What’s the best model for housing the boomer generation? This is a group that’s mostly healthy, and many are pretty well off. We recently showed a house designed for boomers, and complained that it was not particularly good for aging gracefully. In fact, the point could be made that no single family house is going to be terrific in the long-term.
The real estate market has responded with retirement homes and condos targeted to boomers. But what if people took it upon themselves to build their own purpose-built communities? In Germany they do this; they are called baugruppen, or “building groups.” David Friedlander defined it, writing in LifeEdited:
This is not too different from co-housing, the Danish approach to cooperative building that has caught on in North America, including for specialized seniors co-housing projects. Architect Mike Eliason tries to figure out the difference:
It probably is just semantics; in fact, the R50 building in Berlin that I’ve used to illustrate the concept here is called a baugruppen by Mike, but it was called co-housing by the architects and by me when I covered it earlier on TreeHugger.
It’s an unusual building in that most of it was left unfinished; there are two service cores with plumbing but everything else is left up to the occupants. The architects explain:
So it’s all exposed concrete, open space, and very simple, cheap detailing like the expanded mesh balcony rails. Imagine being part of something like this: you can take the raw space (as much as you need) and finish it to your tastes and budget. You can move in as much or as little of your tchochkas and treasures as you want.
The co-housing or baugruppen model provides for independence, but also for co-operation, where resident/owners take care of each other and the building. Many people are thinking about this now. I know some architects in Toronto who are calling it a “vertical commune” where they can share resources as needed but still have their own space and privacy. They are thinking of car- and bike-sharing, rooftop gardening, shared bulk ordering of food, and even regular shared meals.
In cities like Toronto or Seattle, where so much of our lives and are equity are tied up in real estate, it makes a lot of sense to think about options like this. Call it what you will: Baugruppen, co-housing or commune, the basic principle is that you do it together and ultimately support each other. An intentional community put together by the users, not the real estate developers, in a walkable community full of resources. Baugruppen for boomers!
