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Testing ground for a new urban lifestyle
September 2000
The concept of co-housing started with Danish architect, Jan Gudmand-Hoyer, in 1964. He and friends wanted to create an alternative to the suburban subdivision and instead build suburban "villages" where like-minded people could live together in friendly, caring communities. In the 1970s the idea began to spread across northern Europe and more recently it has started to take root in the US and Canada where it is seen not only as a testing ground for a new lifestyle, but a prototype for more sustainable development. Around the world there are now several hundred co-housing communities - and most recently, at least three have been built in Australia. One of the first is the Pinakarri Community in Fremantle.
The trestle table is covered in home-decorator's paint stains, but on this night the paints and brushes have been cleared away to make room for a smorgasbord of homemade soup, curries, quiche, and hot dishes of organically grown vegetables. It is what Robyn Williams describes as a "vego/omnivore" and in winter, it is the typical fare when the Pinakarri Community hold their monthly Open House community dinner.
Robyn is a community founder and spokeswoman for Pinakarri - and for this dinner she made the soup. The dining room is on the ground floor of the "common house" - an essential feature of all co-housing projects - and faces out across the yet-to-be-completed, community garden.
Inside, residents, their children and visitors chat while they help themselves to food and find seats at the assortment of dining tables spread around the room.
"Though we only have one community dinner a month, we all eat together three times a week, taking turns to cook," explains Robyn.
"We open the monthly dinners to visitors and invite other people who live in the area. It helps to ensure we don't become too insular and that we stay good neighbours to other people in the street."
The basic community comprises 17 adults and 14 children. But there are other community members who have homes outside Pinakarri's immediate boundaries and on any day there is a constant flow of outside friends, family and supporters.
"The children love this lifestyle," says Robyn. "Like any kids they complain about rules and jobs. But there are benefits - they have lots of playmates, interesting and caring adults, eating together, amazing social events and surprises. It makes it all worthwhile - and they set us an example by embracing community living."
Among the adults, all decisions are made by consensus. "It's important that each person is heard," says Robyn "Each viewpoint contributes to the pool of wisdom for deliberation towards an agreement that is supported by all."
There is also an effort to cut meeting times by discussing issues via email. Most houses are linked through the Internet and residents who do not have private access are encouraged to use the community's computer in the common house. The ultimate plan is to have all houses linked through a local area network and permanent Internet access. But it is a steep learning curve - many residents only sent their first email this year.
Altogether there are 12 houses on the 3000 square metre block in Fremantle's Hamilton Hill - eight rented from the community, four owned by community members. They were designed by local architect, Richard Hammond of Hammond and Green and the residents have nothing but praise for him for his efforts to transcribe their ideas for the community into a physical reality. Pinakarri also has a purpose-built house for a severely intellectually and physically disabled resident who has a live-in night carer and a team of day carers.
"This means Pinakarri provides a working model of community-based care for people with disabilities," says Robyn.
The whole community is operated as a mixed equity housing cooperative and although the housing was not built until a year ago, it was originally launched into existence with an $840,000 grant under the former Federal Labor Government's Community Housing Program. While there are other rental housing cooperatives in Western Australia, it is the first built on the principles of co-housing.
As in other parts of the world, those principals require residents to find a new balance between personal privacy and "living among people who know and care about each other".
According to Dr Graham Meltzer of Queensland University's School of Architecture, Interior and Industrial Design, at a time of increasing environmental degradation and deepening social malaise, co-housing also offers a "model for a more sustainable and sane society".
Graham, perhaps Australia's leading authority on co-housing, wrote his PhD on the growth of co-housing in North America.
"Co-housing facilitates a compact housing form, efficient land use and reduced household consumption," he says. "It encourages human interaction and lends support to disadvantaged members of society.
"It has much to contribute to the theory and practice of environmental and social sustainability - particularly because it is a mainstream housing option."
He says although the underlying principles of co-housing are derived from the social experiments of the 60s and 70s, it is not a marginal or fringe phenomenon. "Most co-housing residents are regular middle-class folk with fairly conventional lifestyles," he says. "Therefore, co-housing has the potential to include, engage or 'touch' enough people to make a quantum difference to our long-term sustainability."
The description fits most of the Pinakarri Community - although among Pinakarri's adult residents, there are more women than men.
"Most of the single women and single mothers we have here have sought this lifestyle because it gives them more security and companionship than they would find living alone," says Robyn.
One of the single mothers has established a small, family day care centre at Pinakarri, and some of her clients are the other sole parents in the community who have the advantage of a "home child care service" while they go out to work.
Co-housing, as an option for singles also seems to be catching on in the United States where in Washington, the city's first co-housing development has just been built in the suburb of Takoma.
The Takoma Village Community still has accommodation available for people who would like to buy into their project, and as a way of promoting themselves they have created their own webpage. Each current resident has also written a brief description of themselves and why they chose to live in co-housing. Interestingly, many of them are single people.
Takoma has also attracted the notice of the US Government's PATH initiative - Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides PATH with a secretariat and the organisation operates as a cooperative venture with industry to advance technologies that will "radically improve the quality, durability, environmental performance, energy efficiency and affordability" of the country's housing.
PATH has been deeply involved in the design of the Takoma Village to make it energy efficient and cost-effective in its use of building materials.
The Pinakarri community too has contributed to good building design. The houses incorporate a passive solar design to optimise the comfort level of the internal temperature. The design received the Highly Commended Award in this year's Western Australian Energy Efficiency Awards.
Now the community has begun to wrestle with its own environmental impact. The development has more cars than was originally envisaged, and residents have started to toy with the concept of car-pooling. But the community has proved to be a magnet for an organic fruit and vegetable grower - Pinakarri residents and neighbours now provide him with enough customers to sustain a weekly mobile service to the area.
"The eight years we talked about co-housing didn't quite prepare us for what it would be like in reality," said Robyn. "Those first years were like being in Primary School and now we are in the first year of High School - and everything is different. Living like this is a challenge and a risk but the fruits of community living are very, very sweet. I wouldn't change it."
