Our Urban Village Cohousing
Cohousing lite: An innovative project with Tomo Spaces offers a promising solution to Vancouver’s housing and social isolation crises.
Our Urban Village offers a sustainable, social model for adding gentle density to single-family neighbourhoods. (Madeleine Hebert / Happy Cities)
The happier missing middle
Can we design multi-unit housing to nurture strong, supportive social relationships? Hundreds of hours of research led us to believe the answer is yes. Our Urban Village (formerly called Tomo House) brings this idea to life.
Happy Cities collaborated with local developer Tomo Spaces, a creative design team (Lanefab and MA+HG Architects), and Our Urban Village to pilot a new form of socially connected, missing middle housing called “cohousing lite.” Our work included:
Design principles for wellbeing to guide the development of the project, building on Happy Cities research on wellbeing in multi-unit housing
A post-occupancy study comparing residents’ wellbeing before and after move in, to identify how living in community-oriented housing can nurture health, belonging, social connection, and more
About Our Urban Village
Our Urban Village is a three-storey, 12-unit cohousing project in Vancouver. It combines a small cluster of private homes with shared indoor and outdoor social spaces, including a common house, courtyard, shared laundry, and parking.
Typically, cohousing projects are undertaken by residents themselves acting as the developer. However, cohousing groups face many barriers to development, including long project timelines, expensive land, complex municipal policy, and significant time commitments. Many groups that form are unable to overcome these challenges and complete their project.
Our Urban Village piloted an innovative “cohousing lite” model, collaborating with a local developer to reduce many of these financial and time barriers. The project prioritizes resident wellbeing and social connection, and offers an innovative model for developing low-rise, “missing middle” housing in a largely single-family residential neighbourhood.
As housing prices rise faster than income, many families cannot afford traditional single-family homes. They are looking for new housing choices somewhere between single-family homes and high-rise condos. Our research outlines key learnings from this cohousing lite community to explore how cities can add gentle density and grow in a sustainable and social way.
Our Urban Village, view from Main Street.
Project architects, Marianne Amodio and Harley Grusko, on the building’s wide outdoor walkways.
What we learned
Happy Cities designed a research methodology to measure how residents’ wellbeing changed before and after moving into Our Urban Village. Our results find that—as research and the residents themselves predicted—interactions with neighbours, social support, and trust in neighbours have significantly increased since moving in. The results highlight impactful actions that can be implemented in future, community-oriented, missing middle developments to boost sense of community, wellbeing, and belonging.
Explore a snapshot of our results below, or download the report to learn more.
Our Urban Village includes wide outdoor walkways and a shared courtyard. (Matheson Photography)
Learn more about community housing models:
Read about local, inspiring community housing models—like cohousing and co-operative housing—and learn about how to apply design principles to transform any multi-unit building into a place where people know and support their neighbours.
More stories about Tomo Spaces and Our Urban Village
Developer Mark Shieh sees shared living spaces as a way to bring fractured communities together. The Globe and Mail
What’s behind the Tomo name of a new cohousing project? Georgia Straight
Making connections. The Globe and Mail
Cohousing project in Vancouver. Daily Hive
Cohousing Lite enters the Vancouver housing lexicon. The Courier