Social Characteristics, Demographics and Functions
These are the proposals extracted from the “Task Summary” created by Jim Ross for Design Workshop 1. I hope I got everything, but please let me know if not.
Some of these items are presented as proposals, following our decision making process. If you have concerns or would like to block them, please make your views known on the mailing list before 13/04/13, otherwise these will become decisions, which will require a counter-proposal to revert them.
Important: Unless you act right now to oppose the proposal, your house will include: bedrooms, a cloakroom, storage, a bathroom, and a kitchen/dining/living room, and no separate TV room, laundry room, or gym room.
Similarly, the common spaces will include: a meeting room, bike store, WC, cloak room, kitchen/dining room (separable), living room, workshop, store, games room (may include a bar), play room (for kids), parking spaces; and no garage/car store.
Demographics
We were asked to consider “group composition and spatial needs, now and over the next 15-20 years.”
- We would like a broad age range across the site.
- We will encourage households from the missing demographic groups (older families with teenage children, possibility of lodgers, students, and older adults of retirement age).
- We want flexible dwellings that can be adapted/extended to accommodate changes in family life.
- We will design a social system where houses can be swapped between residents of differing needs, to allow those with changing needs to remain as part of the co-housing community. (This raised legal issues which were parked)
Activities, Priorities and Privacy
We were asked to consider: “How important are these activities? And are they private or shared?” Each participant (including children) was given an envelope with slips of paper for different activities, and asked to prioritise them (high to low) and rank them on a privacy scale as well.
Outcome: “The information will be mapped onto a graph and be circulated with Analysis for comment. It will help inform future discussion around how resources are allocated between individual and shared spaces.”
Identifying and Prioritising Spaces
We all proposed spaces that we wanted to have in our houses (bedroom, library, kitchen diner, etc) and the group voted on how many wanted those spaces private in their own homes, or shared among the group, or not at all.
Essential
100% of people were in favour of the following spaces. These are proposals that will become decisions for spaces in all private homes and common/shared spaces:
- Private homes: Bedroom, cloakroom, storage, bathroom, kitchen/dining/living room.
- Common/shared: Meeting room, bike store, WC, cloak room, kitchen/dining room (separable), living room, workshop, store, games room (may include a bar), play room (for kids), parking spaces.
Desirable
More than 50% voted in favour of these features. They will probably be included as optional, reconfigurable or scaled down spaces.
- Private homes: quiet space, roof garden, play room (for kids?), bike store.
- Common/shared: roof garden, conservatory/sitooterie, quiet space (bookable), bedroom (guest room), bathroom (for guests), rentable workspace, gym, pantry, laundry, hot desk/office space.
Possible
Less than 50% voted in favour of these features. If included, they will probably be optional reconfigurations of existing space.
- Private homes: parking space, utility room, games room, conservatory, en-suite, garage/car store (other storage covered above).
- Common/shared: en-suite bathrooms, utility room.
Rejected
Nobody voted in favour of these spaces. It is proposed that these spaces will not be included in the design of any private homes or common/shared spaces:
- Private homes: separate TV room, separate laundry room, gym room.
- Common/shared: garage/car store (other storage covered above).
Future workshops will aim to make decisions on some of the undecided items in the Desirable and Possible categories.