Cohousing-L Mailing List: FW: can you post for me

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Posted For Gareth Fenley ....
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From:  <vanilla [at] info-gw.mese.com>

---
 hi everyone.... I have now officially joined Lake Claire Co-Housing
here in Atlanta! so I have that "newly joined member" excitement.  The
project  is well under way in some facets, but lagging a bit in others. we
now have 7 out of 12 townhouse units reserved with a $3,000 deposit. 
the architectural design is quite advanced; the "burning soul" of the
project  is an architect himself, Greg Ramsey. He is just getting the
berkeley  co-housing experts to review our plans and within 2 weeks expects to
have  launched into working drawings. We have an option on property that
is to  be sold to us at an extremely low price by a neighborhood group.

OK my question for all today is regarding the KITCHEN DESIGN.  I am
to lead a discussion Tuesday on the final design of the kitchen, and I
would appreciate any feedback from others who have experience with this 
process.

Our commonhouse kitchen is designed as a 180 square-foot space at
the corner of the building, with windows on 2 sides. The 3rd side is to
be  either open to the dining hall, or (the latest preferred design,
which I  have serious reservations about) semi-enclosed with a bar. The 4th
side is a wall (bathrooms on the other side) with a 12-square-foot pantry
 tucked into it.

The program goals for this space are cooking dinners, 2-3 evenings a 
week, with room for 2 or 3 people to work together comfortably;
place for people to gather nearby (this would be the dining room);
possible use for canning or freezing projects if someone is into that.  We
are a  very urban community but we're adjacent to a Land Trust with
community  gardens, so there might be, for instance, several gallons of beans
to  deal with some day.

Our commonhouse has a separate Childrens Room, but aside from that,
the dining hall (and outside decks and the concrete garage) will be the
only multipurpose space.  So the kitchen will be the sidekick room to
various meetings, parties, etc. etc.

Does anyone have advice for me about:
 -- Realistically, how much use and what kind of use can we expect?
in a community with 12 townhomes, how often and how many people will
gather for dinners?
 -- Is our kitchen big enough? Or too big?
 -- What kind of diswasher/ sink equipment do we need for clean-up?
Restaurant style equipment seems probably too grand-scale for this
  community.  But is just a big household dishwasher and a deep sink
with a sprayer, enough?
 -- Do we need a stove with 6 burners or is 4 enough>
-- How big a refrigerator do we need?
 -- One of our latest plans shows 2 sinks in the kitchen: the big
double Sink inside the kitchen (in the corner) and, on that bar I
mentioned, a small sink, to fill pitchers or clean up veggies. Would 
the second
sink come in handy or would it just get in the way?
-- Where should the dining ware be stored? Do we account for
cabinet space for the plates/cups/silver in the kitchen proper... .or is it
 better to truck them out into the dining room (or store them under
the  bar with cabinets opening both ways?) so the kids can set the 
tables without getting underfoot in the kitchen?


 Maybe the easiest way to answer all these questions at one blow
would be to recommend a good book!!  One factor at play here, though, is that
the  architect is eager to finish the plans, and I've come late to the
project so I don't have a full span of time to luxuriate researching.  I've
noticed, though, that among the folks in the project now, I care
most  about the kitchen. I would like to lead the creation of the
cooperative dining arrangements.

 ....With that jet of newcomer energy, I am
 ------------------
  Gareth Fenley
  Atlanta, Georgia
 ------------------


I was thinking of one more question....... How big an entrance/exit does
a commonhouse kitchen need?  That is what bothers me about the bar
design, I realize now.  Having the bar to separate and yet join the
kitchen // dining room is nice.  What's yukky is, having only a narrow
entrance to the kitchen. it looks like a bottleneck to me.  maybe the bar
could be just a little shorter and have enough room to navigate past
without gettting stuck like Archie Bunker and the Meathead  (who else
remembers how they did that??)
thanks dear e-friends.
------------------
 Gareth Fenley
 Atlanta, Georgia
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