Why We Started AERAS — A House Is Not a Home (Without a Village)
Dear friends,
Let’s start with something we’ve come to believe:
our personal housing circumstances can also foster our personally tailored version of community.
That’s the heart of AERAS Dwellings.
We’re a small start-up rooted in a big idea: That housing — done thoughtfully, intentionally, and beautifully — can actually foster what’s best in our society. Namely, human connection!
BORN from VILLAGE LIFE
In the African countries of Cameroon and Botswana, where the two of us, Timothy and Nathan, were born and grew up, respectively, many people live in rhythms of togetherness: grandparents help raise grandchildren; young adults care for elders; work, rest, and celebration are shared. It’s not perfect. But it is whole. And it’s helped shape our ongoing conviction that unique community is what we all need, including at home.
We carry that vision with us into our Canadian context, where many of us are stretched thin. In many situations our houses are unnecessarily large, while for others of us it’s impossible to get into the housing market at all. We spend our energy each maintaining our own properties, while our parents grow isolated, our friends live too far, our kids long for more of our presence, and our students are in need of a simple place to live.
Our challenges share a common solution: each other!
WHAT We BUILD, and WHY
At AERAS, we design and build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), also called secondary suites — right-sized, gorgeous homes that can fit on existing properties or be part of shared-living communities. But more than that, we’re crafting a new way to live — one that blends sustainability with joy, autonomy with belonging.
ADUs can be:
A place for aging parents to live close, but independently.
A home for adult children who need affordable rent (and a hand with the baby).
A rental unit that offsets your mortgage, or lets you pay forward the gift of housing.
A way to make better use of (and financial profit from) the land you already own, without overextending your lifestyle.
They’re small enough to feel cozy, customizable enough to reflect your story, and beautiful enough to feel like a dream home — with clever storage, natural light, thoughtful finishes, and design features that make you smile.
But more than anything, ADUs open the door for connection.
And that’s where the real transformation begins.
From PROPERTY to PEOPLE - VILLAGE MODEL
By welcoming others into our space — whether family, friends, or tenants — we create the kind of support we all need more of. However, we need to do this wisely, with attention to unique personalities, healthy boundaries, gifts to mutually offer, and patterns of living that can fit together.
At AERAS, we’re not only we’re with you every step of the way from first concept to handing over the key to a beautifully finished unit, we also walk you and your prospective backyard community members (whether they’re family or have gone through a tenant application process) through a session to help each other learn what will allow you all to thrive in community together. We do this through a personality assessment led by our professional counsellor/therapist, followed by a session to determine these healthy boundaries, identify these gifts of mutuality, and establish these patterns, unique to your personalities.
We call this the village model — not a commune, but a community. Not a loss of privacy, but a gain in possibility. A return to the idea that we need each other — and that when we design for that, everyone benefits.
WHAT COMES NEXT
In the months ahead, this newsletter series will explore the deeper vision of AERAS Dwellings (AERAS, by the way, invokes the word ‘eras’, as in a new generational era of fostering community through our housing). We'll talk about:
What ADUs are, and how they can work for you.
Why multi-generational and interdependent living is making a comeback.
How thoughtful design creates space for solitude and connection.
What we’re learning from our Anabaptist, African, and justice-rooted influences.
How you can be part of building something better — for yourself, and for your community.
But for now, we simply want to say: welcome.
Whether you’re curious, hopeful, or ready to build — we’re glad you’re here. We believe that housing can be part of the solution to some of the most pressing challenges of our time. And we’d love to walk with you as we rediscover what it means to be home.
With warmth and vision,
Timothy Koch and Nathan Dirks
Building homes for wholeness, one village at a time
