Alcoves - Cohousing Patterns

“No homogenous room, of homogenous height, can serve a group of people well. To have a group a chance to be together, as a group, a room must also give them the chance to be alone, in ones and twos in the same space. This problem is felt most acutely in the common rooms of a house.”

While this pattern may be easier to accommodate in a house, the Common House should be considered in a similar fashion. The common dining room is large enough to accommodate the whole community, but the primary function of dining often discourages people from lingering at their tables to have an after-dinner conversation. It’s easier for people to simply go home rather than seek out other parts of the Common House.

There are often rooms in the Common House for adults (TV lounge, seating group) that are designated but due to their isolation from the main functions, these rooms are underutilized because if a single person wanted to be isolated in a room, then it’s just as easy to be in their own home. But imagine if a teen wanted to do homework in the company of others and could sit in a small nook that was out of the way of the dinner set-up/clean-up crew. Or a small group of young kids could play a board game in the dining while parents converse nearby in a seating nook while another person sat reading the evening paper by the fire. These disparate activities could co-exist and allow residents to feel connected but not alone. Provide small-scaled, intimate spaces adjacent to the dining room within the Common House. This pattern was not evident in any of the Common Houses visited. This pattern is closely linked to Pattern No.23 Spatial Hierarchy.

Common Areas at the Heart - Cohousing Patterns

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This pattern can be seen at two scales within a cohousing community - the larger scale of site planning as well as the smaller scale of Common House design. As described in the patterns of Activity Node, Local Town Hall, and Central Location, the Common House is at the center of the community and should allow people to naturally pass through or by it during the course of the day.

In the context of space planning for the Common House, the dining room should serve as the common area at the heart. The room should be located such “that people naturally pass through it on their way into and out of the house”. It should be along a common path which people use every day but located to one side so residents are not forced to stop. If they want, they can stop to see what’s happening; and if they desire, they can come right in and settle down. Incorporating the pattern of Alcoves will increase the likelihood of residents to stop because there will be a wider diversity of informal and unprogrammed activities that might occur in the dining room throughout the course of the day.

Community Laundry - Cohousing Patterns

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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.

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.