Cohousing-L Mailing List: International Cohousing Today (was Re: small coho)

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Hi Grace, I really appreciate you bringing a little non-US info to the list.

To All,

I'm meeting with the board of the Canadian Cohousing Network:

http://www.cohousing.ca/

next week to talk about possible future collaboration. I'm hoping they can
have a presence at the 2008 National Cohousing Conference and am excited
about the prospects of stronger international connections for Coho/US - and
those we  endeavor to serve, including all of you.

Personally, I know very little about cohousing outside the US...

Can others on Coho-L share more about what's going on in international
cohousing these days? (Obviously, Denmark and Canada, and most recently
Japan):

http://www.cohousing.org/cm/issue

have been better documented than most... so,

Where are the other "hotbeds" of cohousing activity? UK? Japan? Australia?
New Zealand? Western Europe? My presumption is that it is mostly in more
westernized countries, including Japan which now clearly leads a lot of
western culture (Manga - graphic novels, video games, technology - I'm
typing on a Toshiba keyboard).

I suspect that there are a bunch of folks on this list outside North
America... I'd love to hear from you all.

BTW, I mentioned this, in passing, to a Boston Globe reporter, as background
during an interview. We were talking about cohousing being brought to the
U.S. I believe her main focus will be local, which is much better as it
helps the Boston-area communities and will drive a little attendance from
people not yet in the "coho swirl" to attend the 2008 National Cohousing
Conference...

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 10:15 AM, Grace Kim <grace [at] schemataworkshop.com>
wrote:

>
> > I know of other retrofits and partial retrofits, but anyone know of
> > any other small scale cohousing groups in existence?
>
> Jared -
>
> While it's not in the US, one of the earliest coho groups in Denmark is
> Jerngaarden.
>
> It is 9 households in what is now a fairly urban neighborhood in the
> college town of Aarhus.  At the time it was built, it wasn't a great
> neighborhood and the site was a former junk yard (which is now a huge
> green space for the residents).  They've had a bit of turn over, but not
> a whole lot given its 20+ year existence.  It is not a retrofit
> community, however, they did adaptively reuse the former buildings on
> site (but most of the buildings went through serious gutting/rehab.)
>
> grace h. kim, aia
> principal
> schemata workshop
> an architectural collaborative
> 159 western ave west, #483
> seattle, wa 98119
>
> v.206.285.1589
> f.206.285.2701
>
> www.schemataworkshop.com <http://www.schemataworkshop.com>
>
> --
Craig Ragland

Coho/US executive director     New Earth Song project manager       Songaia
Cohousing member
http://www.cohousing.org        http://www.NewEarthSong.com
http://www.Songaia.com
  craig [at] cohousing.org               craig [at] newearthsong.com
craig [at] songaia.com

Please try email first, include your phone number (w/time zone) - or give me
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