G•O Logic will be designing and building 30 energy-smart homes for the Belfast Area Cohousing Community in Belfast, Maine. This affordable ecovillage is a model for clustered development and construction, tailored to fit Maine's rural landscape. The 30 G•O Logic homes are climate-engineered with passive and active solar systems, based on the Passive House Standards of the PassivHaus institute in Germany.

The cohousing movement began in Denmark in the 70’s, creating intentional neighborhoods of clustered, low-impact, energy-efficient homes. Based on the recognition that shared lives are healthy lives, these communities combine the autonomy of private dwellings with the advantages of shared land, a large common house with shared amenities, parking on the periphery, self-governance, and design input by the community. The cohousing movement, also known as a “contemporary approach to housing ourselves,” (see McCamant and Durrett, Cohousing) has been growing across the U.S. over the past 15 years with about 120 communities across the country built to date and another 100 or so in development.

Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage’s founding families noticed in 2007 that one of Belfast’s last remaining viable farms was on the market as an ideal piece of real estate for development due to its close proximity to downtown, long road frontage and open fields. Recognizing that local access to food is vital, that raising children with parents working full time was hard on family life, and that living next door to each other would facilitate increased sharing and helping each other, they envisioned a land-based, old-fashioned neighborhood on a few of the acres and somehow supporting small-scale sustainable agriculture on the rest of the 180 acres. Modeling state-of-the-art environmental, yet affordable, approaches to housing was a founding concept. In short, they envisioned an ecovillage version of cohousing.

For more information go to www.mainecohousing.org