Energy Efficiency

The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) has announced that McCamant & Durrett Architects are the recipients of the Silver 2008 Energy Value Housing Award for their Nevada City Cohousing project. The NAHB searches for the best in the country for the top honors in energy-efficiency, design and innovation.

On receiving the award, firm principal Chuck Durrett responded by stating, “We are honored to have been selected from a field of 500 other projects." Katie McCamant, M&D's other principal, said, "What is key for me is to create walkable communities where people use less of the earth’s resources while living a better quality of life."

In every cohousing neighborhood I've lived in or visited, sustainability has been an explicit core value, particularly expressed in how the community was designed and built. Many of us have the luxury to choose to live lightly on the earth, "changing the world, one neighborhood at a time," as a Coho/US bumper sticker puts it.

This year’s National Cohousing Conference was a treasure trove of useful information for established cohousing communities and forming groups. One of the more visionary, yet practical, sessions was a presentation on renewal energy led by Mark Daugherty, energy systems consultant and chief technology officer for Great Lakes BioFuels in Madison, WI, and Bryan Bowen, a Colorado-based architect, specializing in low-impact, environment-friendly housing design. Attendees learned about some sobering trends on peak oil and global warming, along with positive steps that cohousing communities are uniquely qualified to take.