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Something I'd love to see as we move towards higher density urban living (in more US cities) is communal kitchens in apartments. On par with a gym. It's ridicu

by ethbro 8y ago

Something I'd love to see as we move towards higher density urban living (in more US cities) is communal kitchens in apartments. On par with a gym. It's ridiculous to have kitchen hardware * apartments, with abysmal utilization rates. Throw some long benches and tables in there for people to eat if they want to. Good floorplan. Have bring your own wine Wednesdays or whatever. The biggest misalignment in home cooking is scaling. It's trivial to make 6+ portions instead of 1-2. And often cheaper per portion. Yes, there are challenges (dishes, cleaning), but nothing reasonable adults shouldn't be able to surmout (or lose kitchen rights).

dragonwriter 8y ago
> It's ridiculous to have kitchen hardware * apartments, with abysmal utilization rates. The problem is common work/school/etc. schedules mean that the bulk of the utilization is at the same time; there isn't a lot to be gained by sharing unless you are in a quasi-executive commune, where a shared kitchen (and other living space) is already a norm. If you want more people to choose to live in communes, good luck.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Missed the edit window, but that was intended to be “quasi-family communes”, not “quasi-executive”; mobile autocorrect is great at turning typos into radically different words.
dmschulman 8y ago
I left the shared dorm kitchen behind when I graduated university. I prefer not to go back. I'd rather my kitchen be my own. Have you lived in a shared communal space where everyone uses the space but no one takes the time to clean? Try reigning those people in for me. No thanks. Cooking to scale is also not a problem if you know what you're doing in the kitchen. Smaller kitchens and a lack of proper hardware can make cooking more challenging, but it's super easy to scale a recipe up and store away the extra portions. There are entire communities dedicated to meal prep tips and strategies. It more comes down to training and time for most people, not a lack of hardware.
- planteen 8y ago
  Yep. Communal pots & pans will be very abused and not cleaned after something was burned or scorched in them.
  - randycupertino 8y ago
    Totally agree. After watching what the poor admins at our company have to go through weekly just to keep the office fridge from having abandoned rotting food in it to getting everyone to load their used coffee cups in the dishwasher (and this is at an office where people arguably are on their best behavior at work!) I would NOT want to live somewhere with a shared kitchen.
- ethbro 8y ago
  > Have you lived in a shared communal space where everyone uses the space but no one takes the time to clean? Try reigning those people in for me. Yes and yes. Successfully. Being part of a community takes communication and negotiation. Without that, we might as well all be living in the suburbs.
scottlocklin 8y ago
"Something I'd love to see as we move towards higher density urban living (in more US cities) is communal kitchens in apartments. On par with a gym." There used to be something called a 'dining club' -in the Anglosphere it mostly descended from Oxbridge student dining clubs (some were regimental dining clubs). Various social clubs in the 1800s Anglosphere descended from these sorts of things. I used to belong to one; the Berkeley City Club. In addition to providing maybe hundreds of people with the services of a professional chef, it provides something not appreciated in the modern day, with people staring at their phones: an actual social circle, and a place to go after work that isn't a bar. These sorts of things used to be quite common, and formed the nucleus of many political associations and movements, but they became less popular with the social atomization of the 1960s.
detritus 8y ago
As someone who lived in a warehouse with at least 20 other people for a decade of my life - this is not as great an idea, long-term, as it first appears. I used to think in terms of communal efficiencies (hence moving into a warehouse), but that idealism was quickly abated by the realities of living with other humans, most of whom it turns out, are broadly selfish and inherently lazy.
- jrnichols 8y ago
  > As someone who lived in a warehouse with at least 20 other people for a decade of my life not going to lie, this is a story that I'd love to hear more about. I've been thinking more about the co-living/co-working space these days, and a kind of a warehouse commune idea too.
ethbro 8y ago
Wow, HN commenters really hate other people.
- detaro 8y ago
  because 3 people said they don't think it is a good idea?
  - ethbro 8y ago
    5-1 negative opinions of other adults being able to clean dishes, at the time I'm writing this. It wouldn't have struck me, except I named that very concern in my initial comment, and that many people still felt it's the first thing they should inform me of. Most of us had experiences in college, but yeesh: I like to think everyone's grown as humans since their dorm days.

by ethbro 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

> It's ridiculous to have kitchen hardware * apartments, with abysmal utilization rates. The problem is common work/school/etc. schedules mean that the bulk of the utilization is at the same time; there isn't a lot to be gained by sharing unless you are in a quasi-executive commune, where a shared kitchen (and other living space) is already a norm. If you want more people to choose to live in communes, good luck.

dragonwriter 8y ago
Missed the edit window, but that was intended to be “quasi-family communes”, not “quasi-executive”; mobile autocorrect is great at turning typos into radically different words.

dmschulman 8y ago

I left the shared dorm kitchen behind when I graduated university. I prefer not to go back. I'd rather my kitchen be my own. Have you lived in a shared communal space where everyone uses the space but no one takes the time to clean? Try reigning those people in for me. No thanks. Cooking to scale is also not a problem if you know what you're doing in the kitchen. Smaller kitchens and a lack of proper hardware can make cooking more challenging, but it's super easy to scale a recipe up and store away the extra portions. There are entire communities dedicated to meal prep tips and strategies. It more comes down to training and time for most people, not a lack of hardware.

planteen 8y ago
Yep. Communal pots & pans will be very abused and not cleaned after something was burned or scorched in them.
- randycupertino 8y ago
  Totally agree. After watching what the poor admins at our company have to go through weekly just to keep the office fridge from having abandoned rotting food in it to getting everyone to load their used coffee cups in the dishwasher (and this is at an office where people arguably are on their best behavior at work!) I would NOT want to live somewhere with a shared kitchen.
ethbro 8y ago
> Have you lived in a shared communal space where everyone uses the space but no one takes the time to clean? Try reigning those people in for me. Yes and yes. Successfully. Being part of a community takes communication and negotiation. Without that, we might as well all be living in the suburbs.

scottlocklin 8y ago

"Something I'd love to see as we move towards higher density urban living (in more US cities) is communal kitchens in apartments. On par with a gym." There used to be something called a 'dining club' -in the Anglosphere it mostly descended from Oxbridge student dining clubs (some were regimental dining clubs). Various social clubs in the 1800s Anglosphere descended from these sorts of things. I used to belong to one; the Berkeley City Club. In addition to providing maybe hundreds of people with the services of a professional chef, it provides something not appreciated in the modern day, with people staring at their phones: an actual social circle, and a place to go after work that isn't a bar. These sorts of things used to be quite common, and formed the nucleus of many political associations and movements, but they became less popular with the social atomization of the 1960s.

detritus 8y ago

As someone who lived in a warehouse with at least 20 other people for a decade of my life - this is not as great an idea, long-term, as it first appears. I used to think in terms of communal efficiencies (hence moving into a warehouse), but that idealism was quickly abated by the realities of living with other humans, most of whom it turns out, are broadly selfish and inherently lazy.

jrnichols 8y ago
> As someone who lived in a warehouse with at least 20 other people for a decade of my life not going to lie, this is a story that I'd love to hear more about. I've been thinking more about the co-living/co-working space these days, and a kind of a warehouse commune idea too.

ethbro 8y ago

Wow, HN commenters really hate other people.

detaro 8y ago
because 3 people said they don't think it is a good idea?
- ethbro 8y ago
  5-1 negative opinions of other adults being able to clean dishes, at the time I'm writing this. It wouldn't have struck me, except I named that very concern in my initial comment, and that many people still felt it's the first thing they should inform me of. Most of us had experiences in college, but yeesh: I like to think everyone's grown as humans since their dorm days.