Magazine

From the gleaming waterfront condos of Williamsburg to Bruce Ratner’s sprawling Atlantic Yards project, Brooklyn has become well-known in the past decade for an increasing number of jaw-dropping corporate developments. But now something a little more homegrown is emerging in the borough: New York City’s very first cohousing community.

As defined by the Cohousing Association of the United States, cohousing is “a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods.” Originally conceived in 1964 in Denmark by architect Jan Gudmand-Hoyer, who drew inspiration from Israeli kibbutzim and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, the concept of cohousing was first introduced to the United States in 1990 when architects Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett built Muir Commons, a cohousing community in Davis, Calif. Since then, nearly 120 cohousing communities have sprouted up across the country, and almost 100 more are in development.