Our vision is a new paradigm for housing and living in Ireland. It is a solution which meets people’s needs for an affordable home in a supportive community while respecting environmental limits. The motivations for delivering this project are plentiful. Healthy communities provide for their members and we aim to create a community which is resilient, affordable, and environmentally sensitive; a community that is run by our members and embraces diversity and difference; a community which allows for equal participation and provides opportunities for engagement, celebration and fun whilst at the same time respecting the need for individual privacy and space.
Who We Are
By working and socialising together, we are actively building an integrated community; experiencing it before living it.



LEEDS MODEL
LILAC Leeds, UK
MHOS
MUTUAL HOME OWNERSHIP SOCIETY
An essential component of LILAC Leeds’ success was their pioneering of the Mutual Home Ownership Society (MHOS) model. MHOS is an original and innovative new form of tenure. It is a significant departure from the current housing finance model as far as it provides permanently affordable housing and a strong community not subject to the vagaries of market speculation.
Why Co-Housing?
Without community, there is no liberation.
Communal living is something of a catch-all term referring to any group of people with similar values who live together in a community. It covers several approaches to housing including co-housing, co-living and communes. Although these approaches are different, they are a form of living at odds with the current models currently in vogue in many parts of the world.
What is Co- Housing?
A community adopting the cohousing model has the following characteristics:
- It is intentional
- It is designed, both architecturally and culturally in such a way that encourages interaction and the formation of close relationships
- It comprises both private spaces and communal spaces
- Members are actively involved in all stages of the community’s development and its running
- It is community-oriented
- It is non-speculative and affordable (in perpetuity)
- The community governance model typically adopted is consent-based and is non-hierarchical
- Many cohousing communities have at their core a commitment to sustainablity
- The glue that bonds it is the unshakeable belief that it is in community that mankind is at its best.

Co-Housing vs Co-Living
It is important to draw a distinction between co-housing and co-living. The latter involves more sharing of spaces. Normally, members in co-living communities will have their own rooms but share kitchen and bathroom facilities. It is not unlike renting a self-catering apartment…. for an exceptionally long time.
If we were to locate these three approaches to communal living on a spectrum, then communes would be at the opposite end to co-housing. Similarly to co-housing, a commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, often having common values and beliefs. They differ in that property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work, income or assets are also shared. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become important core principles for many communes.
PROVIDES AFFORDABLE HOUSING
PROVIDES ONE SOLUTION FOR AGEING POPULATION
STRENGTHENS DEMOCRACY PLUS NEIGHBOURHOODS
SUPPORTS AND TRIALS NEW HOUSING INNOVATIONS
LOW-IMPACT LIVING
Our vision of low-impact living is informing all aspects of our project’s design. What we design, how we design it and the ways in which we can initiate behavioural change are part of our systemic, participatory design approach to reduce our environmental impact and increase well-being. We are starting with the successful template of LILAC Leeds, which was built as a carbon negative development and is dedicated to creating a culture of enquiry, support and learning. Our low-impact design approach, which supports a shared low-impact lifestyle, is described under the following headings.
COMMON GROUND CO-HOUSING BLOG
COMING SOON
