Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Curious about your group's Cohousing Design Programming experience

[Alice Alexander (alicecohous]

Phil provides good advice here!
I will share our good experience at Durham Cohousing: we hired local
architects, but also engaged Laura Fitch (Kaurs Fitch Architects) to help
us with programming - designing our common space. Laura spent just one full
day with our group, but that experience transformed our ability to come to
consensus over the next several weeks and months in working with our local
architects. Laura gave us the tools and framework for making those
decisions, and could directly address cohousing issues and concerns, of
which we had many at that early development stage! Our local architects
were fabulous, but had no cohousing experience; we were pleased that they
agreed with us in engaging Laura. Many of us remember the experience with
Laura well, and include her when we credit the professionals we worked with
in creating our fabulous community.
Alice Alexander, Coho/US Executive Director

On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 7:36 AM, R Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> 
wrote:

>
> For an architect, experience with the building type and with the client
> type is invaluable.  This is as true for cohousing — multi-family or
> cluster residential, pedestrian-emphasis site plan, and non-hierarchical
> client, like a neighborhood group — as it is for college libraries,
> shopping malls, or nursing homes.  There are many good reasons to find and
> select an architect with a number of successful cohousing designs on
> his/her resume.
>
> Having said that … there are other good reasons to select a *local*
> architect.  Experience with local building and zoning codes, and with local
> contractors, also counts.  But more than that, you (the client) will see
> more of your architect if s/he is within a couple hours drive, max, rather
> than an elaborate and costly plane trip away.  For communal residential
> design, the weekly (or even daily) interactions with the designer are also
> invaluable — especially if and when the project stumbles across unexpected
> problems.
>
> Finally, keep in mind that architects, as a professional group, tend to be
> amenable to the exploratory and novel.  Even for one who specializes in
> college libraries, every site, every program, and every client represents a
> unique set of challenges; the cookie-cutter approach does not apply.  Good
> architects think they can figure out how to design anything, and there is
> some truth to this (depending on how you define “good”).
>
> If you want to talk, write me back and I’ll send you a phone number.
>
> Thanks,
> Philip Dowds RA
> Cornerstone Village Cohousing
> Cambridge, MA
>
> > On Mar 19, 2016, at 9:29 PM, Carina Young <carinawyoung [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Our group (Harrisonburg Cohousing, in Harrisonburg, VA) is ready to begin
> > choosing an architect, and we're planning on considering some architects
> > with no cohousing experience. Would anyone on the listserv be willing to
> > share with me:
> >
> > Did your group choose an architect familiar with cohousing?  If you did,
> do
> > you feel like they facilitated the design program well? If you chose an
> > architect who hadn't done cohousing before, did you have someone familiar
> > with cohousing design facilitate the design workshops? Or did you just
> have
> > the architect or some other facilitator run the workshop?
> >
> > Our group has some conflicting opinions about how to move forward, and
> > we're looking for wisdom and insight from your experiences. (Some of us
> are
> > very in favor of having experienced cohousing design facilitators run the
> > design workshops, and some of us think a good architect with a good
> > non-cohousing facilitator would do a fine job.) Feel free to email me at
> > carinawyoung [at] gmail.com if you'd like to share off the listserv, or if
> you'd
> > be willing to talk with me over the phone.
> >
> > Carina Young
> > carinawyoung [at] gmail.com
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
>
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>
>


-- 
Alice Alexander
Executive Director
www.cohousing.org <http://www.cohous.org>
[image: The Cohousing Association]