Regional
McCamant & Durrett Architects Win National Award for Energy Efficient Homes at Nevada City Cohousing
Author: CoHousing Partners, LLC
Published on Feb 22, 2008 - 11:34:52 AM

Nevada City, CA Feb. 22, 2008 - The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) has announced that McCamant & Durrett Architects are the recipients of the Silver 2008 Energy Value Housing Award for their Nevada City Cohousing project. The NAHB searches for the best in the country for the top honors in energy-efficiency, design, and innovation.

Upon receiving the award, firm principal, Chuck Durrett responded by stating, "We are honored to have been selected from a field of 500 other projects. The irony is that we don't even know how to build homes that aren't green-built and sustainable. It's what we have been doing since the 1980's." Durrett continues by saying, "We combine beautiful, livable design with sustainable features. And with cohousing we can take sustainable design to new heights because of the way future residents are involved in the process."

The other principal of M&D is Katie McCamant, an architect, author, and developer. McCamant explains, "I love our beautiful, light filled, energy-efficient home. Our energy bill last year totaled minus $37.00. What is key for me is to create walkable communities where people use less of the earth's resources while living a better quality of life. This really is the good life."

Nevada City Cohousing consists of 34 private homes ranging in size from two-bedroom flats to four-bedroom townhouses (860 to 1,680 sf) on the 10-acre site. Durrett drew inspiration for his design from the rich tradition of Motherlode and Victorian architecture, having grown up in the Sierra foothills.

The homes are clustered around a "Common House" with facilities for children, cooking, dining, lounging, laundry, and guests. There is also a swimming pool, a community vegetable garden, and a workshop - 4,000 square feet of common facilities. The six acres on the south side of the property will remain undeveloped, and residents of the community enjoy spending time in their "back six."

The NAHB Judges were impressed by the many energy efficient features at Nevada City Cohousing including: active and passive solar heating and cooling systems, large Low E2 dual paned windows that let in a maximum of natural light, additional insulation and radiant barriers creating a "tight energy efficient envelope." The design also incorporated site and building orientation, high quality construction and materials efficiency, responsible resource use, water retention for the extensive use of indigenous landscape planting, as well as healthy home and indoor air quality products.

The NAHB had previously recognized another one of M&D's projects. Frog Song Cohousing in Cotati (Sonoma County) won the 2006 Energy Value Housing Award. The NAHB honor was the fourth of the design awards given to Frog Song that including Best Smart Growth project.

The M&D team is looking forward to bringing these same innovations to the new cohousing projects in Grass Valley-Wolf Creek Village. They break ground this spring on the "Lodge," a cohousing community for active adults, next to the "Commons" an intergenerational community. This 8-acre project runs along Wolf Creek, and has three acres of open space with beautiful tall pines and oaks. For more information on Wolf Creek Village visit: www.cohousingpartners.com.

M&D also has a central California project under construction. Residents of the 28-unit Fresno Cohousing will begin moving in this June. Only a few units are still available. "La Querencia" is the name that the community gave it, a Spanish term that translates, "The deep sense of inner well-being that comes from knowing a particular place on the Earth; its daily and seasonal patterns, its fruits and scents, its soils and birdsongs. A place where whenever you return to it, your soul releases an inner sigh of recognition and realization."

About McCamant & Durrett Architects

McCamant & Durrett Architects is an architecture firm with offices in Nevada City and Berkeley, California. The husband-and-wife team of Katie McCamant and Charles Durrett has become well known nationally and internationally for the design of cohousing communities, childcare facilities, pedestrian-friendly town planning.

In 1988, McCamant and Durrett introduced cohousing to the English-speaking world with their seminal book, Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves, followed in 2005 with Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living (Ten Speed Press).

They are the most experienced designers of cohousing, having produced dozens of successful communities throughout the country. In 2006, Katie McCamant started CoHousing Partners with offices in Nevada City and Davis, CA. The firm specializes in developing sustainable neighborhoods. For more information, please visit: www.mccamant-durrett.com

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