Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: design question

[Berrins (Berrins]

In a message dated 12/19/99 5:16:06 PM, tilstra [at] smartchat.net.au writes:

<< Does anybody have experiences with offering "shells" enabling individual
households to locate walls & fittings as individually preferred? For
example, I have seen designs where the purchaser has the choice to have more
bedrooms and a smaller lounge or the opposite. >>

I guess you could say we had "modified" shells.  Many, but not all, of the 
internal walls were movable to some extent.  The biggest constraint was that 
load bearing walls had to stay, of course, but the newer construction 
techniques, with extended beams, allowed for a lot of flexibility and large, 
open rooms.  The architect said initially that there were limits to how far 
the walls could be moved, but I don't know if anyone had a problem with 
moving walls.  However, I think everybody stayed with the basic stairways and 
orientation of rooms.  Putting the stairs, kitchen and/or bathrooms in 
different parts of the shell could get tricky.

If you end up with very different internal designs in most of the houses, 
expect to pay higher architect fees and possibly higher construction costs 
due to the increased complexity of the project.  And don't be surprised if 
some of the houses end up like at Howard's site, with poor traffic flow 
patterns and rooms (or garages) that are not appropriately sized.  You may 
want to have an independent architect take another look at your specific 
house plan.  Good luck!