Greene County News
YELLOW SPRINGS — The Antioch College Board of Trustees recently voted to move forward with the development of Antioch College Village (ACV).
ACV is part of the College’s Framework for Antioch College’s Transition (FACT). FACT is President Tom Manley’s platform for re-envisioning the future of higher education by integrating the college’s unique curricular assets like Glen Helen, WYSO 91.3 FM and the Coretta Scott King Center, to support a community of life-long learners and the fiscal health of the college. ACV is conceived as an environmentally sustainable, multigenerational, mixed-income community on the campus of Antioch College, near the vibrant downtown of the Village of Yellow Springs. The project aspires to meet the requirements of the Living Community Challenge, the world’s most advanced measure of sustainability for communities.
“We are excited that the aesthetic and environmental aspects of the ACV footprint will be leading edgem,” Manley said. “Our work in higher education and in the wider community should be focused on developing new and better ways of living and learning, and the ACV project is integral to our efforts.”
The trustees authorized the launch of ACV with a pilot phase of thirty-two co-housing units. Cohousing is a distinct pattern of development that originated in Denmark in the 1960s. It typically consists of small private homes clustered around shared green and living space. Each home has traditional amenities, including a private kitchen, while a common house provides access to amenities that are often duplicated in individual homes, like a workshop, game room and extra guestrooms. Cohousing households have independent incomes and private lives, but neighbors work collaboratively to plan and manage their community and life tasks such as child and elder care.
Renowned green architect, Jason F. McLennan, CEO of McLennan Design, will provide design services for the cohousing pilot. McLennan is the founder of the Living Building Challenge, Living Community Challenge, International Living Future Institute and he is a Buckminster Fuller Prize winner.
“Our team is thrilled to help envision a new way of living and being at Antioch that is better for people, for community and for the environment for generations to come,” McLennan said.
Sandy Wiggins, the project leader and former chair of the U.S. Green Building Council and principle of Consilience LLC, said the project is in the midst of securing financing, although McLennan will be engaged immediately to begin the design. Wiggins said the cohousing pilot will take time — up to a year to work through the design and permitting processes and two succeeding years to build out.
Antioch College Village has been in the works since the college commissioned Wiggins to conduct a feasibility study in 2013. The Yellow Springs co-housing group, Antioch Village Pioneers, was deeply involved in the week-long ACV master plan charrette led by Dover, Kohl and Partners last spring, where hundreds of area stakeholders contributed feedback on the design of the ACV. To date, nineteen members of Antioch Village Pioneers have indicated that they want to purchase ACV homes and seven more are interested in renting. Those with interest in the ACV project can contact Emily Armstrong at [email protected].
