what is cohousing?

The 6 Ingredients of Cohousing:

A Recipe for Community Living

What makes a cohousing project truly cohousing?

Like any good recipe, it comes down to a few essential ingredients. You can experiment, add your own flair, or adapt to local context, but remove one of the core elements, and you’re no longer making the same dish.

Cohousing is no different.

To be considered state-of-the-art cohousing, a community needs six key ingredients. You might decide to spice things up, perhaps your project is also an agrihood or an ecovillage. And if you start swapping out the fundamentals, it may still be a great project, but it moves into “cohousing-inspired” territory. And that can be great too. You can’t make an apple pie by replacing the apples, but a pumpkin pie can be just as delicious.

And just like cooking, more isn’t always better. Overloading a project with too many ideas or ambitions can make it hard to digest, both socially and practically.

Let’s take a closer look at the six ingredients that form the foundation of cohousing.

• 1. Participatory Design

  Cohousing begins long before construction, it starts with people.

  In a participatory design process, future residents are involved in all major decisions. Typically, a group of 6 to 12 households initiates the development, guided by a cohousing architect.

  This approach ensures that the final result genuinely reflects the needs and desires of the people who will live there. It also builds something even more important: a sense of community. By working through decisions together, often complex ones, residents begin developing the collaboration skills they’ll rely on long after move-in day.

• 2. Design for Community

  The physical layout of a cohousing community isn’t accidental, it’s intentional.

  Spaces are designed to encourage everyday, informal interaction. Think pedestrian-friendly pathways, shared outdoor areas with benches and tables, and a common house positioned to naturally draw people in.

  These design choices make it easier for community life to happen organically, without forcing it.

• 3. Extensive Common Facilities

  At the heart of a cohousing community is the common house, a shared space that serves both practical and social purposes.

  But it doesn’t stop there. Many communities include additional shared facilities such as workshops, gardens, pools, and many more.

  These shared amenities often allow for smaller and more affordable private homes, balancing individual space with collective resources.

• 4. Resident Management

  Cohousing communities are managed by the people who live in them.

  Residents typically meet once a month to make major decisions, often using consensus-based processes. To keep things manageable, responsibilities are distributed across teams, committees, or working groups.

  Quality decision-making takes time and effort. Discussions are nuanced and inclusive, and the payoff is strong buy-in. When people know their voices have been heard, they’re more likely to support and respect the outcome.

  For many, this is a learning curve. Most people aren’t used to this level of collaboration, especially in a non-hierarchical environment. In that sense, cohousing becomes a powerful environment for personal growth, learning by doing.

• 5. Non-Hierarchical Structure

  While “burning souls” can help get a project off the ground, cohousing communities are not built around hierarchies.

  Instead, responsibilities are shared. Each person contributes based on their skills, interests, and availability. The aim is to avoid both concentration of power and overburdening any one individual.

• 6. Separate Income Sources

  Financially, cohousing communities function much like conventional housing developments.

  Residents have independent incomes, and the community itself is not structured as a primary source of livelihood. This separation is important, it keeps the focus on community rather than business.

  That said, some communities develop small cottage industries, such as renting out their common house when it’s not in use. These activities can support the community without redefining its purpose.

Finding Your Own Recipe

Every cohousing project is unique. Some will incorporate sustainability initiatives, shared agriculture, or other creative elements. Others will focus more on social connection or affordability.

What matters is understanding the core ingredients and using them intentionally.

Whether your project follows the classic recipe or explores new variations, we’d love to hear from you. What do you want to cook together?

Credit: This post is based on our decades of experience working with cohousing communities, as well as insights from the book Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities by Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett.