RE: Community & Architecture
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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