Architectural Services & Workshops

Not only does McCamant & Durrett Architects offer complete architectural services, no one in North America has more experience at helping cohousing groups (and their budget) reach their potential. MDA will work with you, the client or community group, to develop design criteria and preliminary designs that meet your project goals. We then will take the design through design development, the approvals process, and through preparing the final construction drawings and coordinating with your municipality and the contractor to get it built.

Alternatively, we can provide schematic design through the workshops described below and work with a local architect to complete the project. MDA stays with the project from start to finish, working closely with the client and the contractor to make certain the project is completed successfully.

“I could not imagine having successfully completed this project on budget, with everything we wanted, without Chuck and Katie.” –cohousing resident

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More cohousing communities in North America have been successfully launched by this workshop by McCamant & Durrett Architects than by any other means.

Once you have even a small group, we suggest the Getting-It-Built Workshop, a clear overview of the cohousing development process customized to meet your specific needs – and it really helps a group figure out how to Get It Built. Our expertise, gained through working over a twenty year period helping many other groups around the country get started, will provide focus to your group’s time and energy.

“Over and over again we refer to this workshop when we get stuck, and ask, ‘What would Chuck and Katie do?’ ”
–cohousing resident

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After a site is procured, we use a 2-day, 2-evening Site Programming Workshop to establish future residents´ goals, activities, and criteria for the site layout, especially for the community’s outdoor spaces framed by the houses, the common house, other outdoor activity areas, car and bicycle parking. We use a thorough programming process to define the activities and spaces that will make the community work, a process that is essential for maintaining an orderly and cost-effective design process later in the project, and a process that provides for a successful community long after the honeymoon has worn off.

We work with the group to generate and "test" possible site plans that will optimize the qualities of the particular site and best fit the program we’ve defined, and we build consensus on a site layout. The Site Programming workshop finalizes the residents’ goals and criteria for the layout of their cohousing community, and the resulting site plan can then be turned into construction documents.

“McCamant & Durrett took us from a sundry of opinions to a single condensed site plan that we all love.” –cohousing resident

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The Common House Programming Workshop & Schematic Design establishes the goals, priorities, and design criteria for the Common House, the place that brings people together, and often the least understood aspect of a cohousing community.

A high-functioning Common House for 30 households garners 250 to 450 people-hours per week (like the Nevada City Cohousing Common House). An unsuccessful Common House for 30 households garners 100 to 150 people- hours per week. They both cost the same to build originally, but the second scenario costs again to remodel. (from Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves)

McCamant & Durrett Architects works closely with the group to define the very specific design criteria for your Common House. Programming establishes specific agreed-upon guidelines as the basis for the design, guidelines that we document in a written Program that will be drawn upon throughout the design process. Following the workshop, MDA´s architects develop the schematic floor plans and elevations for the Common House, based on the program, creating plans that reflect the group´s decisions.

“We live and love this place. The architect, Chuck Durrett, knew how to bring the best out of us and how to manifest it in a building that lives and breathes and is the heart of our community.” –cohousing resident

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In the Private House Programming & Schematic Design Workshop, McCamant & Durrett Architects meets with the group to define the private houses: their sizes, types, budget, green features, energy use, feel, and room-by-room requirements. We consider with you the relationships of spaces, porches, yards, views, image, natural light, sustainability, affordability, and many other qualities.

MDA works out preliminary floor plans and meets with households of each house type (e.g. all households interested in a 3-bedroom house) to review plans and decide on revisions. Our goal is to create the highest value homes that meet the group’s goals and budget for their houses. The final product is 3-6 house plan types that can be turned into construction documents.

“I love my house. It gives me the perfect balance of privacy in community. It makes me feel like I’m rich – and I am, rich in light and beauty.” –cohousing resident

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In projects for which we provide full architectural services, McCamant & Durrett Architects conducts three additional workshops that complete the participatory design process. In the Schematic Design Closure Workshop, we present, explain, and discuss the final schematic design with the group, with materials, landscape concepts, often a study model, and with final considerations from consultants and local authorities incorporated. This final design is what is submitted to the City or County.

In the Prioritization Workshop, together we finalize the standard amenities provided in every home and define a set of options that individual households can add.

In the Design Development Workshop we look at structural systems, heating and cooling, architectural details, and finalize material design decisions before proceeding with Construction Documents. All major components are fully explained, and the project is fully understood and documented.

“We could have discussed and argued about this stuff forever if McCamant & Durret hadn’t had it so organized and facilitated it so clearly.” –cohousing resident

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Our first step in the design process is to examine the issues that will determine the project’s feasibility and the best strategy for proceeding. We use tools such as a working Feasibility Site Plan that can help you explore the issues and evaluate the feasibility of potential sites, analyze a site’s constraints and opportunities, and determine the best approach for developing your project on a specific site. We also evaluate: Is there a group? What can the group afford? Can it be built for that cost or less?

By addressing the many feasibility questions up front, you can avoid costly and frustrating surprises down the road. We help the group develop and enact an overall strategy that will result in a successful project.

“We passed on what looked like easy sites that turned out to be impossible, and bought a site that looked impossible but turned out to be just right.” –cohousing resident

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In addition to standard architectural services, McCamant & Durrett Architects often provides development consulting. We can assist clients from site feasibility through the entire project: hiring and coordinating consultants; moving the development through City approvals; hiring a builder; and coordinating move-in details. We can help you put together budgets, schedules, and project scope, evaluate financial feasibility, meet with local jurisdictions to introduce cohousing and determine local interest and potential hurdles, and develop and help enact an overall strategy that addresses the many constraints and opportunities and results in a successful project.

“It was like a field of landmines for us! The Cohousing Company was our bay pilot.” –cohousing resident

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In this workshop, we elaborate on the entire Design Process necessary to help a cohousing group reach its potential. We walk the group through the six workshops that we do and explain how each one contributes to the project’s ultimate success, and the other design factors, and basic, good cohousing design.

“The architect’s prime responsibility is to make a place that will sustain a sense of community long after the honeymoon has worn off. When you walk on the site here, you feel like you have as much privacy as you want or as much community as you want.” –Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourseves

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In these days of real financial challenges, real price realities have to be embraced and understood. Recently, we helped a developer in Martinez, California move a 20-unit development from $550,000 average cost per house to $270,000 average cost – to a price that folks can afford even in the high-priced San Francisco Bay Area. We have done a dozen projects with prices starting in the $100,000s. And projects like Muir Commons in Davis, California where 23 of the 26 units were first-time homebuyers. They could do so because the prices were kept down. Or in other cases they could do it because McCamant & Durrett Architects knew how to work with a non-profit to get it done.

“I’ve always wanted to live in cohousing, but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to afford it.” –resident at Petaluma Avenue Homes

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