Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Hanging out in the commonhouse

[David Hungerford (dghungerford]

On Thu, 25 May 1995, Rob Sandelin wrote:

> For those of you with commonhouses, do you find people "hanging out" in 
> them much, or are they mostly empty during non-meeting, non-structured 
> activity time?
> 
At Muir Commons, we find that there is not nearly as much 'hanging out' 
at the CH as we had envisioned, especially in the evenings.  We've 
wondered about this, and have come up with a list of possible 
contributing factors:
        1) demographics--lots of families w/youngsters they don't want to leave 
alone, or wwould rather spend family time with.
        2) not enough critical mass of singles/child-free couples to make a 
regular hang-out scene happen.  We actually had a single male move out 
partially because this scene, which never materialized, was part of his 
vision.
        3) our common house was rather "cold" and uninviting, sparse 
furniture, concrete floors etc.  We've warmed it up some, with furniture, 
wall hangings etc. but . . . 
        4) nobody has time to hang out anymore (see number 1)
Our hanging out tends to happen on weekends, or outside on nice 
spring/summer evenings, so its not like we're anti-social. 

I'm now curious to see postings on other experiences, maybe we're missing 
something simple.

David Hungerford
Muir Commons