100 Word Description: Twenty-four households pooled resources to purchase a half-acre site in downtown and pursue a dream. They envisioned a shared multifamily environment that would be more sustainable than their scattered suburban homes. They hoped to reduce their consumption of resources and footprint. They imagined providing greater support for individuals while nurturing a new, active community. The resulting Durham Central Park Cohousing Community is a four-story, selfdeveloped, co-owned apartment building with shared spaces, energy-saving utilities, and expansive views. It represents a triumph of group intention, a turning point for its transitional neighborhood, and a prominent exclamation in the city’s evolving urban form.
Architect’s Statement: Against a receding economic tide and the collapse of virtually all residential condominium development, a small group of urban enthusiasts who committed themselves to creating a multifamily community decided to take a DIY approach. They scoured idle commercial tracts, screened potential architects, and promoted their idea at weekend farmers’ markets, adding member after member and meeting week after week as their aspiration took shape. By groundbreaking day in the fall of 2012, they had a sold-out project that would provide private quarters for 40 residents and shared spaces for community activities. On a half-acre brownfield plot, the Durham Central Park Cohousing Community occupies 60,000 square feet, nearly half of which is a Commons consisting of spaces for large- and small-group cooking, dining, reading, craft making, movie watching, and more. The building adapted the language of its commercial and light industrial surroundings. Corrugated metal siding speaks of the warehouse district, balconies project like loading dock sheds, galvanized steel shows the strength of spare material. Throughout the design and building of the project, community needs spoke loudest. While budgeting dictated selling as much privately owned space as possible, the desire for community interaction produced generous corridors and gathering spaces owned by all. A possible twenty-fifth apartment disappeared to make a top-floor roof terrace. Three rooms on the ground floor became a suite for visiting guests. While cost-saving dictated a double-loaded corridor scheme, the design provided for shallower and wider living units on the north-facing side to compensate for the limited light there. Solar-heated water tops off the 600-gallon storage tank before the boiler kicks in. And while law and custom dictated individual heating and cooling systems, the community’s firm dedication to sharing responsibility for resource conservation led to an appeal that permitted a unique, single-metered mechanical arrangement.
Type of Construction: Steel frame at parking level, wood frame on living levels. Metal siding, galvanized steel rails, composite decking, storefront windows and 3 coat stucco.
