SENIOR
COHOUSING
A
Community Approach to Independent Living
Details:
Price: $ 33.90
Paperback: 254 pages
Publisher: Habitat Press (August, 2005)
ISBN: 0-945929-30-7
Back Cover
Description:
Senior cohousing is an entirely new way for seniors to house themselves with dignity, independence, safety, mutual concern, and fun.
Developed with the residents themselves, senior cohousing combines the autonomy of private dwellings with the advantages of shared facilities and community living.
Combining the autonomy of private dwellings with the advantages of shared facilities and community living, senior cohousing residents live among people with whom they share a common bond of age, experience, and community – a community they themselves built to specifically meet their own needs.
Providing a proven, phase-by-phase methodology for creating senior cohousing and an inside look at existing senior cohousing communities – the people, the places – this comprehensive book is for seniors, housing professionals, designers, and anyone seeking appropriate housing alternatives for today’s dynamic seniors.
Take a moment. Browse through this book. Visit the communities and meet the people who have made the conscious choice to take control of their lives to live by living independently through community.
About
the Author:
Charles Durrett has designed over thirty cohousing communities in North America and has consulted on many more around the world. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, the New York Times, the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Architecture, and a wide variety of other publications. He and his wife, Kathryn McCamant, have received numerous awards for their work including, the most recent World Habitat Award, presented by the United Nations; and the Mixed Use, Mixed Income Development Award, presented jointly by the American Institute of Architects and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Charles has given many public presentations for groups from the U.S. Congress, the Commonwealth Club, scores of Universities, and most importantly, new cohousing groups just getting started.
He has developed group process and design approaches to meet the tight constraints posed by balancing a budget, providing a high standard of value, developing successful community, and achieving the sustainable design goals and aspirations of cohousing groups. These techniques include architecture with maximum potential for sustainability; architecture that best assures the long-term success of the community through facilitation and group process and incorporates highly valued lifestyle goals, such as natural light, beauty and delight and architecture that brings together the needs, wants, and desires within budget and balances community and privacy.
Charles Durrett has also co-authored Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves, the book that introduced the concept of cohousing to the United States. He currently lives in Nevada City, California, while his new cohousing community is being constructed (Nevada City Cohousing, which includes 17 seniors). He lived in Doyle Street Cohousing with his family for 12 years. As credited in the Oxford English Dictionary, Charles with his wife coined the word ‘cohousing’.