123 W. Summit

From Livable to Lived-in

For the area of the property zoned for residential, our team envisions four co-housing townhomes. We adopted the co-housing arrangement as a way to enshrine Midwestern character by tapping into the nostalgia of the open-door policies of our childhood homes. Our houses were filled with visiting family members or friends from out of town; evenings were activated by an eclectic rotation of characters around the dinner table, with no shortage of stories to share.

As our communities navigate the shocks and stressors of climate change, social cohesion and storytelling will become increasingly important parts of our resiliency toolkit; and as we summit the isolated years of COVID-19, we wanted to take the opportunity to memorialize the social connections we have missed. Co-housing effectively embeds adaptation and affinity in the places we call home.

Co-housing

cooperative without compromise

Affordability

Co-housing is affordable by design. Residents save by sharing energy, maintenance, furniture, and food costs across a larger base while building collective financial capacity. One survey found minimum monthly cost savings between $200 to $2,000 per household.¹

Shared but not Common

It's easy to conflate co-housing arrangements with dormitory style living. The nuance lies in the gradient of private to community space. Each unit is designed to offer residents refuge in private wings and casual interactions with the household group in flex areas; not to mention the community center events hosted in their own backyard. The amenities are shared, extensive, and uncommon market finds at this price point.

Placemaking

Houses are built, but homes are made by the people that live in them. Much of modern development focuses on a particular design element, leaving social and economic elements out of the master plan. Co-housing engages participatory design from blueprint to building, and for this site's food forest, from seed to harvest. As humans, we have an inherent desire to be heard and apart of the process.² Meaningful participation can connect individuals to both the physical and social environment around them,³ therein promoting shared ownership, stewardship, and feelings of belonging to the local community.

Resilience

In the context of climate resilience, social cohesion changes from a luxury to a necessity; simply knowing and checking in on your neighbor can be an incredible asset to public health. Co-housing encourages social interaction and connection through its various 'bump points' in shared spaces, in addition to community spaces on its nonresidential property. In the practice of collective ownership and relationship-building, co-housing builds resilient communities from the inside-out.

8 Townhomes, 2 Models

It takes a village

The first model is catered to small families and single parents. In a cooperative household, families can reduce the time and money they devote to formal day care, cooking, and chores. Residents effectively trade in unpaid m/paternal labor for a social life in and outside of the home.

(Walk to) work from home

The second model targets the more than 83,000 people that commute into Ann Arbor for work.⁴ Membership in a community should not be qualified by a local address, yet commuters experience the dissonance of investing their professional life in a city that they leave once they clock out. Co-housing lowers the barrier to entry for those whom the Ann Arborite identity was previously cost-prohibitive. It also has the potential to reduce automotive emissions while synergizing municipal and University carbon neutrality progress, as both entities seek housing solutions for their large commuter populations. The target audience for this model is young professionals, University staff members, professors, hospital employees, and other commuters.

The Change Society is Demanding

We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has made us rethink where and how we live. The societal symptoms of the pandemic were felt as social distancing descended into social isolation. We created these townhome models as a direct response to the demographics of loneliness in America – with young adults and mothers of young children topping the list.⁵ We believe that real estate can offer more than a way to meet our basic needs of shelter and warmth, which is why the list of amenities at this site extends beyond those that might fit neatly into Zillow’s listing template. As shown above, co-housing has the potential to exchange loneliness, cost burden, and unpaid m/paternal labor for affordability, sociability, and community.

C1 Zoning Opportunity

Since the developable site is zoned C1 it is inclusive of local business district. Thus, we propose the remaining developable space be used for a pop-up street food stand. Local aspiring culinary entrepreneurs can use the community center kitchen and street food stand to share authentic recipes from around the world, contributing to the multicultural community of Ann Arbor by modeling after Miss Linda Green’s Yak-A-Mein stand, which began as a humble stand along second line routes and is now a world famous institution at the intersection of New Orleans flavor and culture.

Sources:

  1. Winter, Joanna and Charles Durrett. 2013. "Achieving Affordability with Cohousing." Communities (158) (Spring): 34-35,74. https://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/achieving-affordability-with-cohousing/docview/1321077256/se-2.

  2. Kaplan, Stephen ; Kaplan, Rachel. “Health, Supportive Environments, and the Reasonable Person Model.” American Journal of Public Health (1971). Washington, DC: Am Public Health Assoc, n.d. doi:10.2105/AJPH.93.9.1484.

  3. Ryan RL, Kaplan R, Grese RE. Pre-dicting volunteer commitment in envi-ronmental stewardship programs.J Envi-ron Planning Management.2001;44:629–648.19.

  4. “City Council Affordable Housing Analysis.” Housing + Affordability in Ann Arbor. SmithGroup. Accessed September 27, 2022. https://www.community-engagement-annarbor.com/resources.

  5. Weissbourd, Richard, Milena Batanova, Virginia Lovison, and Eric Torres. “Loneliness in America: How the Pandemic Has Deepened an Epidemic of Loneliness.” Making Caring Common. Harvard Graduate School of Education, August 2, 2022. https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america.