Portland Sustainable Co-housing Studio

Peak oil, floods and mining disasters bring out how delicately we live on the planet.  We need to envision ways to live more harmoniously with nature and other people.  Living lightly on the land requires working together, looking at how an individual can be part of sustainable systems at the scale of the unit, block, neighborhood and city.

In Spring 2006, University of Oregon architecture students worked with Portland community members to brainstorm ideas for green intentional communities. The students designed buildings to fit three real sites in the city. The goals of the class were to help students understand

  • how living environments can support community and privacy.
  • how to build sustainably in the Pacific Northwest region
  • how design media can support the idea development

The students documented intentional communities as case studies, visited local communities (Sunlight Housing, Trillium Hollow, Cascadia Commons and Peninsula Park Commons) and talked with aspiring cohousing members to ground their designs in real concerns. From this information, they developed programs and schemes for three different sites:

  • new construction for the owner of a small site at NE Killingsworth near Interstate,
  • renovation of a 70's era apartment complex near SE Foster Road & 72nd, that was a potential site for the East Portland Cohousing Group
  • new construction for a downtown missing tooth near Ankeny Square (a hypothetical project)

Students presented their ideas at a Village Building Convergence workshop. Read summaries of two strong projects for Killingsworth and Foster Road.
image by Adam Franch, Trang Nguyen and Tommy White

Student projects Adobe Acrobat PDF (large files):

Killingsworth

Foster Road

Ankeny Square

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