RE: Community & Architecture | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Rob Sandelin (robsanmicrosoft.com) | |
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 94 13:09 CDT |
What I meant in my original post (Spin doctoring again I see) is that the things that Chuck Durrett said in his closing speech about cohousing which were important to him, all had nothing to do with the architecture and had everything to do with community, primary the acts of people helping each other out, feelings of joy that people cared about his kid, etc. I do totally agree that architecture can play a role in facilitating some human interactions with each other, which can be a prelude to community. For example having a commonhouse to gather in is very important. Sharing meals is very important. Having a view on the outside activities of the community in each home is important. But it is only a small part. You could gather together, share meals and not have very much feeling of togetherness if you didn't have an expectation or commitment to making togetherness happen at a level beyond just being in the same place at the same time. I obviously have a strong disagreement with the notion that community is dependent on, or even defined by architecture. All my experience tells me they are not directly related. I also see a few cohousing groups as being long on architecture and short on community and I think that is a sad problem, because it seems to me, the whole point of cohousing is not architectural, it is creating community. We get hung up on the architecture and miss the real point. I was attracted to Sharingwood because of its community. As a site design Sharingwood lacks any sort of thought out social elements. The social site design elements we have are accidents or retrofitted. There are other cohousing groups where I would not choose to live because I want more sense of community than they offer. My choice of course is mine, and some people only want a more "convenient" place to live and want little community. I think there is room for all of us, even within the same group. I heard several people at the conference express some level of dismay about the level of community in their cohousing group. This seems to be a common issue, especially in the "build it all at once and move in all at once" model of development. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the groups that had spent time together during the intense development phase doing community building work and their level of satisfaction with the level of feeling of community at move in time and beyond. Those that did little community building during development, seemed to have most dismay, those that did some or lots seemed very content. Whew. This seems such a strong issue for me. Sorry if I offend. Rob Sandelin Sharingwood
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Community & Architecture Craig D. Willis, October 19 1994
- RE: Community & Architecture Rob Sandelin, October 19 1994
- RE: Community & Architecture shedrick coleman, October 19 1994
- RE: Community & Architecture Rob Sandelin, October 19 1994
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- RE: Community & Architecture Gordon, October 20 1994
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