Domestic Architecture: New Urbanism and Cohousing

Abstract

In this chapter the focus remains on architecture and planning and the ways in which these shape our lives. However, the scale shifts from a city to towns, villages and small settlements. When designing this chapter I identified forms of architecture that manifested a different set of impulses and drivers from the case of Dubai. Having surveyed a wide selection of possibilities I chose to focus on New Urbanism and cohousing. Both of these exhibit clear critical narratives about the state of current housing and urbanism. And both offer alternative models which have been widely applied. New Urbanism has been criticized by architects (see Ellis, 2002) but it is quite popular among the wider population. Cohousing exists worldwide but is relatively marginal, with a small but dedicated group of followers. It is growing. Both have strengths and weakness and I shall explore these, focusing, as in Chapter 8, on the political question: ‘whose Utopia is this?’ and also on the perennial analytical question of Fools’ Gold: ‘what kind of utopianism is this?’

A fool is a man who never tried an experiment in his life.

(Erasmus Darwin Letter to R.L. Edgeworth, March 1792)