Small is Necessary: Shared Living on a Shared Planet

321 Pages·2017·10.54 MB·English

Small Is Necessary
Small Is Necessary
Shared Living on a Shared Planet
Anitra Nelson
First published 2018 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Anitra Nelson 2018
Te right of Anitra Nelson to be identifed as the author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3423 3 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3422 6 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0188 3 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0213 2 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0212 5 EPUB eBook
Tis book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the
country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
Contents
List of Figures, Tables and Boxes vi
Abbreviations vi
Glosary xi
Acknowledgements xvi
INTRODUCTION
1. Less Is More: Living Closely on a Finite Planet 3
PART I COMPACT URBAN HOUSING
2. Once We Were Small: Traditional and Contemporary Homes 21
3. Apartment Living in Cities 44
4. Apartment Household Practices and Affordability 72
PART II ECO-COHOUSING AND ECOVILLAGES
5. From Sharing a House to Eco-cohousing 101
6. Ecovillages: Sustainability and System Change 130
PART III FUTURES: SCALING UP, SHARED
LANDSCAPES, SHARED LIVELIHOODS
7. ‘Will You Dance with Us?’ Governments and Collaborative
Housing 161
8. ‘To Market, to Market’: Eco-collaborative Housing for Sale 190
9. Grassroots Sustainability, Sociality and Governance 214
CONCLUSION
10. Small Is Necessary and, with Sharing, Feasible 241
Appendix: Key Sources and Links 247
Notes 253
Index 286
List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
figures
1.1 Commonground intentional community, Central Victoria,
Australia 10
1.2 A modest infill development in an inner suburb of
Melbourne (Nest Architects) 13
2.1 Birmingham (UK) back-to-backs 25
2.2 Peters-Margedant House, as rendered by Adam Green 31
3.1 Schematic impression of a Californian garden walk-up
apartment 50
3.2 Energy savings from German apartments retrofitted using
passive house principles 59
3.3 Habitat ’67 today in Montreal (Moshe Safdie, architect) 63
3.4 Patrick Blanc vertical garden at Caixa Forum, Madrid
(Herzog & de Meuron Architects, Basel, Switzerland) 64
3.5 Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) apartments, Milan
(Boeri Studio, Milan) 65
3.6 Boxhome in Oslo, Norway (Rintala Eggertson Architects) 67
3.7 Sketches of Boxhome (Rintala Eggertson Architects, Oslo) 67
3.8 East Village Studio NYC (Jordan Parnass Digital
Architecture) 69
4.1 Floor plan Hong Kong apartment, 93sq m 82
4.2 Floor plan Paris apartment, 36sq m 83
4.3 Floor plan London basement apartment, 49sq m 84
5.1 Summerland Mansions, St Kilda (Melbourne, Australia) 103
5.2 Early schematic design rendering for Jamaica Plain
Cohousing 124
6.1 Exterior of a Lammas dwelling 134
6.2 Interior of a Lammas dwelling 139
6.3 Masterplan sketch of Cloughjordan Ecovillage 145
6.4 Cloughjordan Community Farm: Hard at work ploughing 147
6.5 Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage: An aerial view 149
figures, tables and boxes . vii
7.1 Spreefeld: Three blocks of collaborative housing on the
River Spree, Berlin 173
8.1 Photo and sketch of tiny house, West Australia 208
9.1 A Ceilidh at Tinkers Bubble 221
9.2 Christiania, 2011 230
9.3 Calafou, 2012 236
tables
2.1 Types of household by household type (%), 2011 (or nearest
available) 35
2.2 Floor space of new builds in 15 countries, 2009 40
6.1 DRE average carbon footprint compared with the US
average (CO -e metric tonnes) 152
2
7.1 Typology of drivers of eco-collaborative housing models
in the twenty-first century 188
boxes
6.1 Los Angeles Eco-Village Core Values 143
9.1 An Occupy placard created by Sabrina from Twin Oaks, 2012 223
Abbreviations
£ British pounds
$ dollars
A$ Australian dollars
€ Euros
3D thre-dimensional
ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics
ACF Australian Conservation Foundation
ACT Australian Capital Territory
ADU accessory dwelling unit
aka also known as
BBC British Broadcasting Commission
BedZED Beddington Zero Energy Development
BICA Bend of Islands Conservation Association
BREEAM Building Research Establishment Environmental
Assessment Methodology (UK rating system)
BVCLT Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust
bn Billion
CA California
CABE Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment
(London, 1999–2011)
CBD central business district
CEHL Common Equity Housing Ltd
CHP combined heat and power
CIC Catalan Integral Cooperative (Cooperativa Integral
Catalana)
CLT community land trust
CMHC Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
CO2 carbon dioxide
CO2-e carbon dioxide equivalent (carbon emissions)
COP21 21st Conference of the Parties (to UNFCCC)
COP22 22nd Conference of the Parties (to UNFCCC)
CRSP Cooperative Resources and Services Project
CSA community supported agriculture
abbreviations . ix
DC District of Columbia
DCLG Department for Communities and Local Government
DELWP Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
(Victoria, Australia)
D ecological footprint distance
ef
DELWP Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
(Victoria, Australia)
DIO do it ourselves
DRE Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage
E2C2 ecology and economics, community and consciousness
(approach of Litfin)
ELZ environmental living zone
ft feet
2
ft sq ft
GEN Global Ecovillage Network
gha global hectare (to quantify human ecological footprints
and biocapacity)
GHG greenhouse gas
GPS global positioning system
HHP Hockerton Housing Project
IDO interim development order
INURA International Network for Urban Research and Action
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
kW kilowatt
kWh/(m²a) kilowatt hour (of energy) per square meter per annum
l litres
LAEV Los Angeles Eco-Village
LEED Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
LID low impact development
Lilac low impact living affordable community
m metre(s)
2
m sq m
MA Massachusetts
MEF Moreland Energy Foundation
MHOS Mutual Home Ownership Society
NHF National Housing Federation (UK)
NHF National Housing Federation
NSW New South Wales
NYC New York City