Common spaces helping circle - June 2024

Lie may be coming to the workshop (which would make us a group of 12), but hadn’t decided last time I talked to her. Either way, I wonder if this isn’t a topic for another moment. At some point we will need to take points such as this, as well as the data from the survey and the conclusions from the workshop, and actually make a proposal regarding what we tell the architects. The point that Lie raises is super relevant and important, but I don’t think tomorrow is for those kind of specifics…

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btw, people of the helping circle, should we plan an extra meeting to prepare for the plenary of the 23th? That’s still another 2 weeks time but, ‘The reef calendar’ looks pretty busy…
Tuesday the 9th? so we still have plenty of time if things need to be prepared?

  • I can make it on Tuesday 9th in the evening (19:00 or sth)
  • I can not make it
0 voters
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The results of the workshop may point the way to where in the complex this common space should be located but we should not start with this question. The answer should follow from other decisions.

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Hi @Sarah @els @LuciaM and @joannes !

So the general consensus after the workshop yesterday was that we implement the following order of events:

  • The helping circle meets and puts everything we’ve done so far into some sort of perspective.
  • Another workshop with the community to try and address some of the outstanding issues (e.g. elevators, how much to spend, how much to leave undefined) and decide what information we are going to give the architects to work with.
  • At the end of August, either a réunion de travail involving the architects with Team Building, or a workshop involving the architects and the community (it’s clear after yesterday’s post-workshop discussion that asking the architects if certain things are possible is necessary, but it’s not clear why we would all need to be there for that).
  • Complete le programme for the common spaces

With regard to the meeting with the architects, Els is going to ask for a date when they meet tomorrow (Monday). Ideally, this will be an evening or weekend, in the event that we want a bigger group on our side. Els - perhaps that is a question you could also ask them, about whether or not they were in the habit of working with the entire group in previous projects…

With regard to the next workshop, I will post a poll on the ‘making decisions’ thread to set up a date for that.

With regard to the next helping circle meeting, the current plan is to meet at Joannes’ place on Tuesday at 7pm, with Joannes and I meeting for an hour beforehand to analyse the workshop results. However, I would like to propose a slightly different variation, because Sarah can’t make it at 7pm, and I now think that it should be a group activity to analyse and put the results together from the workshop. So I suggest that we all meet at 7.30pm at Joannes’ place. Sarah may be able to make it then, and if not, definitely half an hour later. Lucia - I didn’t get the chance to ask you if you could do this meeting in person, but if not, it wouldn’t be a problem for you to join online.

How do we all feel about all or any of the above?

:slight_smile:

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Hello,
Sorry Chris, it won’t be possible for me tonight.

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That’s a shame :-/
Joannes is about to go away on holiday, so we need to keep the meeting tonight to discuss the workshop results. One of use can get you up to date afterwards… :slight_smile:

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fyi: lucia put the video’s of the workshop (post-its) in this folder: Login – Nextcloud

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@Sarah @ChrisM
Worked a bit further on the common spaces:

  • the ‘2nd survey excell’, i left the answer of lucia/alin out. Made separate ‘pie graphics’ for the full members only results.
  • i noted the output of the ‘indicated values and the dot-voting’ (2nd exercise in the workshop) down in a doc. Personally i think there is little of that, that is of importance for now. I think the only thing relevant is the ‘security issues’/ the fact we want to be open to the public but at the same time we want to have ‘reef-only’ space. (translating in the need for two separate space: one open for public/reeflings, one exclusive reeflings?)
  • i started writing a document with the conclusions of the second survey (only using full members results), but in the end it turned out to be a document with that, my experience of what the workshop brought me/(us) (and purely limited to what is important for now = what is needed to deliver to the architects for now), the open questions is see that need to be answered by the group, the open questions i see that need to be answered by the architects, and a first start of a proposition. So it’s no document to be shared with the group (as it is now) but more to serve as an input for the next step(s).

Should we come together one more time before i leave on holiday, to talk about it?

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Thanks @els!

I need to get my head back into that job, which I’ll do this evening or tomorrow afternoon…

Can you remind me again about what date you go on holiday…

The weekend of August 3rd

Hello @reef-building,

In the last coordination meeting of 25 June Team Finance was asked to investigate possible avenues of relieving financial pressure on the construction price. That is, because the common spaces helping circle believes that the commons could be getting pricier than initially thought. In that regard, I was hoping we could initiate a discussion on the size and functions of our basement, which I believe has the potential to address the issue to some extent.

A garage below surface would free up space on the ground floor where we now have areas designated for car and bike parkings. To illustrate, if we had a garage, then 88m² on the ground floor could become an apartment and/or common space as planned in the initial feasibility study: Login – Nextcloud

Below I’m listing arguments that are commonly used against a basement with parking / bike area and I’m taking the liberty to comment / question:

Basement / car parking is too expensive: This point is always brought up as a strong contra against basements, could you elaborate? When I look into any of the feasibility studies we have received for Jet 14, the casco price of underground constructions is lower when compared to above ground (1250,- sous-sol vs 1400,- hors-sol).

Reducing the basement space made the construction price drop in the second and third feasibility studies: I tried for some time to understand the logic behind the numbers and changes between the three FS we received without arriving at a conclusion. However, I believe a strong influence came from increasing the habitable space by 500m² and decreasing the car parking area from 9 to 5 cars.

A ramp is too expensive: As Francois mentioned during our meeting on Monday 08 July, a cheaper and less spacious solution could be an ascenseur pour voitures: Ascenseurs pour voitures - Smeyers-TU

A larger basement would subtract from permeability: If that proves to be true then I wonder if the basement area could be separated into two and distributed below the Asterix and Obelix buildings.

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@RichardB These arguments all seem sensible, and I trust that this will be part of the puzzle to solve the challenges we are facing. What I read in one of the meeting notes however (but I may be wrong) is that the architects insisted to leave the creative solutions to them, and that we rather concentrate on defining what we want.

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First of all, i agree with Lee, and that is also my understanding from what the architects said: we don’t need to come with the solution, but with the need…

but to answer some of your questions , and the way i’ve understood it…

The way i understand it: casco sous-sol is sth different than casco above sol. Casco above sol is delivering an air-and watertight unit. This means with windows, doors, insulation,… This goes for the units,… I think it’s clear that for the parkings above-ground, we don’t need (triple glass) windows, air-tight system,… These things cost quite a lot. So for me the 1400 euro/m2 casco price above ground is not the price you need to handle for the parking spaces, and will probably be below 1000 euro/m2.

what you mention is true, but it is - for me also- linked to bringing the car parking area above ground. Underground, the average space for a car-parking area was - if i remember well- 30 m2 per parking space. This included the space for the car, the ramp and the place to manouver. By bringing the cars above ground, you limit a car parking space to the space it needs to park basically (which will be around 15 m2 i guess). The place to manouver, is allready there , you don’t need to foresee it as we use the same space as for the firebrigade entrance. You don’t need to foresee the m2 of the ramp. I don’t remember they calculated a price for the parking spaces above ground, they only multiply the common spaces and logement space, with the casco price above ground. I assume this cost is mainly covered by that…

Yes, but if i remember, it stay’s expensive, and for me - is only a solution if the commune would demand to increase our number of parking spaces. For me it’s only a solution for the cars, i don’t think - if you would put bikes underground- the system would work for bringing the bikes to level 0

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I do also think that the architects should work on a solution based on our needs and was only looking at this puzzle from a financial standpoint. I also understand this is not a priority for the helping circle exercise at this point in time.
Speaking as a member of the Reef, I believe I would have liked to discuss what our expectations and needs are towards a basement, e.g. the current standing seems to be 62m² private cellars for the group, but of course here I’m leaving my comfort zone and that is entirely for team building and the helping circle to tackle :innocent:

Can you elaborate a little? What is that you like to flesh out in terms of expectations? (genuine question)

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I think there’s a number of functions/needs that could be associated with the basement and therefore don’t need to occupy space on the ground floor. We have seen some creative solutions during the most recent L’echapée and Tivoli visits. However, I’m not sure how others in the group think about it, so ideally we would have had a process to figure that out. The output for the architects could then be: functions xyz should/could/must go to the basement.

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I agree, but i guess it’s clear to the architects that we don’t have a problem with the bikes and cars going to the basement.
So for me: candidates: atelier (which they already explicitly asked: can it go to the basement).
For me some other candidates:

  • storage place (as the majority indicated it’s (quite)important): might not be the handiest thing to not have things stored in the multifunctional room (where they would be needed), but if there is an elevator nearby and if we have chariots on wheels that makes them easy manouvrable, why not, if we can safe some m2 and avoid the ‘sight of clutter’
  • laundry room: not a big surface neither (and in that way no noise overhead on level 0). If we count up all the ‘little m2’ saved here and there, it might bring us towards our dream
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