Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Garages

[Howard Landman (howard]

> Every one that thinks garages are for cars raise their hands.
> 
> After visiting 13 different ccommunities I have seen a common thread: 1. 
> not enough storage 2. a exercise room that gets more use as a guest room 
> and 3. no place to do anything messy or large.
> 
> All of three of these things are what many garages get used for. 

Yup.  It is a major hallucination to think "garages = cars and cars = evil
therefore garages = evil".  It is also a major hallucination to think that
you can "save space" by making garages or parking spaces substandard in
size.

A Pattern Language recommends "15% Storage", i.e. 15% of your total square
footage should be pure storage, with higher amounts in special cases (like
you're doing some of the building yourself and need space to store building
materials - we ended up using the CH basement for that).

In very high-density situations a multi-story parking lot may be the best
solution, but few people ever consider that.

Communities typically end up wanting a workshop or two and a greenhouse
and an exercise room that really gets used ... extra garages could
often fill those needs and yet be reusable for something else later.
We currently have two woodshaps in people's houses, an autoshop that's
only partially inside a garage (the car being worked on is usually
parked outside the garage in the red "no parking at any time" firelane :-),
and an exercise area crammed into a locked room in the CH basement which
also serves as a pantry.

        Howard A. Landman
        River Rock Commons
        Fort Collins, Colorado
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