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COHOUSING:
SHARED
FUTURES
 FOREWORD
‘How will you be living in 2050?’ That’s the question I have been putting to the
future leaders of the design professions. The Integrated Design of the Built
Environment Masters at Cambridge attracts mid-career architects, planners,
engineers, surveyors, landscape designers and project managers. In a week-long
design studio they learn how to design cities that will be fit for purpose in 2050,
when, in this country at least, we should have decarbonised our economy by
80%. They must imagine what life will be like in a year when they themselves will
be contemplating later life.

STEPHEN HILL Over the past five years what has been wholly striking is that the students, who
come from all over the world, all imagine that all of us, not just older people, will
have a better quality of life and one in which space and other resources will be
much more shared than they are now.

They reached this remarkable consensus through on-line research and taking
time to think together about the future. What they also say is, ‘we never ask our-
selves this question in our work today’. That means our cities are obsolete, even
before they are built.

This seminar series has been special in providing time for academics, designers,
community groups and others to meet and think together about the knowledge
we have already accumulated and to understand its implications. They have
started to work more creatively with cohousing, a platform for social organisation
and the co-production of space that has a really vital role to play in developing
new models of urban and rural living.

Cohousing is an opportunity to co-design a very different and necessary shared

future. It is one of the few sources of housing innovation being driven by ‘the cus-
tomers’; people like you and me who, in the normal course of events, have no say
in housing policy or the way the housing market works, or doesn’t work.

The UK Cohousing Network is truly grateful to the ESRC and the wonderful team
of researchers in CollaborativeHousing.net, as well as all the seminar participants,
for creating and filling this valuable thinking space. We hope we have distilled
some useful ideas and insights in this report. Perhaps the most valuable outcome
JUNE 2016 is the building of networks of people wanting to make change happen. Please
By Helen Jarvis, Kath Scanlon start...now!
and Melissa Fernández Arrigoitia.
With Paul Chatterton, Anna Kear, Stephen Hill
Dermot O’Reilly, Lucy Sargisson
and Fionn Stevenson. Chair, UK Cohousing Network
TABLE

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

OF
CONTENTS
COHOUSING AND THE WIDER HOUSING MARKET 4 3

KEY FINDINGS 6
CRITICAL QUESTIONS 7
KEY ASKS 8
THE RECOGNISED BENEFITS OF COHOUSING 9
OUR VISITS: SEEING IS BELIEVING 10
LESSONS FROM ELSEWHERE 14
WHAT PRACTITIONERS TOOK AWAY 17
APPENDIX: SEMINAR PROGRAMMES 18
 COHOUSING
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

AND THE WIDER

HOUSING MARKET
4 It is widely recognised that the UK housing market is dysfunctional. The problems
are not limited to affordability and the mismatch between supply and demand.
Equally important are the kinds of new housing produced by the speculative
volume building model, and the communities and neighbourhoods that result.
In the real world, the quantity, quality, location, density and price of housing are
intimately bound up with how people live and relate to their neighbours and the
resources that their homes consume.

Cohousing could play a key role in solving the crisis. Cohousing usually includes
private individual or family homes, which may be owned or rented, clustered
around spaces and facilities that are collectively used. Food is often a focus, with
community food production and/or a common house for shared meals. The
communities generally have non-hierarchical structures and decision-making
processes, and are usually designed, planned and managed by the residents1.

Our recent ESRC action research programme2 focused on cohousing in the UK

today: what works, what are the barriers to wider adoption, and what questions
still need to be answered? Over the course of a two-year series of seminars and
site visits our group met together with cohousing practitioners, activists and other
academics from the UK and abroad. Six themes were explored to develop critical
questions and identify gaps in knowledge:

• SHARING: What are the links between the experience of sharing and shared
spaces, the social aims and values of sharing and collaborative housing, and
1 Cohousing belongs to the spatial forms designed for communality or privacy? How can sharing reduce
group of collaborative, resource use?
cooperative, and mutual forms of
housing covered by the umbrella
term ‘community housing’. • MUTUALITY: How can mutual self-reliance and care be supported, especially in
communities consisting largely or entirely of older people?
2 ‘Collaborative Housing and
Resilient Communities’, 2014-16 • AFFORDABILITY: What does affordability mean in the cohousing context, and
(https://collaborativehousing.net/),
jointly organised by the universities how does cost affect who can access this type of housing? How much does
of Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, sharing reduce costs?
Lancaster, Nottingham and the
London School of Economics,
together with the UK Cohousing • DESIGN: How can design respond to ecological concerns, foster contact
Network: http://cohousing.org.uk/ between residents and incorporate technical innovations?
• MAINSTREAMING AND AWARENESS: What needs to happen for cohousing to develop
into a widely accepted housing option?

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

• KNOWLEDGE: What can we learn from other community-housing approaches and
from international examples?

Our work highlighted the complex, deeply rooted problems of the wider housing
system. This complexity, we argue, calls for solutions such as cohousing that
harness collective capacity for behaviour change and innovation at all stages of
design, build and occupation.

PLACE
PLACE_people linking art
community and ecology
Oakland, USA.
(Source: Helen Jarvis)
 KEY
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

FINDINGS
• In the UK, there is increasing demand for cohousing and other
community-housing choices.

• Internationally, as in the UK, the diffusion of cohousing innovation from pioneers

6 through early adopters into the housing mainstream (in some countries) has
been a long and difficult process, often lasting decades.

• In the UK, many cohousing groups struggle to get off the ground. Newly
forming groups tend to reinvent the wheel, particularly when it comes to
procurement (including financial, legal, planning and development processes).

• By comparison with other mixed-market economies the UK is both late and

slow to deliver even a modest supply of community housing. Comparisons
can be problematic due to differences in terminology but it is revealing that
there are only 19 established cohousing communities in the UK versus over
600 in Germany. In Denmark and Sweden, social housing providers have long
supported options such as cohousing by providing communal facilities and
promoting tenant participation and member control.

• Cohousing communities often perform better in economic and ecological

terms than conventional speculative owner-occupied housing. These
communities can be more affordable because facilities and resources are
shared. They can reduce energy demand, waste and consumption by
supporting sustainable practices.

Baborska-Narozny M., Stevenson, • These socially connected communities also have undeniable though less
F., & Chatterton P. (2014). tangible social benefits for members and society at large, such as increased
A Social Learning Tool–Barriers
and Opportunities for Collective well-being, shared know-how, and mutual care. We need to find ways of better
Occupant Learning in Low Carbon evidencing these benefits.
Housing. Energy Procedia, 62,
492-501.
• Cohousing could become much more widely adopted if planning, financial and
Jarvis H. (2011). ‘Saving space, institutional infrastructures were better designed to support it (as in the USA
sharing time: Integrated
infrastructures of daily life in
and many countries in Europe). Detailed agreements and models must define
cohousing’, Environment and the roles and responsibilities of residents and other stakeholders at the outset
Planning A, 43:3, 93-105. so as to avoid confusion later on.
Scanlon, K. and Fernández
Arrigoitia, M. (2015). ‘Development • Cohousing communities in many ways reflect the societies in which they are
of new cohousing: lessons from embedded and are not always free from inequalities based on gender, age,
a London scheme for the over-
50s’ Urban Research & Practice, race and income. Recruitment processes, for example, can produce groups
8:1, 106-121. that are homogeneous in terms of any or all of these attributes.
CRITICAL

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

QUESTIONS
• How do group recruitment and participation play out? The tension between
self-selection and inclusive diversity with respect to gender, age, class and
minority populations is poorly understood.

• How important are features of sustainable ecological living to cohousing 7

communities (existing or newly forming), and how can these be made more
affordable and understandable?

• How can design features encourage and enable the mutual support that older Journal of Urban Research &
Practice. Special Issue (2015).
people want? ‘Taking apart co-housing:
Towards a long-term perspective
• What are the differences in approach and outcome between new-build co- of self-managed collaborative
housing initiatives’ 8:1.
housing communities, adaptations of existing buildings and those retro-fitted
in existing structures?

• How can cohousing and similar models help keep people active in the
management of their own communities?

• What financial models would enable wider adoption of cohousing in the UK?
How can affordability be ensured, now and in future?

OUTDOOR SPACE
shared between cohousing and
wider neighbourhood; Fullersta
Backe (Municipal sponsored
rental cohousing).
Stockholm, Sweden.
(Source: Helen Jarvis)
 KEY
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

ASKS
FROM CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
• Rather than providing housing for people, change the political and cultural
framework to enable people to do it themselves;

8 • Improve legal mechanisms to enable/safeguard/develop shared ownership of

goods;

• Engage more with cohousing initiatives and the Community Housing movement;

• Ensure that policy initiatives aimed at doubling custom- and self-build activity
by 2020 work to improve access to funding and land for collective projects
like cohousing as well as for individual custom builders.

Sargisson, L. (2014) ‘Utopianism FROM LOCAL GOVERNMENT

in the Architecture of New
Urbanism and Cohousing’ in • Make more land available, especially in urban areas. In Germany, for instance,
Green Utopianism: Perspectives, state and local authorities may provide preferential access to public land for
Politics and Micro-Practices. baugruppen (self-builders/cohousing communities) at a fixed price. In some
Routledge.
instances, the municipality will also put in sustainable infrastructure beforehand
Chatterton, P. (2015) to create serviced plots;
Low Impact Living: A Field Guide
to Ecological, Affordable
Community Building • Facilitate the formation of intentional community groups and help them
Earthscan: Tools for Community navigate the challenges of designing and building cohousing projects;
Planning, Routledge.

Sargisson, L. (2012). ‘Second • Take account of quality of life issues and inclusive decision-making when
wave cohousing: a modern formulating planning policies and decisions.
utopia?’ Utopian Studies, 21: 1,
28-57.
FROM SOCIAL AND PRIVATE DEVELOPERS
Baborska-Narozny M., Chatterton • Provide a common/communal space/building on every new housing estate;
P. & Stevenson F. (2015).
Temperature in housing:
stratification and contextual • Integrate cohousing and other forms of community housing into mainstream
factors. Proceedings of the housing and its funding structures. We heard for example about a development
ICE - Engineering Sustainability.
View this article in White Rose in Melbourne, Australia, that is 60% private and 40% common-equity rental
Research Online cooperative.

FROM LENDERS
• Work with the sector to improve the financial products available to incipient
cohousing communities and to exchange knowledge about what lenders and
groups require from each other.
FROM COHOUSING GROUPS
• Consider demographic balance in community activities and formation;

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

• Ensure that decisions about procurement are made inclusively;

• Look for ways to incorporate and support sustainable technologies in design,

construction and operation.

THE RECOGNISED
BENEFITS
OF COHOUSING
• Recent post-occupancy studies of co-housing communities suggest that Chatterton, P. (2013)
Towards an Agenda for Post-
new social practices, technical processes, and collective learning can reduce carbon Cities: Lessons from
energy use and improve housing performance; Lilac, the UK’s First Ecological,
Affordable Cohousing Community.
International Journal of Urban
• Because they share many common household appliances and functions, and Regional Research, 37:
cohousing residents report a more affordable cost of living, in terms of food, 1654–1674.
utilities, goods and services;
Durrett, C. and McCamant, K.
(2011). Creating cohousing:
• Co-housing can increase the social and physical resilience of residents and Building sustainable communities,
wider communities through the provision of shared facilities in addition to Gabriola Island: New Society
Publishers.
individual homes;
Baborska-Narozny M., Stevenson
• Less tangible benefits include an enhanced sense of place, increased F. & Ziyad F. J. (2016).
User learning and emerging
self-awareness, compassionate caring and shared community knowledge. practices in relation to innovative
These are often better captured through devices such as story-telling than technologies: A case study of
domestic photovoltaic systems
through traditional metrics. in the UK. Energy Research
& Social Science, 13, 24-37.
View this article in White Rose
Research Online
 OUR VISITS:
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

SEEING
IS BELIEVING
10

FORGE BANK COHOUSING

in Lancaster, UK is an
intergenerational project with
high ecological standards
(Source: Dermot O’Reilly)
LILAC

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

LILAC (Low-Impact Living Affordable Community) in Leeds: a pioneering
low-energy straw-bale development of 20 homes and a shared community house
on the site of a former school. We saw how a shared commitment to sustainable
living can have tangible results. This community development has been massively
inventive, financially, socially and technologically. A major post-occupancy
evaluation and various papers confirm its energy efficiency, resource efficiency
and resilience. http://www.lilac.coop/
11

AT LILAC,
social and physical design have
been developed to foster
community building and sharing
while reducing carbon footprint.
(Source: Melissa Fernandez
Arrigoitia)
 LANCASTER
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

COHOUSING
Lancaster Cohousing: an inter-generational cohousing community with individual
houses, flats, homes, community facilities and workshop/office space. It is built
on ecological values that foster environmental sustainability with new buildings
achieving Passivhaus standard and meeting the requirements of Code for
12 Sustainable Homes Level Six. http://www.lancastercohousing.org.uk/Project

THE CENTRAL PEDESTRIAN AXIS

at Lancaster Cohousing.
(Source: Helen Jarvis)
SHEFFIELD

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

Sheffield: Three site visits showed how existing structures can be re-used and
re-animated through determination and imagination--and also, inevitably, money.
(1) The Open House Project is an urban-fringe farmstead being developed into
seven dwellings, communal facilities and shared external spaces by a group of
family and friends; (2) Fireside Housing Co-operative is a terrace of four Victorian
houses that has developed organically into a communal living space by knocking
walls and garden borders down to facilitate shared activities; and (3) Shirle Hill
Ltd. is a 19th-century villa now occupied as cohousing by a long-time group of 13
friends (11 people in the 50+ age range), with plans for five new homes with high
environmental standard in the grounds.

Open House Project: https://openhouseproject.wordpress.com/;

Fireside Housing Cooperative: http://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/
communities/existing/fireside-housing-co-op;
Shirle Hill: http://www.studiopolpo.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=
article&id=160%3Ash&Itemid=56

NEW-BUILD HOME
at The Open House Project,
Sheffield.
(Source: Bence Kemenzki)
 LESSONS
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

FROM
ELSEWHERE
14 Fernández Arrigoitia, M. and The seminar series invited renowned cohousing academics from Australia, the
Scanlon, K. (2015). Collaborative
design of senior co-housing: the
USA and Europe to tell us about experience in their countries. We learned that
case of Featherstone Lodge In: cohousing has great potential for mainstream acceptance, and that good liaison
Gromark, S. and Ilmonen, M. and between nascent community groups and enabling organisations can integrate
Paadam, K. and Støa, E., (eds.)
Visions of residential futures: cohousing with existing structures and neighbourhoods. In the Netherlands, for
housing in transformation. example, we heard of communities of older residents where cohousing units are
Ashgate, Farnham. ‘speckled’ throughout non-cohousing apartment buildings, allowing both to benefit
Jarvis, H. (2015). Towards a from a shared culture of health and social support. Other inspiring examples
deeper understanding of the included:
social architecture of co-housing:
evidence from the UK, USA and
Australia. Urban Research &
Practice, 8:1, 106-121.

CASE 1:
MURUNDAKA
Murundaka is an intergenerational cohousing community of 18 self-contained
units and two houses in the suburbs of Melbourne. This example of scaled-up
collaborative housing was supported and funded partly by the Common Equity
Housing Programme (CEHL) and partly by an Australian federal government
stimulus package. CEHL is a non-for-profit housing association that aims to
counteract the current affordability challenges (housing shortages, increasing
energy costs, lack of government funding), social housing challenges
(unsustainable delivery model; isolation and reduced rent assistance); and climate
change challenges by developing multi-unit, mixed tenure, sustainable homes.
Based on the principles of tenant control and management (all members are
tenants and landlords), CEHL has a total of 113 coops, 2,200 cooperative units
and 5,418 residents. Members’ income must be below a certain threshold and
rent is generally 25% of income. With half of the coops located in metropolitan
Melbourne and the other half across Victoria, each community owns the company.

http://www.murundakacohousing.org.au/, http://www.cehl.com.au/
MURUNDAKA COHOUSING,
part of CEHL, Melbourne,
Australia, founded in 2009,

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

completed November 2011
(Source: Iain Walker)

15

FLOOR PLAN,
Murundaka,
(From Iain Walker’s ESRC seminar
presentation).
 CASE 2:
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

BERKELEY
COHOUSING
Berkeley Cohousing was created on a family farm dating back to about 1900. It
16 now consists of 15 units, mainly cottages and duplexes, and offers one solution
to the exceptionally high house prices and rents that characterise the wider
San Francisco Bay Area. The group has a “limited equity” arrangement with the
city that restricts price appreciation to area median income growth plus capital
improvements, for 30 years from each resale; buyers have to earn less than 120
or 150 percent of area median income. As a result, prices are now around 50
percent below market, and turnover is very low, with only a single resale every
8-10 years. Sellers are free to select buyers subject to the above restrictions.
After 18 years, half the founders still live in the community, sharing three meals
per week, participating in cooking and cleaning rotas, taking part in monthly
general meetings and working on a committee. Members of Berkeley Cohousing
are closely involved in the proliferation of retrofitted cohousing and various forms
of converted, tiny-house and hybrid live-work housing initiatives in the Oakland
area of California and also across Oregon. A good example is SquareOne Villages
which create self-managed communities of cost-effective tiny houses for people
in need of housing: http//www.squareonevillages.org/

SHARED OUTDOOR SPACE

at Berkeley Cohousing, CA, USA.
(Source: Helen Jarvis)
WHAT

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

PRACTITIONERS
TOOK AWAY
‘We found that the learning that I’ve taken back (from the seminars) both to our
practice and to different groups that we’ve been working with as architects has
17
been invaluable...whether for students or on ageing and mutual support...and the
network that we’ve managed to establish as part of the (series) is fantastic in
terms of grounding us in a group of people who really care about collaborative
housing for the future... LILAC in Leeds is a fantastic example of a different model
of housing finance, group finance, and we are actually trying to do the same in
the south now as part of a group linked up from this seminar series.’
Charlie, Transition by Design

‘There’s something brilliant about going to see established projects (like LILAC,
Lancaster etc.). Sometimes, just seeing how the meals are organised, whether
you buy an industrial stove or a domestic one, these issues become real. When
you only talk in abstract terms these things don’t seem important but when you
visit an established development it raises a whole set of questions and you can
see really imaginative solutions.’
Andrea, Good Health projects and University of Sussex, Brighton

‘I work in the technical department. What I learned today was that the technical
way that I design buildings influences the way they might be used in the future
and whether there is some kind of learning loop that we need to complete; as
well as reviewing our designs aesthetically and performance-wise, could we
engage with people who live in our buildings now to get that extra feedback loop?
Also, the people that you meet at these (seminars) is really inspiring; a whole
range of people from those setting up their own cohousing group, and getting to
visit all the cohousing projects (in Sheffield)...I guess it makes you up your game
as an architect.’
Zohra, Bernstein Architects

‘I nearly didn’t come because I wasn’t sure it would be that relevant but I’ve had
so many ideas from this morning that we could think about for our cohousing—
mostly about standing back and thinking about strategic things, long-term planning
and things we don’t tend to talk about a lot...because we’ve been so bogged
down with the day-to-day and the money in particular of trying to make things
work. So being here helps me focus on the bigger picture rather than fixing on
the minutiae all the time. Definitely ideas that I’ll be able to use, and a really
interesting mix of people here.’
Oliver, Shirle Cohousing, Sheffield
 APPENDIX:
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

SEMINAR
PROGRAMMES
18 SEMINAR 1:
‘NEW DIALOGUES ON COLLABORATION’
11TH - 12TH DECEMBER 2014, NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY

Programme: Thursday 11th December

12.00 – Registration Including Buffet Lunch

13.15 – Helen Jarvis: Introduction to the seminar series
Chris Coates, President, International Communal Studies Association &
author of Communes Britannica (also co-founder, Lancaster Cohousing)
‘Looking Backward for Inspiration: Lessons from the history of intentional
communities in the UK’
14.15 – Lidewij Tummers, Delft University of Technology, Department of Urbanism
‘Self-managed co-housing across Europe: lessons on gender and
environment’
15.15 – Tea/Coffee/ Refreshments
15.40 – Thomas A. Weber, Chair of Operations, Economics and Strategy, Ecole´
´ ´ de Lausanne
Polytechnique Federale
‘Sharing rather than owning: intermediation and collaborative consumption’
16.40 – Open Forum discussion followed by poster presentation (submissions
welcome for display)

Depart Castle Leazes by 17.15pm

*Evening event

18.30 – Doors open, Diggers & Dreamers Roadshow with Chris Coates and
Catriona Stamp
19.00 – Supper, ‘A Season Ticket to the Promised Land’
19.30 – Play, Warning: may include song, poetry, readings, film clips and fun!
(running time: approx. 1 hr 15mins)
Tyneside Irish Centre, 43 Gallowgate Street, NE1 4SG
Programme: Friday 12th December
‘SHIFTING THE DEBATE ON HOUSING: CHALLENGING WHO GETS TO BUILD WHAT, WHERE AND HOW’

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

09.00 – Rebecca Tunstall, Centre Director and Joseph Rowntree Professor of
Housing Policy, Centre for Housing Policy, University of York
‘Social need and housing providers: shifting the debate on housing’
10.00 – Jo Gooding (UKCN) and Catherine Harrington (UK CLT)
Greg Rosenberg (US CLT) via pre-recorded presentation
11.00 – Tea/Coffee/ Refreshments
11.30 – Panel discussion: Jo Gooding (Chair), with Paul Chatterton, Thomas
Weber, Lidewij Tummers, and Catherine Harrington
Making the connections back to policy
19
Seminar ends at 12.45

SEMINAR 2:
CHALLENGING HOUSING SPECULATION AND COMMODIFICATION IN AN ERA OF AUSTERITY. PROSPECTS
AND POSSIBILITIES FOR A MUTUAL LIVING REVOLUTION.
FRIDAY 17TH APRIL 2015, UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

09.30 – Arrivals, welcome and complimentary buffet breakfast for those on the
optional tour of Lilac cohousing project, Bramley
10.00 – Optional tour of Lilac – due to space restrictions please identify on the
application form if you would like to go on the optional tour
11.30 – Transfer to Leeds University by complimentary group taxis
12.00 – Lunch and formal workshop registration at Leeds University Business
School SR 1.06
12.30 – The experience of Murundaka Cohousing (Melbourne) and the Sustainable
Living Foundation: the Challenges of co-operativism and affordability. Iain
Walker. Followed by Q&A
13.30 – The Lilac story and model. Building a low impact, affordable, community
cohousing revolution. Paul Chatterton
14.00 – The Lilac Mutual Home Ownership Model. Lilac residents and members
of its learning and finance team. Followed by Q&A
14.30 – Refreshments break
14.45 – Mutual housing ‘Innovations Showcase’
a. Leeds Community Homes – a model for city-based transformation
b. Radical Roots and the Co-operative cluster model
c. Students for Co-operation. The potential for a student cooperative
housing revolution
d. Other innovations invited from participants
16.00 – Rapporteur’s reflections. Irena Bauman. Professor of Sustainable
Urbanism, Sheffield School of Architecture. Director of Bauman Lyons
Architects (confirmed)

Workshop ends at 16.30

 OPTIONAL BOOK LAUNCH OF ‘LOW IMPACT LIVING’
THURSDAY 16TH APRIL 19.00 - 22.00 LILAC GROVE COMMON HOUSE
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

The book ‘Low Impact Living: a Field Guide for Affordable Ecological Community
Building’ written by the Leeds seminar organiser Paul Chatterton will be launched.
Martin Wainwright, former Northern correspondent of the Guardian and long-term
resident of Leeds, will be the host for the evening. The evening will include some
short readings from the book, some responses and reflections from current
residents of Lilac followed by an acoustic music set.

20
SEMINAR 3:
‘BREAKING OUT OF THE BOX: INTERROGATING THE SOCIO-SPATIAL FORM OF COHOUSING’
26TH JUNE 2015, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY

09.00 - 10.20 – Arrivals, welcome and refreshments

10.20 – Tour of Lancaster Cohousing, facilitated by Lancaster Cohousing.
11.20 – Introduction to the seminar – Dermot O’Reilly, Helen Jarvis and Jo Gooding
11.30 – Grace Kim, Schemata Workshop, ‘Designing the Common House to be
the nexus of community life’
12.30 – Buffet Lunch
13.15 – Sue Heath, Manchester University, ‘Exploring the spatial dimension of
relational practices in shared housing contexts’
Helen Jarvis, Newcastle University, ‘Sharing in cohousing: for progressive
social architectures of conviviality’
14.15 – Tea/coffee/refreshments
14.30 – Lancaster Cohousing panel – Reflections on practices and spaces for
collaborative living and communities
Provocation: Lucy Sargisson, Nottingham University, Thinking about
utopian visions and backcasting

...leading into:

Open Space Workshop: ‘Developing practices and spaces for

collaborative living and communities: questions/suggestions for practice,
research and policy?’

Seminar ends at 16.30

 SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS
discuss the cohousing research
agenda

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

21

SEMINAR 4:
‘COLLABORATIVE HOUSING, MUTUAL SUPPORT AND SPECIALIST CARE’
14TH SEPTEMBER 2015, NOTTINGHAM UNIVERSITY

10.30 - 11.00 – Registration and Coffee

Section one: LIFE COURSE, CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES

11.00 - 11.15 – Introduction to the theme: Lucy Sargisson

11.15 - 11.45 – Shirley Meredeen & Rachel Douglas
Case Study: ‘OWCH’: Older Women’s Cohousing
11.45 - 12.00 – Refreshment break
12.00 - 13.00 – Anne Glass, Professor of Gerontology University of North Carolina
in Wilmington, USA: ‘Opportunities and challenges for
collaborative aging’

Section two: ENDURING THEMES OF MUTUAL SUPPORT

14.00 - 15.00 – Graham Meltzer, from The Findhorn Foundation and author of
Sustainable Community: learning from the cohousing model
15.00 - 15.30 – Public Policy and mutual support. Speaker to be confirmed
15.30 - 16.30 – Workshops – with refreshments!
What is to be done? Developing a research agenda.

16.30 - 17.00 – Closing Reflections

 SEMINAR 5:
‘SHARING IN THE FUTURE: HOW COLLABORATION INFLUENCES ECOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR’
COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

28TH JANUARY 2016, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

Visiting collaborative housing developments in Sheffield

• Fireside Housing Co-operative
• Leo Care’s Farmstead
• Shirle Hill Co-housing
• Women’s Housing, Heeley

10.30 -11.00 – Registration and Coffee

22 Section one: COLLECTIVE LEARNING TO CHANGE BEHAVIOURS

11.00 - 11.15 – General introductions: Helen Jarvis

11.15 - 11.45 – Lucelia Taranto Rodrigues, Associate Professor, University of
Nottingham: ‘Sharing community energy to build resilience’
11.45 - 12.00 – Refreshment break
12.00 - 13.00 – Fionn Stevenson, Professor of Sustainable Design, The University
of Sheffield: ‘Collective learning in co-housing: barriers and
opportunities’
13.00 - 14.00 – Lunch

Section two: EMPOWERMENT THROUGH COLLABORATIVE DESIGN

14.00 - 14.30 – Betsy Morris and Raines Cohen (By Video) from Cohousing
Coaches, USA ‘Collaboration towards Ecological Cohousing
Living’?
14.30 - 15.00 – Intro to Workshops + 5 minute Thinkpieces
• Retrofit challenges: Mark Parsons
• Socio-technical resilience challenges: Lucelia Taranto Rodrigues
• Gender challenges: Jenny Pickerill
• Co-designing challenges:
• Co-developing for ecological living: Betsy Morris and Raines
Cohen
15.15 - 16.30 – Workshops (tea and cakes to arrive 3.00)
What is to be done? Developing a research agenda.
Choice of above workshops (questions posed to each)

16.30 - 17.00 – Closing Reflections

 DIGGERS AND DREAMERS
roadshow, Newcastle

COHOUSING: SHARED FUTURES

23

SEMINAR 6:
MAINSTREAMING COHOUSING IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT – BARRIERS TO KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
21ST JUNE 2016, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

10.30 - 11.00 – Arrivals, registration and refreshments

EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES

11.00 - 11.15 – Introduction to the seminar – Helen Jarvis, Kath Scanlon and
´
Melissa Fernandez
11.15 - 12.00 – Anna Dijkhius, The Dutch Federation of Intergenerational
Intentional Communities. ‘Pioneering socio-material design in
Dutch cohousing: lessons from Delft’
12.00 - 12.15 – Refreshment break
12.15 - 13.00 – Michael La Fond, id22: Institute for Creative Sustainability
‘Developing and maintaining Urban CoHousing: practice and
policy lessons from Berlin’
13.00 - 14.00 – Buffet lunch

CAPTURING KNOWLEDGE, INFLUENCING POLICY

We wish to acknowledge support
received from the Economic and
14.00 - 14.45 – Finance: Ways to stop reinventing the wheel Presenter TBC Social Research Council, funding
14.45 - 16.00 – Panel: Opportunities and challenges for developing urban co source Research Grant (Seminars)
housing BH148250. Additional small
grants are acknowledged from
Jo Williams, The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Newcastle University, School
Patrick Devlin, Pollard, Thomas Edwards Architects (PTEa) Research Committee, and the
John Killock, Independent researcher and architect London School of Economics
Higher Education Innovation
Maria Brenton, OWCH project consultant; UKCN board member Fund (HEIF5).
16.00 - 16.15 – Tea break
16.15 - 17.00 – Workshop discussion Sincere thanks to those who
took part in the seminars, hosted
Key messages for Parliament, closing reflections and moving visits, and generously shared
forward their time and expertise.
ESRC Collaborative Housing and
Community Resilience
School of Geography, Politics
and Sociology
Newcastle University
Daysh Building
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE17RU
United Kingdom

Email: helen.jarvis@ncl.ac.uk
https://collaborativehousing.net/

The ESRC ‘Collaborative Housing

and Resilient Communities’
(https://collaborativehousing.net/)
seminar series was a collaboration
of the following research
intensive universities in England:
Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds,
Lancaster, Nottingham and the
London School of Economics,
jointly organised with the UK
Cohousing Network.