining center. Co-living means having a private room in a shared house, sharing living, dining and kitchen spaces. Baugruppen involves organizing a group of people who want to live together in a high density, eco friendly building; together, they design and build the homes specifically for their needs. The benefits of these alternative housing options can include greater affordability as well as social and environmental health.
The Concept of Community Housing
It's no secret the cost of homes to buy and the demand for rentals is rising. Millennials currently make up the largest segment of home buyers and will next year as well. So how do we fit all these people into our cities and onto our streets while remaining as eco friendly and affordable as possible? One solution is to build community housing. Community housing can be seen as a buzzword that triggers negative responses from those who don’t understand it. Community housing may be the best option for a changing, eco friendly economy. Cohousing, Co-living and the concept of Baugruppen all build on the idea of collaboration and living in purposeful groups designed by residents, for said residents. This is not like living in a college dorm or a commune, it is a group dedicated to sharing resources and rallying communities around a unified goal.
Cohousing, Co-living and Baugruppen recognize that humans function better when surrounded by a community - biologically, our physical and mental health is improved when surrounded by others. Families, single people, the elderly and environmentally conscious people are all perfect contenders for community living. Sharing resources benefits the environment as well as it means less individual consumption of goods and waste. Not only can living in a community positively affect the planet - but it can be more affordable, due to the sharing of resources. These communities are safe, sustainable, cooperative and secure.
“Cohousing …
is community designed to foster connection. Physical spaces allow neighbors to easily interact with others just outside private homes. Common areas including kitchen, dining space and gardens bring people together. Collaborative decision-making builds relationships.” -- Cohousing Association of the U.S.
Residents of Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing talk over dinner in the central courtyard. Image courtesy of Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times.
Cohousing
Cohousing is often made up of individual houses or apartments and shared community spaces that is intentional, and not to be confused with a commune. Neighbors in these communities often share childcare with one another, cars, bicycles, gardens and tools. Although they have private homes, they often have smaller carbon footprints. Cohousing is similar in concept to a neighborhood, but without isolation, they foster connected relationships and shared values. Many Cohousing communities have community wide dinners, where residents take turns preparing the meals for everyone. Cohousing is a very safe and communal based housing option especially for intergenerational living, downsizing, and aging in place. Note that cohousing is a type of community living, whereas a housing cooperative is an ownership model.
Private dwelling in shared community
Shared spaces, common kitchen, laundry, library, gym, green space or garden area
Focus on community building
Bringing back the concept of “neighborhood”
Co-Living.
Think flat mates, but with common spaces intentionally designed for sharing, collaboration and interaction.
A communal kitchen in a building run by the co-living organization WeLive. Photo courtesy of WeLive.
Co-Living
Co-living is another example of community living, this style is very popular with young people, co-living communities (like Common) can be found in almost every major city. In these communities, residents share a living space and a set of interests/values. This is a combination of a private living space and shared common spaces. This is typically a single building with separate single bedrooms and a all other living spaces are common (kitchens, bathrooms, living room, dining room, laundry). These communities often focus on the concept of creating an “intentional community” - meaning there will be Co-living units made up entirely of musicians, chefs, artists, or who have a shared vocation or common interest. Co-living includes sharing space in a “family” like fashion. This option can be great for those looking to build community who don’t mind a small amount of private space in exchange for a more affordable housing option. The goals of these communities often include openness and collaboration over competition. Residents can live in co-living spaces for as long as a few years or a short as a night or two while traveling.
Private room, shared common spaces
Similar values/goals build resident community
Emphasis is on collaboration, working together
Baugruppen.
Germany’s sustainable community housing model - future co-owners pool resources, and buy a property to design and develop together.
Berlin's e_3 Apartment Building. Photo credit: Kaden Klingbeil Architekten.
Baugruppen
Baugruppen (german for “building group”) is a housing concept with the primary intention of lowering environmental impact and fostering community living. A baugruppen is a high density, multi-family building custom designed to fit the residents/owners’ needs. The units are often compact but sufficient to meet the needs of owners. Baugruppen stands out from the others because the residents of the building are involved in the custom design of the building, each baugruppen is designed by future residents who work with architects to envision and design their shared dwelling that they will own collectively. A downside of this community housing mode is that baugruppen has very high costs upfront (soft costs like design and engineering), and often this means future residents/owners will pay a down payment in order to secure their place and fund the design and the development, which can be an obstacle for lower income families or individuals. An upside is that the baugruppen model emphasizes low environmental impact, and with economies of scale, residents may be able to share features of their development that they would not otherwise be able to afford as a single family homeowner. The Australian nonprofit Nightingale Housing provides a model that has been able to deliver housing for 15% under market rate costs.
Residents work directly with architects to design ideal space
Shared spaces
Energy efficiency is high priority
High density multifamily building
The Advantages
All three of these options have many advantages for residents - mainly: affordability. Communal resources cut costs and significantly reduces the need for individual investments. These communities are also environmentally responsible, many of these communities focus on reducing individual and collective waste and can decrease overall carbon footprints. Additionally, it has been found that there are health benefits to living in a community. Living alone increases risk of depression for working aged people. Grace Kim, Associate Professor at Wheelock College of Education and Human Development explains in her TED Talk - How CoHousing Can Make us Happier (and Live Longer): “Brigham Young University completed a study that showed a significant increased risk of premature death in those who were living in isolation.” Human beings are not meant to live alone, we biologically crave cooperation and community, we seek it out at any opportunity we can. Many adults don’t realize that they feel isolated or lonely because our society has promoted the “American Dream” of commuting to work, and one family in one home in the suburbs - with the exception of families who venture outside their backyards and living rooms to seek out and foster community connections. Living in an intentional community means giving more purpose to your life, it means taking back the concept of a neighborhood and remaking it, keeping it safe and emotionally beneficial for all.
Affordability
Sustainability
Positive health effects
End systematic loneliness
Who’s Interested?
Anyone can decide to be a resident in a community housing model like Co-Living, Cohousing or Baugruppen. Largely, residents are people concerned about the environment and looking for an alternative affordable housing solution. These options reduce isolation for residents, families will benefit from having their children grow up around other kids living in the same space, childcare is usually an option and they will be able to have a second family outside of their immediate one. Single people will benefit from meeting new people and creating a community outside of work. The elderly won't have to feel they are a burden on their children and will not be isolated in a conventional senior home with many younger people to spend time with and take care of them. Young people will benefit from the affordability of community housing and can build community if they move away from home. While these communities seem like tailored to the extrovert, each model offers a spectrum of privacy for those who are more introverted. Many co-living houses have the option of a second entrance which leads directly to a residents private room, meaning they have the option of not interacting with others if they do not wish to.
Young people
Elderly
Families
Single people
Obstacles to Overcome
There are Some obstacles in the way of community housing catching on. A common obstacle is a western ideology that owning your own house that is for themselves and their family only means “you’ve made it” and that you are successful. There is a social stigma around shared and community housing, assuming these concepts are a throwback to the hippie communes of the 1960s and 70s. Communication and governance are critical, and often more complicated - if you own your own home and live alone, you don’t have to consult anyone to make decisions.
A Little History
Communal living has existed for tens of thousands of years, in fact, the idea of the nuclear family and a single-family home living arrangement is rather recent - the industrialization of the mid 1800s made it less vital for interdependent groups to live together. The modern concept of cohousing was invented in Denmark in the 1970s and since has spread to Sweden to the Netherlands and finally to the USA in 1988. 8% of Danish homes are cohousing. In 2012, the majority of Cohousing developments in the USA were located in California and Seattle although they are also found all over the country, there are a total of 165 cohousing communities in the US with 140 more in formation.
The Future
Cohousing, Co-Living and Baugruppen and living in community is looking like a better option for many people. Social networks and the internet people are able to communicate easier and are interested in finding like minded people to build intentional communities. Millennials and Gen Z care about how their housing choices impact the environment, and community housing can contribute to a lower carbon footprint. More people are interested in the access economy - or having access over ownership of material goods, and communal housing and the sharing resources of resources appeals to this group.