Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: common houses in small communities

[Brian Bartholomew (bb]

Michael Barrett <mbarrett [at] toast.net> writes:

> This is something I look forward to.  So I'd be very interested to
> know how your workshop works.  How big is it ? How well equipped?
> How many users, regular and occasional? How often used?  Controlled
> access and use (from safety concerns)?  How do you manage high
> value, perhaps high skill tools?  Do individuals own tools that they
> can control use of?  Who pays to replace the burnt blade for the
> table saw?

> [...] Of course what I fear is misplaced, missing, misused and
> damaged tools and worst of all, possible injury

Our group is still forming, but we have a relatively high percentage
of tinkerers.  Our active members include an amateur: blacksmith,
benchwork glassworker, potter, machinist, and telescope maker.
Recently the joke was: "who *doesn't* have an acetylene torch?"  Just
about all the rest are eager to watch, try, and learn.

A kiln or a lathe is both fragile and dangerous, and use by a
conscientious but untrained person is likely to damage it or the user.
If someone burns a blade on the table saw, that's a signal that
they're a danger to themselves and the machines.  What other
potentially lethal mistakes are they making?  Are you going to
discover them dead after a kickback hit them and they fell and their
head hit something hard?

-----

Michael> "Community tools" is an ideal.  I'd like to know how close
Michael> one can get to it.

Sharon> As an artist I have years of experience in shared workshops
Sharon> and studios and I wouldn't go near it on a volunteer basis. A
Sharon> lot of work. And you have control over the space -- everyone
Sharon> in the community cannot have a key and be allowed to leave it
Sharon> a mess.

Imagine the shop as a smaller cohousing (coshopping?) inside the big
one.  The shop building itself has shared ownership (coho site), but
the volume is marked off somehow into semi-private spaces (homes) so
it's not a constant irritation about whose clutter (home contents) is
in whose else's way (common house).  Each of the collections of tools
that people bring in with them and locate in the shop are completely
privately owned and controlled.  However, just like with coho houses,
as people get comfortable with each other it will become less and less
formal to approach another and ask permission to use the whatever.
Pretty soon you will know each other and your interests, projects,
foibles, etc. well enough that they will say yeah, sure, put a few
bucks in the coffee can for consumables when you use it.  And you will
clean up after yourself because that's polite as a guest.

Consider this change of perspective: the goal should not be shared
ownership as a social good unto itself; the goal should be avoiding
waste and duplication by sharing.  I think collectivism gets it
backwards.  Efficiency should be the goal, and sharing and cooperation
the implementation.  The warmth of community comes at the end, not at
the beginning.  There is no solution to the tragedy of the commons
problem among strangers, and it's hard enough among families.  I think
the right approach is to have as few commons as possible, and for the
few remaining, choose kinds which are hard to overuse or damage.

I think that's close to the social chemistry you're looking for,
except this pathway actually works to reach it.

                                                        Brian