In 2000 Teresa and Jake were looking to relocate to Adelaide and they purchased an old bungalow in Bowden. Bowden is an inner city suburb approximately 3km from the GPO with interesting industrial and heritage influences. The city centre can be accessed by cycling along the River Torrens through the parklands or public transport.
The bungalow had been extended in 1985 by an owner builder. While the extension, incorporating a kitchen/living/dining, bathroom and upstairs studio, was sympathetic to the character of the house the thermal performance of the house was extremely poor due to the following reasons:

• Very significant draughts; including the retention of a roof vent directly between the studio and the roof
• No zoning; the upstairs studio was not separated from the downstairs living area
• Large unshaded east facing windows
• Insignificant levels of insulation

Improving the thermal performance of the house was an initial focus for obvious reasons!

 Apart from sealing draughts and installing insulation other fixes to date have included:

• Building a wall and installing a door to block the upstairs off from downstairs (uncontrolled airflow between storeys is a pet hate of Jake’s)
• Installing acrylic sheet as secondary glazing (this has now been done for all windows throughout the house)
• Building a solar air heater into the roof space to pump hot air into the living area
• Enclosing the back verandah which faces NE to create a sunroom.
• Warm air is pumped into the south facing end of the house
• External shading for the east facing windows

The most significant part of the site is outside of the site itself. It’s the very localised intentional community. This consists of four houses – three in a row (including Teresa and Jake’s) and one across the street. This micro-community shares the following, an organic process over the last ten years:

• Gates (usually open) between the three adjacent back yards
• Some shared care of children (5 across the 4 houses), the kids are generally free to range across the backyards and houses with minimal screen time
• Group meals, unscheduled but common
• Casual social opportunity
• Annual passatta making
• Camping trips
• Borrowing of tools, ingredients, labour etc
• Support for uncommon activities eg working from home, local community involvement, working less, going against the flow, artistic pursuits…

The community is completely informal and there are no written rules. Each property is individually owned.

How did this come about? Through a mixture of luck and intention.

Over time we became close friends with our neighbours Jacqui & Paul two doors down. This friendship was fostered through a community art project. Our neighbour Jacqui initiated a bird bath construction project in the local park as she had noticed the older residents of the complex liked to leave water out for the birds. So we became involved in mosaicing the bird bath under the direction of a local artist. Here we met our future neighbours Tabitha & Michael.

Teresa and Jake were already interested in community and co-housing in particular. In the mid-2000’s there were some initial meetings of people interested in establishing a co-housing venture. There was interest however the daunting barriers of making such a large project happen and having the timing work out etc. About this time the house in the middle came up for sale. Through a combined arm twisting process Tabitha & Michael purchased the house in 2006.

Since then it’s been a gradually evolving process of community building, with small steps. While it hasn’t always been smooth sailing it has enriched the lives of all those involved immeasurably.
Each year the Food Forest Permaculture Design Course visits. This is a good opportunity for us to reflect on our adventure.