The premise
Most of modern life is spent earning the right to exist somewhere. We think that's backwards. Basic needs — shelter, food, water, warmth, company — are not supposed to be the hard part.
Vita Quorum is a pattern for small, self-governing communities where the basics are handled collectively and affordably, so the rest of your life can be spent on work that actually matters to you.
Quorum is the Latin word for "of whom we are enough" — the minimum sufficient assembly. That's the thesis. Regular people, in sufficient number, are enough.
What you get
- A deed to your own home — a 2-bedroom aircrete house on your own plot, customizable within a shared eco-spec.
- An equal share in the land, infrastructure, and common resources.
- A communal kitchen, hot tub, calisthenics gym, workshop, and food storage.
- A shared community vehicle for the group.
- Satellite internet (multiple dishes, community-managed) included.
- Small-scale food production on-site, supplemented freely with what the region provides.
- A real voice in how the place is run, via a flat governance model with accountable, rotating responsibility.
How it works
Each site is structured as a housing cooperative. You own your home outright, and you own an equal share in the cooperative that owns the land and common infrastructure. This is a tested model — housing co-ops, Danish cohousing, and kibbutzim have used variants for over fifty years.
Governance is flat, but structured. A General Assembly of all members sets direction. A small elected Steward Council handles day-to-day decisions, with rotating terms. Functional Circles (land, infrastructure, construction, finance, hospitality, dispute resolution) own their domains. Decisions are made by consent — not "I love it" but "I can live with it and it's safe enough to try."
Your home, your design
It's your house. You decide what it looks like, how it's laid out, and how far you want to go. The only hard constraints are the shared eco-spec — minimum insulation, passive-solar orientation, rainwater-ready roof, composting sanitation — and what your budget will stretch to. Everything else is yours.
You can build the whole thing at once with the group during a building wave, or start with a basic shell and extend over time — add a room, an outdoor kitchen, a studio, a second story, a workshop. Build fast or build slow. The point is that you actually own the result.
We're using aircrete, composting toilets, passive solar, and rainwater catchment because they're cheap, eco-friendly, and forgiving to build — you don't have to be a professional to end up with a solid home. Foundations, structural roof framing, and final electrical and plumbing connections are handled by local contractors; the rest is well within reach of anyone willing to learn.
The reason we do this together is simple: materials are cheaper at scale, shared know-how makes the work go faster and safer, and it's more fun than hiring it all out. When someone's building, others often show up to help. That's not an obligation — some members won't be physically able, some have other work, and everyone's time is their own. But it's the culture we're building toward, because it's how communities actually work when they work.
The numbers
The buy-in is split into two layers. Only the first is mandatory.
| Membership share | Your equal stake in land, common facilities, and shared infrastructure. Phased payment. Confers full co-op membership. | $5,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Home build | Materials plus required professional labor for your own 2-bedroom aircrete home. Paid when your wave builds. Benefits from economy of scale. | ~$7,000 |
| Monthly fees | Maintenance, shared food production, community vehicle, satellite internet, operations reserve. | $50–150 |
Power may be separately metered. These figures are honest working numbers for the first site; they will be refined publicly as design and location firm up.
Where
Vita Quorum is a pattern, not a place. The goal is multiple sites over time, each with its own name (Quorum Grounds, Quorum Ridge, and so on) and its own character, all sharing the same cooperative model.
The first candidate site is in the mountains of Colombia, two to three hours from Bogotá — rural, food-abundant, lightly populated, and within reach of an international airport. Nothing is locked yet. Early members will have a voice in where the first site lands.
Who this is for
People who want stability, ownership, and the room to think. Builders, writers, researchers, tradespeople, parents, retirees, remote workers — anyone whose real work benefits from a settled base and a community that isn't a performance.
It's not a retreat, not a startup, not a gated escape. It's a home, held together by agreements you help write.
Join the list
We're gathering the first group of interested people now. No commitment — just an early signal that you'd like to know more as the plan firms up.