Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: higher density cohousing

[ken (gebser]

nanderso [at] iastate.edu wrote:
> Dear Lion,
> 
> ....
> 
> We have just completed a series of programming, concept, and context 
> investigations and are moving into the articulation of structure, plans, etc. 
>  
> One of the most important things that has come out of the initial 
> investigations is the idea that a typical repetitive floorplan may not work 
> well to create a sense of community but that not doing this will create 
> planning and building difficulties.  Various ideas have been proposed, one of 
> the more interesting being the creation of a hierarchy of community spaces in 
> which larger facilities for the entire complex would occur in one location, 
> scattered throughout the building, and smaller "neighborhood" spaces would 
> occur more frequently.  Also, interspersing exterior terraces and gardens 
> seems like a promising strategy that can also incorporate green roof and 
> water 
> management sustainable technologies (another studio focus).
> 
> ....

Sounds great.  Really glad to hear that this sort of thing is going on.
 Back in sophomore year I lived in a dorm that had a really nice design.
 Rather than long hallways full of doors to rooms, each floor had a
short hallway in the middle where the elevators were.  At each end of
this short hallway was a "pod" (what we called it).  The pod was like a
livingroom.  Off of this livingroom were three hallways, all
perpendicular to the next, and each hallway led to only four or five
bedrooms plus a bath/shower.  So in this four-floor building there were
eight pods.

The pods were nice places to hang out.  When you had two or three
musicians living off of one pod, they would hang out in the pod and play
music.  Other musicians from other parts of the building would join them
and that pod would eventually come to be known as the music pod.  Same
for other activities: e.g., quilting, exercise, massage, etc.  Because
there were always residents hanging out in the pods, people who knew who
lived in the building, it was a very secure building.  In the year I
lived there, no one ever had anything stolen from their room, even
though doors were left open nearly all the time.

In addition, we "appropriated" spare rooms (a storage room and/or
janitor's closet) for other purposes.  Off of our pod we set up a
potter's wheel in a storage room and a darkroom (revealing my age now)
in a janitor's closet.  Each floor had something like that.

It was a really good experience in a lot of ways.


-- 
"This world ain't big enough for the both of us,"
said the big noema to the little noema.