Artist’s rendering: View looking across the triangle green toward the common house.

The Commons

With the exception of the actual homes and small yards, all of Kaleidoscope Village’s six acres will be held in common. Unlike your typical small condo or apartment complex (where the only people outside are accompanying a dog doing its business), cohousing commons are meant to be lived in and played in. Permaculture concepts are a favored design approach and graduates of several permaculture design courses are planning to practice their skills at Kaleidoscope Village. If you are wondering what permaculture is, then these links may help: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture and permacultureprinciples.com/.

Common House

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The Common House is the heart of a cohousing community. It’s where common meals are cooked and eaten several times a week, where kids play together, where interest groups and meetings take place. Think of it as an extension of your living room.

The Common House will face the Triangle Green on one side and the pedestrian walkway (“woonerf”) on the other. The two wings are separated by a covered breezeway that will provide a shaded area for picking up mail, checking out the community news board, or dining outside. The breezeway joins with patios on the Triangle side (a place for parents to hang out while watching the little kids’ play area) and the woonerf side (a good outdoor dining area for people with well-behaved dogs). The second floor of the common house will be private, with three flats.

We were advised by other communities not to overplan the rooms, because most communities find that rooms change in use according to the interests/demographics of the members. So, the library may someday become a teen room, one of the guest rooms an office or storage, the rec room a dance/yoga studio. These are the current plans:

• Great room: We were told that the best size for a cohousing great room/dining room is to be able to comfortably accommodate the entire community for a meeting, and to be able to barely squeeze everyone in for a holiday meal (since common meals are usually not attended by everyone at the same time). We may want to have some sort of movable partitions so we can create smaller spaces as needed, but this will be decided much closer to or after move-in.
• Kitchen/pantry: We plan to have several common meals a week. When a common meal is not being prepared, community members can sign the kitchen out for smaller “food clubs” or parties.
• Toddler play room: Intergenerational communities frequently have problems with noise levels during common meals. Either the nonparents are exasperated by the children’s overexuberance or the kids endure constant shushing. We have answered these concerns with a toddler play room with glass walls so young children who have finished eating can play where they can be seen by their parents but not heard by diners. The glass walls continue in the next two rooms, so that children can also be supervised from the Laundry Room.
• Kid’s play room: For older children to hang out.
• Laundry: There will also be laundry hookups in the homes, but doing your laundry while you socialize with cohousing neighbors will be a pleasant alternative. We will have a solar drying apparatus (aka, clothesline) outside.
• Dining/flex: We’re imagining this as a quiet dining room that individuals or groups could check out for private parties. It could also be used for committee/workgroup meetings, as a study room, or as a media room.
• Rec room/flex: This West Wing room is the second largest common room after the great room. It could be a wet crafts room (it will have a sink and doors that open to the outside), a dance/yoga studio, a secondary meeting room.
• Library: This room has many possibilities, depending on how we end up furnishing it. It has a fireplace: yes, it occasionally dips below freezing in Austin!
• Office: This room will probably have a computer terminal and printer. We hope to keep most of our community records electronic, so people will be able to network in from anywhere in KV.
• Bedroom/Flex 2 & 3: These two rooms share a full bathroom and a small hallway off of the library, with a door that can be closed for more privacy. These rooms can be reserved by community members for their guests. When not occupied by a guest, either one could be used for small meetings or quiet activities (it’s been suggested that we could store a sewing machine in one of the rooms).
• Bedroom/Flex 1: This is another room that can be used as a guest room. A meditation room is a suggestion for when it is not occupied.

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Workshop

We will have a designated work area for noisy, smelly or messy projects like varnishing or vehicle maintenance/repair. The southwest corner of the site and two of the parking spaces at that corner are planned to have this designation. When garages are chosen as options by buyers, possibilities for building an enclosed workshop as part of the garage construction may be created.

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Parking/Driveways/Woonerf

Cohousing favors clustered parking and pedestrian walkways to get people out of their cars and interacting with their neighbors. The northeast leg of KV’s triangle will be a “woonerf,” which is a Dutch word for a street where pedestrians and bicycles have the right of way over vehicles. Our woonerf will provide access for emergency vehicles or for delivery, but is otherwise for foot and bike traffic only. People living on the woonerf side will have a short walk to parking. Some of the homes on the triangle will have adjacent parking. Each home will have at least one assigned parking space. There are also up to eleven half-garages that will be built if there are people to buy them.

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Triangle Green

The common house and many of the homes face a central courtyard. The conceptual drawings show a blank expanse of grass, but we intend for the triangle green to be much more interesting. We envision the children’s play area as a natural area; see the excellent Earthplay.net website for some good examples of the kind of play areas we are considering. We also will have spaces for adults, such as an area for outdoor exercise, separated by raised beds or other “living walls.”

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Grove and Greenbelt

The northern third of the property will remain undeveloped. Water flows naturally across this area after Austin’s occasional torrential rains (note: this is not FEMA floodplain), so we chose this as our green space for the enjoyment of the community and nature. Pecans will be the primary trees initially planted. We will also have nature paths, including a perimeter trail. We may want to dedicate a part of this area as a certified backyard habitat.

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Dog Run

We have agreed as a community to have a fenced area where dogs can play off-leash. The exact specifications have not yet been determined.

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Organic Gardening

There will be many opportunities for gardening at Kaleidoscope Village. We will have permaculture landscaping, meaning edible plants distributed throughout. In addition, we will probably have one large community food garden on the edge of the greenbelt. All gardening must be organic.

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Neighborhood Hike and Bike Update

Hike and Bike Trail Update Link

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