Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Ratio of Common House size to Unit Size

[Mabel Liang (mabel]

Diane,

I'd have to do some calculating to figure out the answer to your question,
because our "common house" is in several different places.  But I'm quite
confused by your question.  I think you'd also want to know about the
_number_ of units in a community.  I'd expect a community with 6 units (the
one that Chuck and Katie originally found in Denmark) to have a much
smaller common house than one with 40 units.  The other night we had 3
activities scheduled for after dinner.  Larger numbers of residents makes
it more likely that there'll be more activities, and more need for common
space.

I also suspect that "average size" isn't a great indicator.  I know that
some of the people here at Cornerstone with smaller units felt a greater
need for Christmas decorations in the common house, because they didn't
have room for a tree in their own unit.  People with smaller units may feel
more squeezed, regardless of the size of the other units.  

How many _units_ are you planning?

                                                -- Mabel :-)

Cornerstone Village Cohousing
North Cambridge, MA

At 10:57 PM 3/10/03 -0500, Diane Simpson wrote:
>
>Hi everyone,
>
>I'm doing some research to figure out if communities with smaller units
>have larger common houses.
>
>Our average unit size is 825 square feet
>Our common house is programmed to be 4800 square feet
>
>So our units average about 17% the size of our common house.
>Does this common house size seem about right? Too large? Too small?
>I am not looking to find out if it seats the correct number of people.
>I am simply trying to figure out where it is on the scale of
>common house sizes overall in relation to all the other cohousing
>communities out there.
>
>Thanks!
>
>--Diane(:^]
>
>JP COHOUSING  617-524-6614
>P.O. BOX 420 BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS
>HTTP://WWW.JPCOHOUSING.ORG
>"The people who surround you define the qualify of your life."
>
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Mabel Liang
mabel [at] twomeeps.com
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