02-21-2024 PTL - Flipbook - Page 15
A Special Advertising Section of Baltimore Sun Media Group | Wednesday, February 21, 2024 15
space for visiting guests, and common
amenities determined by the community.
Everyone finds different ways to contribute. From a monetary perspective, think
of homeowners’ associations.
“Because we generally start with a
smaller core group of buyers,” Faris says,
“and grow the buyers’ group through the
whole development process, the residents are involved from the start; there’s
a feeling of coming home when we move
in.”
A community that opened last year
has this description on its website:
“Residents are involved early in the
design and development phases so that
the community reflects their priorities.
Residents live in a close-knit neighborhood that seeks a healthy blend of privacy and community.”
Although not multi-generational, the
benefits are equally positive: improved
health reduces the need for senior services, nurtures rewarding relationships,
and makes life more affordable and fun.
More? More accessible, more energy
efficient (similar to row or town houses),
and more likely to share common interests.
Cohousing of Greater Baltimore is
working with Kathryn (Katie) McCamant,
an architect, a full-service cohousing
consultant, a leading expert for new
cohousing communities, and co-author
with Charles Durett of Cohousing: A
Contemporary Approach to Housing
Ourselves, originally published in 1988.
The third edition was published in 2011.
McCamant has lived in cohousing for
the last 35 years, first in Doyle Street
Cohousing and now at Nevada City
Cohousing, both in California.
McCamant observed that so often,
“We live closer and closer together but,
at the same time, we’re more isolated,
less likely to know those around us.”
When she first observed cohousing communities in the early 1980s in Denmark,
she figured everyone knew about them
because they made so much sense. She
then learned that no one in the U.S. was
at all familiar with them.
While in Denmark, McCamant studied under Jan Gudmand-Høyer, the man
who started cohousing there, and therefore the man who started cohousing.
After a year in Denmark, she returned
to the U.S. and she and Durett wrote
their book. It was then shared, passed
on by one individual to another. “If you
combine community and sustainability,
you have a winning combination, something people want to be involved with.
It starts with the infrastructure; then the
community evolves on its own. Like a
village, it will grow over time. It’s about
living a better life in a more sustainable
way, sharing a variety of resources and
services. It simulates an old-world village
where neighbors care for one another
and share many aspects of life together.
It yields an improvement in happiness,
mental health, and overall well-being,”
McCamant says.
Grace H. Kim, FAIA, Schemata
Workshop (www.schemataworkshop.
com), is an internationally recognized
expert in cohousing. In her TED talk,
Cohousing,
continued on page 21
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