2010 Coho U - Sustainability: Environmental + Economic + Cultural

Wednesday, June 16, and Thursday, June 17

Led by Bryan Bowen and Marco Lam

Featuring special guests:

• Dr. Brian Bansenauer, Founding Faculty, Cascadia Community College
• Craig Ragland, Executive Director, Cohousing Association of the United States
• David Neiger, Populus llc
• Jim Leach, Wonderland Hill Development Company

This Coho U track will draw a wide circle around the concept of sustainability, bringing together experts from an array of disciplines for a two-day facilitated workshop, mixing presentations and interactive discussions. We will invite attendees to be active contributors in conversations with the experts and students of these topics. Each participant will have the opportunity to share information about his/her current efforts or experiences, with the ultimate goal of advancing all participants’ ideas and understanding.

A sustainable community ideally:

• generates as much operating energy as it consumes on an annual basis (net-zero energy);
• balances or offsets the carbon emissions resulting from its construction process;
• provides a positive social environment for most people, most of the time;
• enables residents to leave the community without financial loss or hardship;
• serves as a model, encouraging others to create more;
• has a vibrant social life, including both residents and nonresidents;
• can be created without presenting undue financial challenges to early founders;
• is better able to weather financial downturns in the broader culture;
• improves the quality of water that flows through the site;
• contributes to food relocalization and wildlife habitat;
• enriches the lives of the residents and the surrounding culture and local economy;
• manages itself efficiently and effectively;
• influences a deeper and more aggressive approach to sustainability: “doing it together does it better”;
• enables residents to live in such a way that reduces their carbon footprint to within their fair share of what’s available (one-planet living).

Such a broad vision of sustainability through community includes architecture, social dynamics, energy, edible landscapes, permaculture, money management, low-impact site design, storm water design and treatment, water conservation, passive solar, clean materials, and ultimately “cradle-to-cradle” thinking as well as insights into ongoing operations in evolving cultural creativity. We will engage in topics of day-to-day operations of economic and social sustainability as well: budgeting, reserves studies, new resident orientation, righteous exit strategies, meal systems, great celebrations, and how to get interesting things to happen once you’re all moved in.

This workshop targets participants who are:

• aspiring cohousers considering initiating/developing their own communities ;
• developers/builders/design professionals who want to learn more about sustainable practices;
• cohousers actively working on increasing the sustainability of their communities.

Bryan Bowen Bryan Bowen Architects, LEED AP, AIA, NCARB, teaches green building at Naropa University and is the principal of Bryan Bowen Architects, P.C., a five-person multidisciplinary design collaborative that explores how we may live more lightly upon our earth in beautiful and healthy environments.

In addition to a focus on cohousing, the practice includes passive solar single-family homes, deep-energy remodels, multifamily housing, mixed-use projects, and commercial work, all with a strong sustainability path. Current projects include: a series of LEED Platinum net-zero energy community centers that intermix community-oriented design with green building to make sexy eco-buildings; eco-affordable housing in Boulder, Colorado, and Moab, Utah; LEED Gold offices for a regional photovoltaic company; net-zero energy custom homes in Evergreen, Colorado, and in Placitas and on Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico; and a string of other sustainable building projects.

Bryan and his family live in Wild Sage Cohousing, which he helped design while working with Jim Logan Architects. The BBA office is just a few hundred feet away in an artsy mixed-use zone known as Studio Mews. Both Wild Sage and Studio Mews sit in north Boulder's Holiday Neighborhood, recognized as one of the nation’s premier examples of new urbanism. All of the BBA employees walk, ride, or bus to work.

Marco Lam, L.Ac. MS., has been practicing and teaching permaculture and sustainable living skills for over 20 years in diverse climates from the Andes to the Hawaiian islands. Originally trained by the founder of permaculture, Bill Mollison, Marco has a teaching style that moves away from the lecture format and emphasizes getting people’s hands in the Earth. Marco is the founder of the Mandala Integrative Medicine Clinic and a renowned acupuncturist and herbalist who grows many of the herbs used in his practice. His vision is a melding of ecological sustainability and nature-based health care where our personal healing and our land stewardship are deeply intertwined. Marco has been teaching as the “Permaculture Professor” in the Environmental Studies department of Naropa University since 2006. He is deeply passionate about and committed to teaching a new generation of grassroots activists and healers to show up with their deepest gift and fullest presence to help regenerate the relationship between people and the Earth.