COHOUSING COMMUNITY

This is the first co-housing community, designed and built in eastern Massachusetts and successful for over a quarter century

NewView is a 24-unit cluster development and a common house. Half the units are single-family houses, the other half duplexes. There are also two units in the renovated 200-year-old farmhouse.

The unique participatory planning and design process for this co-housing development involved extensive collaboration with the client community. We provided full architectural services, from design work for the site and housing development to respond to an environmentally sensitive site through construction administration of site and buildings.

• To take best advantage of the particular site conditions, we clustered the houses in four neighborhoods that each adapts to the landscape, each with a neighborhood center, each with its unique identity.
• An accessible pedestrian path links all houses in the four neighborhoods. The common house is located as a visual center.
• The site plan has a clear separation of cars from pedestrian traffic. This responds to the different families preferences for being close to or away from cars.
• Fourteen acres of the 18-acre site were conserved as open space. We saved many trees and used native plants in the landscaping, many selected to enhance wild life.
• NewView homes are “Energy-Crafted Homes” with high standards for air tightness, insulation, low toxicity, energy efficient heating, effective day-lighting, low-water use fixtures and appliances and some with solar domestic water heating and/or PV panels, one of the first project that got an ENERGY STAR RATING.
• Other sustainable strategies are composting toilets.
• We received approval from the Town of Acton Planning Board with their PCRC zoning process. We designed this project in partnership with P. Quinn.