Communities by design: Development for people and the environment
Event Information
Description
Join the discussion with global Cohousing thought leader Chuck Durrett, along with leading designers and developers, for an inspiring evening exploring visions and experiences of creating inclusive and sustainable communities.
The housing debate is currently dominated by discussion about affordability, but to create truly liveable urban communities we need to equally value places that are inclusive, sustainable and resilient. New models, new thinking and new incentives are needed to promote positive social and environmental impacts and create a sense of place, community ownership, wellbeing and low impact living.
Headlining the evening will be Chuck Durrett, the leading global voice of the Cohousing movement that has transformed communities worldwide. Based in the USA, Chuck is a leading thinker, architect and developer of sustainable communities.
He will be joined by an exciting collection of local designers, developers, architects and researchers with on ground experience of collaborative alternative approaches to urban living.
Accompanying Speakers:
Ben O’Callaghan
The Ecovillage at Currumbin’ and Smart Urban Villages
Stina Kerens
Sun Villages and Integrated EcoVillages
Gilo Holtzman
Collective Future Studios
https://www.facebook.com/events/228445107501137/
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Further speaker information:
Chuck Durrett (USA)
(The Cohousing Company, McCamant & Durrett Architects)
Chuck Durrett is an American architect and author based in Nevada City, California. With his wife, Kathryn McCamant, he is credited with coining the English term “Cohousing” and introducing the Cohousing model to North America. In recent years he has focused on Cohousing for older persons.
Durrett and McCamant have consulted on the design and development of over 50 Cohousing communities in North America, and other projects around the world. He is a major proponent of senior Cohousing, also known as elder Cohousing, which are residential communities specifically designed for seniors.
Durrett is author of The Senior Cohousing Handbook: A Community Approach to Independent Living (2009, 2nd edition), and with Kathryn McCamant, is co-author of Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves (1988) and Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities (2011). He is recipient or co-recipient of numerous awards from the American Institute of Architects and others for various completed projects. This includes a United Nation’s World Habitat Award in 2001 for the East Lake Commons Conservation Community project in Atlanta, Georgia. A more recent award was the Vision 2020 Award of the Sierra Business Council.
Ben O’Callaghan
(The Ecovillage at Currumbin’ and Smart Urban Villages)
The Ecovillage at Currumbin and Smart Urban Villages Currumbin Ecovillage has just celebrated its 10 year anniversary so Ben will explore the “lessons learned” from the community with 33 awards, which followed his Canberra Cohousing experience. Ben will also reveal a new urban housing development model by Smart Urban Villages. The innovative process will create Australia’s next-generation of sustainable communities, that are accessible without the need for a mortgage.
Stina Kerens
(Sun Villages and Integrated EcoVillages)
Stina’s vision of a utopian lifestyle was influenced by the many world cultures she experienced during the filming of her childhood travels - the first TV travel series made in the early 1960’s (ABC -Stina’s Diary). She will discuss the Sun Villages project by the award winning Integrated EcoVillages. Sun Villages demonstrates the 3 principles necessary to generate a successful village model. This long-term village vision of a total of 100 odd homes is about to commence its third and final stage. Integrated within this village stage is a new model of home ownership that not only makes housing affordable, but also allows size flexibility to meet the changing stages of the lifecycles of people and thus freedom for the individual, including all type of financial benefits not common within our present systems of housing.
http://www.sunvillages.com.au/
Gilo Holtzman
(Collective Future Studios)
Gilo is a consultant, designer and researcher at Collective Future Studio. With passion for progressive models of collaborative housing and living, Gilo have been presenting many talks writing and advocating for new housing models and policies that enhance the social design aspects of sustainable neighbourhoods, with emphasis on learning and implementing the principals of the cohousing model, through design workshops, concept development and community building.
* Unfortunately due to a clash of schedules, Jason Twill will no longer be able to join us as a speaker on Thursday.
