Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Middle units Dark or Not

[sga1 (sga1]

Hi Tim,

Here in Arcata, CA, a foggy and rainy part of the United States if there
ever was one, our cohousing is set up as 4-plexes. It was done to save
space and maximize the number of houses that could be built, but our
architect was a mistress of daylighting, and the middle houses sell just
as well as the exterior houses.

The tricks to daylighting interior houses are well known--put in sky
lights, solatubes, clerestory roof lines, orient your houses south, east
or west, limit interior walls when possible, paint the walls light colors
so sunlight bounces deep into the house, etc. You just need a savvy
architect, or at least a couple people on the design team that are willing
to read up on daylighting and work with the architect.  If you do that,
you won't have issues with interior houses being less desirable.

Good luck!

Sean Armstrong
Marsh Commons
> We are working on our site design which consists of almost all
> duplexes.  We realized that if we went to tri-plexes or four-plexes that
> we could save a lot of space and open up the site.
>
> The concern is that the center units in either case will be dark and
> nobody will want them.
>
> Is this true?
>
> Any feed back would be appreciated.
>
> Tim Clark
> Austin Cohousing
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Project Administrator
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Arcata, CA 95521
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sga1 [at] humboldt.edu