Common amenities usage and square footage allocations | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Janey Harper (jkharpertelus.net) | |
Date: Mon, 24 May 2021 14:32:43 -0700 (PDT) |
Hi Ann, Thank you so much for all your info. I'm pleased to say that we are not planning for any unreachable windows :) I sent an email to Rebecca, and even though I have yet to receive an answer from her, I found her study of CH usage to be very useful. With responses from several architects and many community residents, II am now well-armed for discussions with our architect. Janey Janey ?pasted into this email is the summary from a study of CH usage by Rebecca Disbrow in 2011. I don?t have the full study. I believe she found the CH to be unused most of the time (people are at work during the day) it gets most of its use from dinners, meetings, tv watching but most of the time it?s empty. I always thought renting out our space for small workshops during daytime hours would be a good synergistic use but some folks believe the liability is too much. Someone connected w/ the Cohousing Research Network may have the full study. In addition to CH ?use" I would also consider CH cleaning, maintenance and repair. We have a lovely CH at Takoma Village in Washington, DC. BIG 2 story height DR, Sun room, fireplace area. We have to hire a cheery picker to clean the lights in the main DR. Windows are wonderful. They let in lots of light plus you can see folks outside and the folks outside can see who is in the CH. We love our windows. But they are a b - - - h to clean. I know because as a power wheelchair user, I wash the lower 2/3rds of them on Workdays. There are whole sets of them I cannot access. And it still takes me over an hour to wash the ones I can reach. Another neighbor does the upper part of the windows and doors I clean plus all the ones I can?t reach. Some of them are simply inaccessible because they are at the top of the 2nd story open space. Thankfully we only clean those when the cheery picker shows up. All the double hung windows have screens which we haven?t washed in ? I don?t know if they?ve ever been washed. And don?t forget ? windows and glass doors have to be washed inside and outside. Two glass doors = 4 surfaces. Plus outside the CH we have 4 fire doors w/ glass framed in the majority of the door surface. I tried to write up an inventory of doors and windows and gave up. So I inventoried just 4 areas and came up w/ this: in the entrance to the CH, the workshop, the Tween Room and Sun room I count 4 doors w/ sidelights, 21 double hung windows ? the does not include the exterior facing windows of the workshop which I estimate is another 5-7 windows. Plus because we are in a historic preservation area all doors facing out to the street have to maintain historic requirements. This means our out facing doors are divided into 15 smaller squares on both sides of the door. Three of the 4 doors are divided like this. I can understand why the out facing doors have this configuration but some of the interior doors not visible to the outside are also configured like this. AND also required by historic preservation ? just to make life very interesting ? the upper half of the double hung windows are divided into 6 squares. Every month when I clean these windows I think living in a cave has some advantages ? When designing your CH and any other structures think carefully about who is going to clean, maintain and repair your facilities. See Rebecca?s summary of her study below my signature block. It?s in plain text. This means some formatting is missing. I think you can still figure it out. Hope you find it useful for your needs, Janey. Again, maybe someone connected w/ CRN has a copy of the full study. Best ? Ann Zabaldo Takoma Village Cohousing Washington, DC Ex. Dir. & Mbr. Board of Directors Mid Atlantic Cohousing Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC Falls Church, VA 202.546.4654 zabaldo [at] earthlink.net <mailto:zabaldo [at] earthlink.net>
-
Common amenities usage and square footage allocations Janey Harper, May 24 2021
- Re: Common amenities usage and square footage allocations Ann Zabaldo, May 24 2021
Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.