Who We Are
Arizmendi Ecovillage
Imagine that you and your neighbors have just moved into your new spaces in a cohousing community at Arizmendi Ecovillage and you are sitting down to your first common meal in the Common House. As you look around, who do you see? You have gotten to know your new neighbors quite well already, as you met together to build the social community while the physical spaces were under construction. At the grand opening celebration, you joined with friends and family to explore all the new features of the ecovillage:
Residential Units:
There are so many private spaces in different sizes and shapes. Most have one or two bedrooms, but it was fun to tour the Eco-Huts on the rooftops and the multi-bedroom co-op units. There are four cohousing communities in all. One of them, Westminster Commons, is just for seniors 55 and over, and the other three are intergenerational and have people of all ages.
Co-op businesses:
In the Eco-Innovation Center, there are offices for several co-op businesses that collaborated in building out this prototype Irresistible Ecovillage Solutions community and are already at work on creating a network of them.
Extensive shared facilities:
Each cohousing neighborhood has its own Common House that we share with our neighbors with big kitchens and dining rooms for frequent common meals arts & crafts rooms, library, activities rooms, guest rooms. Throughout the site, there are hanging gardens and cascading water features in courtyards and on roof decks along walkways on several levels.
Sequential and simultaneous shared use:
In one of the four Common Houses, there is business incubator space, co-working spaces and a café that we will use ourselves most of the time, but will have some public hours. We visited the k-3 charter school, preschool, elder hostel, another café, live performance space, urban farmers and arts & crafts market space.
Other co-op businesses:
As we toured the site, we stopped in at the Let the Sun Shine in Again restaurant, green grocer and health food Green Being Grocery, the Blind Venetian international youth hostel, as well as the microbrewery and the health spa that has a saltwater pool and a juice bar.
If you are interested in joining us, here are a few ways that you might want to get involved: