Shadowlake Village Cohousing
Blacksburg, Virginia
-- Picture Gallery of our homes --

Most of our homes, and the Common House, have been built by our project builder, the Community Housing Partners Corporation .   Two homes were constructed by Shelter Alternatives, a custom builder in Blacksburg.

Our project architect, Architectural Alternatives of Blacksburg, developed several very flexible and livable standard house plans especially for our cohousing project, and worked with each new household to finalize their plans.

Our Site Plan shows the locations of the homes and lots identified in these photos.   You can see that our site plan contains three segments where homes are located: a big triangle on the right (bounded by our internal roads Ginger Lane and Sage Lane), and two narrower segments going into the woods at the left. We call the two narrower segments the North Node and the South Node, and the larger segment is our Central Node.


Our Common House is located where the North Node and Central Node meet, with the South Node starting nearby. It has over 5500 square feet of space on two stories: the main floor level that fronts on the pedway, and a walkout basement level.

The front of the Common House and its deck with covered side porch at the right. The greenery in the foreground is a large garden in which individual households maintain their own small plots.
The upper level, where most of our activities take place, is fully built and furnished.   We hold our meetings there, have common meals a couple of times a week, and socialize there - indoors; on the front porch; on the deck - in many ways both planned and spontaneous.

The lower level currently has washers and dryers in a laundry space and has dedicated bike storage space.   When finished, the lower level will include two guest rooms, a bathroom, a more finished laundry room, and whatever other amenities that we decide on.


The North node

This photo shows from the left (back to front) single-family homes 1, 2, 3 and attached units 4 to 7 (the townhouses).   The red-roofed Common House is at the right front.



The South node

On the right side of the pedway are duplex units 8/9 and three single-family homes (units 10 to 12). On the left side are duplex units 13/14, 15/16, and 17/18.



The Central node

Some homes on the Central node on the north side of the Green.   From left to right, single-family homes 33 and 32 and duplex homes 31/30.



Surrounding the Green, single-family home 19 and duplexed homes 20/21 on the right, and duplex homes 26/27, 28/29 and 30/31 on the left.



Another view of the Central node, looking east towards units 24/25 at the far end.






--SLV History: Early work on the site--


Brick walk

Many households did some of their own finish work.   These duplex neighbors are shown building the brick walk up to their shared front porch while their homes were being completed.





Fence staining

Members staining boards for community fencing.   This is a typical cohousing work project, bonding members together as friends while saving substantially on the cost of this required task.


Trusses on truck

Early construction at a back corner of the Common House showing our view towards Brush Mountain.  A specialized truck is delivering some of the big trusses that span the main floor and hold up the roof.  A moment after this picture was taken, one of the workers flipped a lever and the stack of trusses plummeted sideways off the truck and lay on its side next to the back of the Common House.  "Don't they ever break, falling down like that?"  "Not usually."





SIP panel construction

An innovative building material-- the right side of this duplexed pair has SIP panel walls.  Its duplex neighbor's walls, built a couple of weeks later, are standard framed 2x6 walls like the other homes.  This view of one side of a duplexed pair shows the thick concrete-block fire wall between attached homes.  The fire walls provide a highly effective soundproofing barrier between duplex neighbors.


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May 2007