Resources
Cohousing Publications, Media and Press
We have compiled an extensive resource list for anyone researching cohousing and/or wanting to learn about New Ground formerly known as OWCH (Older Women’s Co-Housing). You can use the links below to jump to the relevant section of this page.
Press Articles on our community
Chapters and Papers on Cohousing
Books on Cohousing
Video and Audio Recordings
PRESS ARTICLES ON NEW GROUND
2024 Elle Italia - magazine feature article by Gabriella Grasso (in italiano!)
2024 A Day in the Life
2023 Envejecer en una comunidad de mujeres de Londres
2023 We did it, you can: how cohousing could solve 50+ loneliness. Saga Exceptional
2023 We have brothers, sons, lovers - but they can’t live here! The happy home shared by 26 women. Guardian 24 Aug 2023
2022 Old North Londoners NLCS magazine article, pp 28-29
2022 How the rise of cohousing is enriching seniors' lives by Angeles Rodenas, Readers Digest. 14 July 2022
2021 Right To Build Toolkit: New Ground
2020 Oct How to build an intentional community. by Malia Wollan. New York Times magazine. Oct 28th
2020 Oct Life under lockdown at cohousing flats for older women Nick Jones. Barnet Society
2020 June ‘New Ground’ Cohousing Community, High Barnet: resilience and adaptability
2020 Feb A room of one's own? London carves out spaces for women. Adela Suliman, Reuters
2019. Key to a happy retirement? Fun housemates Robin Levinson-King, BBC News Toronto
2018. Communes spring up across London as alternative to conventional retirement homes.
by Kiran Randhawa. Evening Standard Oct 15th 2018
2018 What would an age-friendly city look like? by Alice Grahame. Guardian Oct 10th 2018
2018 Feb We need to talk about Ageing by John Harris. Guardian Feb 4th 2018
2017 June. Lyn Romeo - Meet the Older Women’s Cohousing community: a model of choice for active healthy lives
2017 Oct How the older women who built their own co-housing community found the first year together. by Heather Saul, iNews 19th Oct 2017
2017 May 31st. Sisters are doing it for themselves by Isabelle Fraser. Daily Telegraph
2017 OWCH - a case study
2016 August 22nd Future of London Spotlight on older women's housing
2016 Nick Jones. Ground-breaking housing for women Barnet Society August 22nd
2016 Sixty, female and all living under one roof August 20th Daily Telegraph
2016 "10 ways to beat loneliness" no.9) "Live together – but not too together"
Observer interview with Shirley. Feb 28th
2015 Esther Addley. Cohousing: "It makes sense for people with things in common to live together"
Guardian 16.02.2015
CHAPTERS AND PAPERS ON COHOUSING
2024 How one of Britain’s happiest communes was built. by Anita Chaudhuri. Guardian article on Cannock Mill Cohousing
The Housing Learning & Improvement Network has a section on senior cohousing
2020 Dec. Global Study: Community-Led Housing in the Covd-19 context. Study from UrbaMonde and Swedish organization We Effect
2020 1st LGBT co-housing scheme in the UK, 30/7/20 by Amanda Girling-Budd
2020 Ageing at Home: too little choice for older Australians. The Times, by Julie Power August 16
2020 Pioneer Intergenerational Co-Housing – The Cockaigne Houses in Hatfield. Housing LIN viewpoint 99, Jan 30th
2020 Senior Cohousing. The revolution of the common in housing for senior citizens. Iñaki Alonso Jan 24th
2020 The New Generation of Self-Created Utopias New York Times Style magazine Jan 22nd 2020
2019 Co-housing: sharing the future. Words by Lucy Douglas, photography by Sam Bush. Positive News Ocr 23, 2019
2019 Anne P Glass. Elder Cohousing: the embodiment of aging in community
Innovation in Aging, Vol 3, Supp_1, Nov 2019, p S408
2018 Housing Futures
Useful overview of the Community-led Housing sector. Takes OWCH as one of its short case-studies
- Recommendations
- Full report Dec 2018
2018 Living Closer. Je Ahn, Olivia Tusinski, Chloe Treger. Studio Weave/RIBA Jun 2018
2018. Happy together: lonely baby boomers turn to co-housing. Anna Leach. Guardian Aug 15
2018 Analysis: How Older People Live by Josephine Smit
2018. Cohousing - we're all in this together by Kate Youde. Architects Journal March 9th
Free access but must register
2018. ‘This is the future of aging:’ Senior co-housing communities provide alternatives by By Janis Mara. Berkeleside. March 7
2018. Rowan Moore A Blueprint for British Housing in 2028. Observer Jan 21st
2018 Melissa Fernandez, Kath Scanlon and Karen West. Wellbeing and age in cohousing life : thinking with and beyond design. Housing LIN. Jan 2018
2017. Of flux or finality? On the process and dynamics of a co-housing group in formation Melissa Fernández Arrigoitia and Kathleen Scanlon p115
In: Self-Build Homes: Social Discourse, Experiences and Directions' Edited by Michaela Benson and Iqbal Hamiduddin UCL Press Dec 2017
2017, Housing LIN, Maria Brenton, ‘Community-building for old age’
2017 Nov. Kindliness - developing peer support within sheltered housing in Dorset - a Housing LIN case study
2016 Urban Cohousing the Babayaga way. Linda Abbit, Senior Planet
2015, P. Devlin, ‘Collaborative design of Older Women’s Cohousing’ in ‘Working with older people’, Emerald Publishing, Vol 19, No.4.
2013, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Maria Brenton, ‘Senior cohousing communities- an alternative approach for the UK?’
Community 2.0: Is Cohousing the future of urban design? Towergate Insurance
A short guide to facilitating meetings. Taken from the North American CoHousing Network web-page resource library
BOOKS ON COHOUSING
Jeremy Porteus and Julia Park. Age-friendly Housing: Future design for older people. , RIBA Publishing. July 2018
Sarah Bunker et al (eds) Cohousing in Britain, Diggers & Dreamers, 2011
Charles Durrett: The Senior Cohousing Handbook - 2nd edition. A community approach to independent living, New Society publishers, 2009.
M.Field, ‘Thinking about Cohousing: the creation of intentional neighbourhoods’ Diggers & Dreamers, 2004.
Martin Field, 2020, Creating community-led and self-build homes - a guide to collaborative practice in the UK. Policy Press, Bristol
Chris Hanson, ‘The Cohousing Handbook’, Vancouver, 1996
D. Urban Vestro (ed) ‘ Living together - Cohousing ideas and realities around the world’.Stockholm, 2010
Wohnbund e.V. Jovis, Berlin. (eds) Europe: Co-operative Housing. 2015. Chapters on cohousing in various European countries.
VIDEO AND AUDIO RECORDINGS
Retire there (podcast 1hr) 2023
Reimagining Elderhood 30 minute film. Padraig Flynn 2023
World Habitat Awards 2023 New Ground Presentation (6 m) starts 27.40 minutes in
Wohnen-im-alter-frauen-wg-in-london German TV 2023
A Chinese film company, Yitiao, followed us for a day and here’s the video they produced 2023
New Ground virtual tour 2021
Best of Both Worlds Cohousing's Promise TRAILER movie - YouTube
New Cohousing Model in the UK - Maria Brenton
Age, Gender and Cohousing
A debate (90 mins) as part of the festival of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2020
With Ada Petriczko (journalist), Mette Kjorstad, chair of the Fardknappen Cohousing Community in Stockholm, and Maria Brenton, UK Cohousing's Senior Cohousing Ambassador and a founder of New Ground Cohousing in London
2020 Annual Forum On Women and Homelessness | The Lady Musgrave Trust Aug 6th
Architecture Today: Schueco Talk: Designing for an ageing population May 2020
Webinar for Hackney Women's Equality Party Jul 2020
OWCH’s Maria Brenton speaking at SOA CoHousing Here, Dublin Jan 2020
TED talk Cohousing: The Future of Community and Human Connection Trish Becker-Hafnor. 2019
BBC iPM Elderly, Female and Trailblazing 2018
BBC InsideOut London Oct 2018 - piece on New Ground and London Older Lesbians Cohousing - 8 mins
How cohousing can make us happier (and live longer) (Grace Kim | TED2017)
A different Way of Living - 6 mins
The Way to Do It - 13 mins
BBC London News Dec 2016: ‘OWCH women are finally coming home’
BBC London: ‘What do you think of this housing solution for older people?”. Dec 9th 2016
(requires facebook account)
Newcastle University Collaborative Housing 2015 - 5 mins