I don’t think we have enough info to decide on a guest room right now. I personally wonder how we all see the use of this guest room? I have an idea about it, but I have no idea how the other households think about it. I wonder if expat families having people visiting over would like to host them in their apartments or how they see the use of the guest room (just a simple bed because the rest of the facilities that they will use will be in their apartments - or not?) I really feel that this decision is best made with experience. Instead of rushing into a choice, l would prefer to give ourselves time to understand how we’ll actually use the space. As we live here and see how guests come and go, we’ll get a clearer sense of what makes the most sense for everyone.
But yes, at the same time I do think that we have to make sure now that the common areas in Idefix and Obelix are designed in a way that could fit a guest room later if we need chose what would be the best location.
We discussed it and they would be willing to, but I think the order of things is that we now first get a clearer view on what it is that we want before we go back to them.
I would first list the options and gather the feedback from the group on that, and only then go with a small list of options that could be consented to to the architects. A possible timeline could be to consult the group on the 15th, and bring a proposal on the 25th. If you would have time and space, there is still time free on the agenda of this Wednesday (5th), so that’s also possible.
When you communicate with the architects, may I please insist to always use Edgeryders, or else put the Protonmail in cc of all your communication? This is a working method that makes sure that everybody can follow what’s going on, and also that we can ensure continuity in case somebody needs to take a break.
I have a lot of doubts about putting permanent walls (glass or cement) in Idefix for a guest room. I think it will limit the possibilities to use the space. I also have concerns about blocking the access to the back garden.
From a first search on the internet it seems that soundproofing is possible.
In sociocracy this phenomenon is called “navigate by tension”, which means that tensions are just a symptom that point to the need to be clearer. So let’s try indeed to do exactly that. IMHO this is not so much an issue of the decision log (in theory this should just be a copy/paste of the meeting minutes). It’s a reflex that should be developed by the facilitator: before we conclude a topic, let’s voice / repeat the conclusion and check whether the note-taker has written it down, and only then do the consent round or move on to the next topic.
Agree.
Agree. In fact this is my main source of frustration. Decision-making must be a one way street. Once we decide, we need to resist the temptation of reopening. We all have our pet issues that we would like to see revisited: as we make more decisions, more will come. Reopening might lead to better decisions, but it costs time.
I am also not ready to agree to a 290K semi-private living room.
I’ve started looking at options for sliding doors and glass walls (@Lee : not just ignoring your concerns, I’ll prioritise sliding doors, but I’m not sure I fully agree, but given the short timeline again, I think it’s best to explore all options at once rather than discover one does not work and having to start over).
Not sure how many I will have time to do, @mieke @alberto maybe if you are still interested and have some time, let me know (maybe on signal) if you also start doing some research so we don’t double down on the work.
This is indeed what we agreed on, last time was a bit of an emergency mode chaos.
I agree on summing up decisions in general, but I don’t agree with you on identifying the problem here and your read of what happened.
But I’m not going to explain yet again my perspective as the points that have been made don’t seem to be making their way accross and this online argumentation seems to get us nowhere in terms of shared understanding.
It’s quite hard not to react though, could I ask that we stop making comments altogether so that we don’t have to continue this back and forth.
Thanks! 
I’ve created a follow up document in team building/Avant projet/ guestroom.
I already called some entreprises but we need to send a email anyway, as well as others (although maybe we don’t need all of them).
Maybe just say there if you’ve sent an email?
Thanks for this.
For me:
- glass wall => OK, given soundproofing.
- sliding wall => OK, given soundproofing.
- regular wall => OK, given your drawing that leaves a “corridor” to access the back garden. This last seems to me the simplest and coziest (for the guests) solution, but, repeat, the other ones will also work.
For me, you already did most of the legwork, at least on the glass solution. It seems that, with about 3-5K + VAT we can build a glass wall for a bedroom with about 43-46 dB isolation. We will ask D2S how good that is. On top of that, we will need dark curtains. Seems doable.
hi @Lee , i changed it (referring to this post). But it hasn’t updated in your post. Could you update your post? thanks
Done (I broke the link)
@alberto - yes, I agree, all these solutions work, although I’m less keen on a proper wall.
After the discussion at plenary, Mieke and I are thinking of circulating a survey to gather expectations and potential ideas about the guest room, as per Lie’s request.
Do you want us to share it with you beforehand?
Re cost, for sliding walls I think the main issue that will need to be cleared with the architects is the price of supporting structures, as these are actually hung up to the ceiling. I remember them saying that beans and posts were quite expensive but that might have been for those supporting the upper floors.
What do we know about the timing of this decision? By when is it needed?
And: an alternative to the transparent glass walls – which have an “office cubicle” vibe, is a material called vetrocemento in Italian. Bricks, which let light through but “scramble” it, so you cannot see what’s on the other side, just the photons. When I lived in Milan, my bedroom had this. It feels like (and is) a real wall. I had dark curtains I could pull to sleep.
It can even be colored if you want to give a warm hue to the light.
Here is what Lie wrote on that:
So if we can share the results of the survey with the group on the 15th, and have a discussion about it.
I created a survey available in the gmail account of the Reef; it’s pretty basic. @mieke already had a look, @alberto anything you would like to change or add?
I asked there what people can compromise on, because that is what was discussed during the plenary, but I have to say that I’m personnally not fully comfortable with asking that, as one of the things discussed in this thread was about not reopenning discussions. But here it is, we can discuss it all as a group this weekend.
If possible it would be good if we could send this tomorrow…
Sarah, I agree we should not reopen the discussion. I would prefer to not get out a poll, it feels like dropping the responsibility that we took. We are a helping circle, so let’s instead do what helping circles are for: write a solid proposal, concrete, that has anticipated possible questions and doubts and has answers to them – a proposal that the group can then happily consent to in 10 minutes.
This consists of: a candidate solution + troubleshooting. In the troubleshooting phase, the helping circle tries to prevent objections, which cost a lot of time. Maybe John, who is color blind, might feel excluded from the colored patterns we are planning for the wall of the common room. Let’s go to him before the proposal hits the plenary, and try to work out a solution with him.
The job of a helping circle is not to broaden the decision space, but to circumscribe it. And honestly, I don’t even know what you think! Why don’t we do a helping circle meeting? Mieke and I could act as a sounding board for the ideas you must have by now, and hopefully that leads us to a proposal.
Hi @alberto,
We don’t want to reopen what has discussed yet. We just want to gather some extra info that we miss right now. Based on the survey, we can come up with a proposal that hopefully meet the groups’ expectations of a guest room. It’s only a few questions actually and if people don’t have a strong opinion, they are not obliged to fill it in…
Fair enough. In this case, I think we still have a few weeks. But a survey will cost five days, and we still need to create the proposal (and take responsibility for it, because – survey or no survey – the plenary will send back proposals that do not achieve consent). I will look at your survey, just need to find the credentials for this gmail (never used it before).
Team IT > Login credentials 
Hi guys,
As we’re off to Senegal, I won’t be there for the plenary of the 25th, so I won’t be able to take this on.
I think though that it was pretty clear during the last plenary that the best option was moving panels, right?
Although the doability and costs will have to be checked with the architects. As I said, it needs a beam to be able to carry the panels and probably a column (at least for the designs that I have seen).
And then maybe a confirmation of the acousticiens about the level of sound proofing the potential options get.
Something for @reef-coordination to check.
Hello @reef-full,
To make sure that we are all on the same page, I’d like to check in before we move on.
The proposal is that we go back to the architects, and ask for one or several designs that meet the following criteria:
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Sleeps 4 people, with privacy and soundproofing
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Keep an access to the back garden
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Keep as much flexibility for the living room in general when there are no guests
For each of the designs that they would present, we’d be interested to know about the cost and the soundproofing.
Which solutions they’ll come up with, we will then see. We can hint at movable wall panels, but I would personally leave the door open for them to use their expertise and creativity. For example, maybe it is possible to do something with partially fixed walls (L-shaped) and then two sliding doors? This could even be a nice solution for a quiet corner or playing corner for the kids? Who knows I would say, but I think we’d make a mistake by giving instructions in terms of a solution rather than in terms of a set of criteria like the three listed above.
Could I please get a 
if you are good to move forward and send this message to the architects? Once we receive an answer we will then pick it back up at a plenary meeting.
Thanks Lee!
I forgot to heart your first messages but I was ok with it, although on second read I wonder if the information is clear enough re capacity. Because saying 4 personnes when we’ve been saying family of 4 to me sounds Iike we’re not happy with the design they offered already and want 2 proper beds… But maybe that’s just me though…