Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Efficient design of units...

[Berrins (Berrins]

Just a few thoughts...

1) Design space for lots of shoes in your front halls, as well as space for 
regular items such as backpacks and umbrellas.  Small house designs often 
crimp on front hall space.  The shoes and backpacks for our four person 
family in our house end up all over the entryway and its worse whenever a 
buch of people come visiting.  Which, when cohousing is working, can happen 
pretty often.

2) Don't go overboard with windows.  Small house design means a limited 
amount of wall space.  When faced with wanting to put in south facing windows 
for solar gain and other windows to look out on the community or your 
beautiful back yard, its easy to have almost no wall space left over to hang 
pictures and put bookcases or taller furniture.  Several people here wish 
they had put in fewer.  

3) Design for the future.  Not only will your needs change as time goes on, 
but you won't be living there forever.  Kitchens, for example, should be 
adaptable.  You may not want a stove, microwave or dishwasher now but its 
probable that someone will want one or both in the future; this may mean 
putting in a few extra outlets and/or some plumbing in logical places.  Same 
with bathrooms; put blocking in the walls for handicap bars and leave the 
door opening adaptable for wheelchairs.  We didn't put ramps on our houses, 
but lined up the porches so we could build them on later or use the portable 
ones we store in the common house.  All of these will make your house more 
marketable in the future.

4) Don't forget a place to exercise or at least stretch out and do yoga.  
Small houses don't leave a lot of room to maneuver.  I'm a chiropractor and 
spend a lot of my day teaching people various stretches and exercises; I'm 
embarrassed to admit that I didn't design space to do this in my own home.  
((stepping up on soap box)) And, as a chiropractor, I can tell you most 
people consider exercise an optional activity; it shouldn't be.  You have the 
opportunity now to make space for it later ((stepping down)).

That's it for now...

Roger Berman
Pathways Cohousing
Northampton, MA

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l