Introduction

Note

While initially designed for large coliving houses, Chore Wheel works just as well helping groups of friends or even couples navigate shared space.

As housing costs continue to climb, the development of quality, affordable housing remains a continual challenge. It is increasingly apparent that coliving - housing options where residents have private bedrooms but share common spaces like kitchens, bathrooms, and living rooms - is an important part of the solution.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of coliving is the avoidance of redundant infrastructure (e.g. one large kitchen, rather than three small ones), which lowers costs. However, sharing common resources introduces new coordination challenges (e.g. “who does the dishes”). Historically, such challenges have been overcome through informal norms (e.g. a “dish-zero” rule), deliberative decision-making processes (e.g. house meetings), basic coordination mechanisms (e.g. paper chore schedules), or empowerment of administrators (e.g. house managers). While effective to various degrees, such solutions are too unreliable, burdensome, expensive, and simplistic to consistently meet the needs of a large and varied population.

As Oscar Wilde famously quipped, “the trouble with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings.” We can do better.

Chore Wheel is poetic technology: a family of tools meant to support the healthy functioning of a coliving environment, by maximizing participation and minimizing dysfunction. By helping communities handle their most common problems almost “by magic,” Chore Wheel lets people channel their time and energy towards more long-term, meaningful projects.

Note

Chore Wheel does not claim to capture all ideation, decision making, and deliberation occuring in a coliving environment. Nor does its use reduce the need for ongoing investments in community-building. Rather, it takes its cue from the Pareto principle: a set of simple, general tools which handles the most common 80% of scenarios, leaving the remaining 20% to be handled by people on their own.