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Murundaka Co-Housing is actually pretty hip and certainly modern in its design, with two blocks of nine units built around a common meeting place that can be used for all sorts of community events.
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Murundaka Co-Housing in Melbourne – Sustainable and Affordable City Living If you are looking for a more sustainable and more affordable way to live in a city then look no further. Co-housing is a proven success in many locations and many guises around the world but to see co-operative living in an intentional community in action, we have to look no further than Murundaka Co-Housing in Heidelberg Heights, Melbourne. If you are conjuring up images in your mind of hippie havens and 1970s communes then you have not been brought up to speed with modern developments in the concepts of co-housing. Co- housing is for everyone – for ordinary people just trying to find a way to live ethical and affordable lives in increasingly expensive cities. Murundaka Co-Housing is actually pretty hip and certainly modern in its design, with two blocks of nine units built around a common meeting place that can be used for all sorts of community events. There is nothing eye-brow raising about the way the inhabitants live here and not a whiff of patchouli. Everyone gets on with their own life, retaining their own privacy and space to escape from others when they want to but have the option of being part of something bigger than themselves. The people who live here all had an income below a certain amount and their rent is set at 25% of their income. There is a communal vegetable patch where a proportion of the community's food is grown, people sometimes share meals, some residents share cars and chores are made easier because everyone pitches in together. If you have kids, it seems there is always a baby sitter on hand. There is a spare room to accommodate the guests of any of the residents. Living in this way is so much more sustainable both for individual finances and of course for our cities. If we are to successfully transition to an ethical and sustainable future then there is no doubt that more and more city dwellers will be living in this way. This can only be good for the health, happiness and well-being of those future urbanites. If you are keen then you may wish to join such a co-housing scheme as this one, or even found your own group along similar lines. There is a lot of inspiration and guidance available online, or you might even be able to go to an open day at Murundaka Co-housing itself to see what it is like first hand.
Some people are reticent to live with others but in a set up like this one you can still live a private life, much as you would have done, just with fewer, smaller bills and many fringe benefits. But the life you live will allow you to tread far less heavily on the planet as you harvest rainwater from the roof, grow your own food and share skills and resources with other people. Murundaka has great sustainability aims, including to be waste free by 2020. Twenty five years ago the prospect of living in an apartment was far from the norm in Australia, however today apartments make up a significant percentage of the housing market in Melbourne. Co-housing may currently also be far from the norm, but does this model present an appropriate blueprint for sustainable housing in an ever growing city?
