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

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Size is not a very good factor to use. How big the space  is doe not matter
as much as what the spaces are used for. For example, A commonhouse of one
giant space will probably get much less regular use than one with a mixture
of  spaces.  So if your homes are small, think about if you had a bigger
home what would the space be used for, then make that space available in the
commonhouse. Things like offices, shops, crafts, play space for kids all
make attractive common elements. Also think 10 years after you build out,
what will attract people to buy your house that you need to sell because you
are moving to Seattle? A vibrant, well used community center is a huge
asset. To make it well used, it has to have spaces that support what people
actually do. I have visited a few cohousing groups that made the mistake of
building committed space for a use that people did not use. During planning
somebody said something like: Gosh, I'd do woodworking if only I had a
woodshop". And they built it, and it goes unused. Better to support
activities that people ACTUALLY do, not things they think they might do.
Making dedicated spaces to one leisure activity should be done with great
deliberation, better to make spaces that are non-dedicated, that can be used
for kids rooms, a guest room, etc.  Yes, certain things like kitchens, and
bathrooms are obvious dedicated spaces, but before you invest in a shop, be
sure you can reclaim that space for a pool table if that is what is actually
used.  Chuck Durrett once told a group that your return on common space
dollars invested is hours of use. You want to invest your money in things
which will bring the highest return in hours.

Rob Sandelin
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Diane Simpson
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 7:58 PM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: [C-L]_Ratio of Common House size to Unit Size



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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