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

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

"Laura Fitch, A.I.A." <lfitch [at] krausfitch.com>
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
because the message included Excel format spread sheets.  They are not
included here.   They are available for download here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cohousing-L/files/
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Diane,

Here are two spread sheets that I made from data that I had concerning 
unit and common house size.  You might be able to glean something from 
them.  I would appreciate any new information that you get in response 
from your question, as it is information that I will use and share in 
the future.  

What do you mean by seating the correct number of people?  Do you mean 
diners in the dining room?  You can see that my spread sheet includes SF 
of dining space per unit.  It seems to be less in urban communities and 
maybe this works if family size is smaller.  It may also be a reflection 
of the fact that communities like ours (Pioneer Valley) have lounging 
space incorporated within our great room (adding square footage that is 
not usually used for dining).  As I said in our review of your common 
house, I would be sure to have DHK show you table and sofa layouts in 
your great room.  Even if you have ample square footage, circulation 
patterns and structural posts can impinge on usability.  I believe our 
dining tables are 42 x 72 (comfortably seat eight) - 4' between two 
parallel tables, 30" between table and wall (without circulation area!).

-- 
Laura Fitch, A.I.A.
Principal Architect

KRAUS-FITCH ARCHITECTS, INC.
110 Pulpit Hill Rd.
Amherst, MA  01002
413-549-5799
413-549-7918 (fax)

lfitch [at] krausfitch.com



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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