Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Acoustics in common house--not always desirable

[Tim Pierce (twp]

I also agree with Laura, who designed our facilities at Mosaic Commons. 
On her advice we installed acoustic panels in the ceiling of the great 
room, and besides being an extraordinary gift for common meals, we have 
not found that it interferes with musical events. We have now hosted 
several house concerts in the great room, to much success. It's entirely 
possible that a top-tier professional musician would find the acoustics 
to be unacceptable for a concert, but that isn't our goal; it's to 
provide a flexible space in which to build community. I'm absolutely 
convinced it was one of the best design choices we made.

--twp

On 2/23/12 9:43 PM, Muriel Kranowski wrote:
> I second Laura's advice. I wonder if my community is the "Virginia
> cohousing" on which Bend OR modelled its home-made acoustical panels. Ours
> are very much like what an earlier poster described, and a family who
> visited us back in the day ended up at Bend. Our panels were not initially
> built in and had to be retrofitted around numerous light pendants and
> ceiling fans that hang from the Great Room ceiling, but we did it pretty
> early on.
>
> We have had house concerts (mainly singer/songwriters and bands) and they
> always sounded fine to me, but even if their sound quality had been less
> than optimal I would say we made the right decision, because eating
> together is basic and demands a not overly noisy room, whereas live music
> in the CH is an occasional treat and its acoustic quality doesn't impact
> the quality of our community life.
>
>       Muriel at Shadowlake Village Cohousing, Blacksburg, VA
>
> At 09:02 PM 2/23/2012, you wrote:
>
> > Hi Rick - while I appreciate the music that you have brought to our
> > common house, I would not trade our acoustic treatment for improved
> > concerts.  I have known way too many communitiies who have failed to
> > put in enough acoustic treatment and it is always a disaster.  You can
> > have a community without top-notch concerts, but cohousing is defined
> > by dining together!   There is nothing worse than a noisy dining
> > environment!
> >
> > Laura Fitch, AIA, LEED-BD+C
> > Kraus-Fitch Architects
> > 110 Pulpit Hill Rd.
> > Amherst, MA  01002
> > lfitch [at] krausfitch.com
> >
> > Board Member, Cohousing Association of US
> > www.cohousing.org
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