Cohousing Patterns: Ceiling Height Variety

“A building in which the ceiling heights are all the same is virtually incapable of making people comfortable.”

It is all too often that the Common House is designed and built with the least funds (many communities prioritize the money for individual units) and therefore, the overall enclosure of the Common House is constructed with the idea that a future mezzanine or second floor will be added later. The resulting spaces for dining, conversation, and meal preparation all occur under a single ceiling.

Provide a variety of ceiling heights that are appropriate for the functions. The dining room may want to be a grand space with high ceilings, however, the kitchen will be more functional with lower ceilings. In addition, smaller seating groups for conversation are not inviting if they are located in a cavernous room with the same ceiling height as the dining room.

Bakken, a cohousing community in Northern Denmark, is comprised of duplexes, triplexes and a large common house. In the common house, the dining and seating area all occur under the same ceiling. The seating area is not welcoming and did not encourage residents to linger and talk. However, over half of the dining room floor framing had been installed with the idea that the second-floor mezzanine would be extended. While the project was never completed, the major framing elements were left in place creating an implied ceiling. The tables under this “lower” ceiling felt more intimate.

The height of a ceiling can also determine the intimacy of a space. The ceiling must be proportionate to the size of the room - a small room with a tall ceiling will feel equally uncomfortable as a large room with a low ceiling. The original pattern describes rules of thumb for ideal width-to-height ratios. The acoustics of any room are affected by the ceiling height and room proportion and should be given specific attention during design.

Community Laundry - Cohousing Patterns

Central laundry facilities are often found in the Common House. Danish communities have devised ways to increase the productivity of the laundry rooms. In nearly all communities, there is a method that allows residents to queue up their laundry in a community washing effort through the course of a day.

How it works: Resident B brings laundry to the Common House and finds the washing machine is busy washing Resident A’s laundry. Resident B sorts his laundry into the appropriate number of baskets, queues up the baskets with prescribed washing instructions (water temperature/cycle, amount of detergent, and drying request), and leaves. Resident C arrives to find that Resident A’s cycle is complete and puts the load in the dryer. Resident B’s load is then placed in the machine using the washing instructions provided. Then Resident C sorts their own laundry and places the basket at the back of the queue. Resident A comes back to collect their dry clothes, transfers Resident B’s load from the washer to the dryer, and starts up Resident C’s load in the washing machine. And so the cycle continues. These images depict some of the ways different communities indicate their preferred washing instructions to their fellow residents.

Wash tags at Ådalen 1

Laundry baskets queued up at Ibsgården

Wash instructions left in basket at Klien

Laundry queue at Leerbjerg Lod

Please Note:

This series of blog posts is focused on explaining common design patterns in cohousing. Grace Kim, a founding principal and owner of Schemata Workshop, has identified patterns applicable to cohousing from "Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander and has added some of her own. The number in brackets [#] refers to Alexander’s pattern numbering system.

Grace's additional patterns pay particular attention to the Common House because its design requires special consideration. As the living room for the community, the Common House sets the initial impression for visitors about what cohousing is, what your community values might be, or the perceived benefits of living in community. Schemata Workshop has analyzed scores of common houses in Denmark and North America to discern what does and does not work. Following Alexander's concept of Pattern Language, Grace has thoroughly documented the necessary programmatic and design elements for a successful Common House.

To learn more about cohousing at Schemata, visit our cohousing page.

Cohousing: A New American Dream

Grace Kim takes the virtual stage at the Seoul Cohousing Symposium to discuss the new American dream home, cohousing.

As loneliness becomes a growing health concern across the globe, people are looking for creative solutions to solve this often overlooked issue. A common cause in America is the lack of community that comes along with the “American Dream Home”. We see this happen in suburbs where, despite proximity, it can be rare for people to get to know their neighbors. Cohousing is centered around community; a place where residents feel support from family and friends, belonging, security, and a sense of wellbeing. Sounds pretty nice, right?

Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing Featured in The Ideal City

We are excited to announce that Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing is featured in The Ideal City, published by Space10 and Gestalten!

The Ideal City: Exploring Urban Futures, was published through a collaboration between Copenhagen-based research and design lab Space10 and renowned international design and art book publisher Gestalten. Through a series of expert essays and profiles on projects from around the world, including Schemata’s very own Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing, The Ideal City explores “the ambitious actions and initiatives being brought to life across the globe to meet tomorrow’s demand in clever, forward-thinking ways.” The book travels to 53 different cities in 30 countries detailing examples of a truly liveable city for the many.

Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing (CHUC) is a five-story intentional community comprised of nine homes over a street level commercial space, located in the dense urban center of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Designed by Schemata Workshop, the project was led by principals Grace Kim and Michael Mariano, who are also founding members and residents of the community. It is a visionary project - setting a model for dense, resilient, and community-oriented urban housing.

We are honored for CHUC to be featured in The Ideal City alongside boundary-pushing projects from around the globe.

To Pre-Order The Ideal City, click here.

Geoff Anderson Nationally Certified as Associate Design-Build Professional

Schemata principal Geoff Anderson has successfully completed the Design-Build Institute of America’s comprehensive education, training, and certification testing program to achieve the designation as a nationally certified Associate Design-Build Professional.

DBIA Certification is the nation’s only measurable standard of an individual’s knowledge of the Design-Build Done Right principles, which are vital to successful project delivery.

I have a long and successful history of working on Design-Build projects. These range from multi million-dollar community recreation projects, to over 500 housing units in Alaska, to smaller scale projects. All of these were completed well before I even considered getting DBIA Certification, but were built using the key touchstone of Design-Build: collaboration. I suppose I was lucky to be a part of these great teams and successful projects even early in my career, and they continue to shape my approach to my work. Going through the certification workshop and materials, it has been fascinating to think back on these personal experiences and compare them to DBIA’s Best Practices.  

The key to a Design-Build project is that the owner holds a single contract with the design and contractor team. The General Contractor, Architect, and Engineers are integrated as a single entity that relies on collaboration and trust for success. There are many benefits to this contracting method. Owners might choose it for the accelerated schedule and innovative design solutions, especially if they are flexible on the specific details and approach. As a best practice, it is recommended that the owner picks a team based on qualifications rather than price. This best value approach considers both quantitative (price) and qualitative (technical) aspects of a Design-Build team’s proposal.

Family Housing Replacement - Siku Basin | Fort Wainwright, AK - photo courtesy of Ken Graham Photography / Osborne Construction Co

As I reflect back on my own experiences, as well as my certification process, I have gathered a few guiding thoughts that I will take with me into future Design-Build projects:  

Clearly Define the Performance Requirements. This is possibly the most challenging but important part of any Design-Build project. These lay out the expectations for the project and should be objective and measurable. I worked on one project where this could have been improved upon: A Progressive Design-Build, where two teams competed beyond the qualifications-based selection phase to prepare a schematic design that met the stated performance requirements. In the end, our team felt like we were able to creatively deliver the on the objectives and stay within budget, although we strayed from one wish list item -- to have a second floor. Although this was not explicitly identified as a Performance Requirement, it worked against us. The project was eventually built by the other team, but we felt justified by the fact that our team was truthful, effective, and adherent to the Performance Requirement.

Creativity and Innovation are Essential. These have been key to the overall success of each of my Design-Build projects. For the housing projects in Alaska, the owner (the Department of Defense) was very prescriptive about many of the project requirements. This prescriptiveness is counter to the creativity that is central to DBIA’s Best Practices. Regardless, our team was able to develop plans and details that allowed us to panelize nearly all the framing for the homes, including the stair elements. This resulted in construction being able to advance year-round in the shop, despite the climate-shortened window when crews were able to work on site. At the peak of production on site, crews were able to fully assemble and “dry-in” six homes per week.

Family Housing Replacement - Denali Village | Fort Wainwright, AK - photo courtesy of Osborne Construction Co

Designing to Price is the Key to Success. In Design-Build, the price is set early in the process, and the Design-Build team needs to design and hold to that price. This means having a team build on close collaboration and trust is essential. For a small community pool project in remote central Washington, the Design-Build teams were asked to tell the city what they could get for their budget. As the team which promised the most, we won the job. We delivered on our proposal by joining forces with a prefabricated pool manufacturer, minimizing the need for specialty trades to travel and work on the rural project site. We were also able to work directly with the manufacturer to ensure our design and technical details were correct through the shop drawings process.

Othello Community Pool | Othello, WA - photo courtesy of: Aquatics International

These lessons learned have been important in my development as an architect, and I look forward to future Design-Build opportunities to apply them along with the knowledge I have gained from my DBIA Best Practices education. I am now proud to be an officially certified Associate Design-Build Professional®.