In the heterogeneous city, people are mixed together, irrespective of their life style or culture. This seems rich. Actually it dampens all significant variety, arrests most of the possibilities for differentiation, and encourages conformity. It tends to reduce all life styles to a common denominator. What appears heterogeneous turns out to be homogeneous and dull.
Many of the people who live in metropolitan areas have a weak character. In fact, metropolitan areas seem almost marked by the fact that the people in them have markedly weak character, compared with the character which develops in simpler and more rugged situations.
People do things a certain way “because that’s the way to get them done” instead of “because we believe them right.”
men are forced to accept a schism in which they spend the greater part of their waking lives “at work, and away from their families” and then the other part of their lives “with their families, away from work.” Throughout, this separation reinforces the idea that work is a toil, while only family life is “living”-a schizophrenic view which creates tremendous problems for all the members of a family.
This is bound to happen in any urban region with a single high density core. Land near the core is expensive; few people can live near enough to it to give them genuine access to the city’s life; most people live far out from the core. To all intents and purposes, they are in the suburbs and have no more than occasional access to the city’s life.
The one nucleus keeps growing. The downtown becomes enormous. It becomes rich, various, fascinating. But gradually, as the metropolitan area grows, the average distance from an individual house to this one center increases; and land values around the center rise so high that houses are driven out from there by shops and offices—until soon no one, or almost no one, is any longer genuinely in touch with the magic which is created day and night within this solitary center. The problem
The one nucleus keeps growing. The downtown becomes enormous. It becomes rich, various, fascinating. But gradually, as the metropolitan area grows, the average distance from an individual house to this one center increases; and land values around the center rise so high that houses are driven out from there by shops and offices—until soon no one, or almost no one, is any longer genuinely in touch with the magic which is created day and night within this solitary center.
cities with more than 50,000 people have a big enough market to sustain 61 different kinds of retail shops and that cities with over 100,000 people can support sophisticated jewelry, fur, and fashion stores. He shows that cities of 100,000 can support a university, a museum, a library, a zoo, a symphony orchestra, a daily newspaper, AM and FM radio, but that it takes a population of 250,000 to 500,000 to support a specialized professional school like a medical school, an opera, or all of the TV networks.
At a density of 5000 persons per square mile (the density of the less populated parts of Los Angeles) the area occupied by 300,000 will have a diameter of about nine miles; at a higher density of 80,000 persons per square mile (the density of central Paris) the area occupied by 300,000 people has a diameter of about two miles. Other patterns in this language suggest a city much more dense than Los Angeles, yet somewhat less dense than central Paris—FOUR-STORY LIMIT (21), DENSITY RINGS (29).We therefore take these crude estimates as upper and lower bounds. If each center serves 300,000 people, they will be at least two miles apart and probably no more than nine miles apart.
This problem can only be solved if each of the cores not only serves a· catch basin of 300,000 people but also offers some kind of special quality which none of the other centers have, so that each core, though small, serves several million people and can therefore generate all the excitement and uniqueness which become possible in such a vast city.
Cars give people wonderful freedom and increase their opportunities. But they also destroy the environment, to an extent so drastic that they kill all social life.
The fact that car are large is, in the end, the most serious aspect of a transportation system based on the use of cars,
As we know, most of the time cars have a single occupant. This means that when people use cars, each person occupies almost 100 times as much space as he does when he is a pedestrian.
If each person driving occupies an area I oo times as large as he does when he is on his feet, this means that people are 10 times as far apart. In other words, the use of cars has the overall effect of spreading people out, and keeping them apart.
London and Paris, with the finest urban public transportation in the world, the trains and buses have fewer riders every year because people are switching to cars. They are willing to put up with all the delays, congestion, and parking costs, because apparently the convenience and privacy of the car are more valuable.
Individuals have no effective voice in any community of more than 5000–10,000 persons.
Jefferson wanted to spread out the power not because “the people” were so bright and clever, but precisely because they were prone to error, and it was therefore dangerous to vest power in the hands of a few who would inevitably make big mistakes. “Break the country into wards” was his campaign slogan, so that the mistakes will be manageable and people will get practice and improve.
rule of thumb, based on cities like Athens in their prime, that no citizen be more than two friends away from the highest member of the local unit.
able to identify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others. Available evidence suggests, first, that the neighborhoods which people identify with have extremely small populations; second, that they are small in area; and third, that a major road through a neighborhood destroys it.
The experience of organizing community meetings at the local level suggests that 500 is the more realistic figure.
A neighborhood can only have a strong identity if it is protected from heavy traffic.
How shall we define a major road ? The Appleyard-Lintell study found that with more than 200 cars per hour, the quality of the neighborhood begins to deteriorate.
On the streets with 550 cars per hour people visit their neighbors less and never gather in the street to meet and talk.
Research by Colin Buchanan indicates that major roads become a barrier to free pedestrian movement when “most people (more than 50%) … have to adapt their movement to give way to vehicles.” This is based on “an average delay to all crossing pedestrians of 2 seconds … as a very rough guide to the borderline between acceptable and unacceptable conditions,” which happens when the traffic reaches some I 50 to 2 50 cars per hour.
Help people to define the neighborhoods they live in, not more than 300 yards across, with no more than 400 or 500 inhabitants. In existing cities, encourage local groups to organize themselves to form such neighborhoods. Give the neighborhoods some degree of autonomy as far as taxes and land controls are concerned. Keep major roads outside these neighborhoods.
Mark the neighborhood, above all, by gateways wherever main paths enter it—MAIN
give the neighborhood a visible center, perhaps a common or a green—ACCESSIBLE GREEN (60)—or a SMALL PUBLIC SQUARE
The strength of the boundary is essential to a neighborhood. If the boundary is too weak the neighborhood will not be able to maintain its own identifiable charactcr.
while the Etna Street neighborhood is not literally walled off from the community, access into it is subtly restricted. The result is that people do not come into the neighborhood by car unless they have business there; and when people are in the neighborhood, they recognize that they are in a distinct part of town. Of course, the neighborhood was not “created” deliberately. It was an area of Berkeley which has become an identifiable neighborhood because of this accident in the street system.
But the fact is that every successful neighborhood is identifiable because it has some kind of gateways which mark its boundaries: the boundary comes alive in peoples’ minds because they recognize the gateways.
The easiest way of all to form a boundary around a neighborhood is by turning buildings inward, and by cutting off the paths which cross the boundary,
There are two practical difficulties, both of which stem from the fact that different kinds of public transportation are usually in the hands of different agencies who are reluctant to cooperate. They are reluctant to cooperate, partly because they are actually in competition, and partly just because cooperation makes life harder for them,
The traditional way of looking at public transportation assumes that lines are primary and that the interchanges needed to connect the lines to one another are secondary. We propose the opposite: namely, that interchanges are primary and that the transport lines are secondary elements which connect the interchanges.
The Swiss railway system … is the densest network in the world. At great cost and with great trouble, it has been made to serve the needs of the smallest localities and most remote valleys, not as a paying proposition but because such was the will of the people. It is the outcome of fierce political struggles.
(Colin Ward, “The Organization of Anarchy,” in Patterns of Anarchy, by Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry, New York, 1966.)
One of the greatest problems in existing communities is the fact that the available public life in them is spread so thin that it has no impact on the community.
People will not feel comfortable in their houses unless a group of houses forms a cluster, with the public land between them jointly owned by all the householders. When houses are arranged on streets, and the streets owned by the town, there is no way in which the land immediately outside the houses can reflect the needs of families and individuals living in those houses. The land will only gradually get shaped to meet their needs if they have direct control over the land and its repair.
the cluster of land and homes immediately around one’s own home is of special importance. It is the source for gradual differentiation of neighborhood land use, and it is the natural focus of neighborly interaction.
In the pattern your own home (79), we discuss the fact that every family needs its own home with land to build on, land where they can grow things, and a house which is unique and clearly marked as theirs. A typical apartment house, with flat walls and identical windows, cannot provide these qualities.
the normal age distribution in the community as a whole should be maintained. This means that there should be from five to eight people over sixty-five in every hundred people; so that in a neighborhood unit of, say, six hundred people, there would be between thirty and fifty old people. (Lewis Mumford, The Human Prospect, New York, 1968,
If you spend eight hours of your day at work, and eight hours at home, there is no reason why your workplace should be any less of a community than your home.
If a person spends eight hours a day working in a certain area, and the nature of his work, its social character, and its location, are all chosen to make sure that he is living, not merely earning money, then it is certainly essential that the area immediately around his place of work be a community, just like a neighborhood but oriented to the pace and rhythms of work, instead of the rhythms of the family. For workplaces to function as communities,
If a person spends eight hours a day working in a certain area, and the nature of his work, its social character, and its location, are all chosen to make sure that he is living, not merely earning money, then it is certainly essential that the area immediately around his place of work be a community, just like a neighborhood but oriented to the pace and rhythms of work, instead of the rhythms of the family.
A shared street does a little to tie individual houses and places together; but a shared piece of common land does a great deal more. If the workplaces are grouped around a common courtyard where people can sit, play volleyball, eat lunches, it will help the contact and community among the workers.
Concentrated, cloistered universities, with closed admission policies and rigid procedures which dictate who may teach a course, kill opportunities for learning.
The original universities in the middle ages were simply collections of teachers who attracted students because they had something to offer. They were marketplaces of ideas, located all over the town, where people could shop around for the kinds of ideas and learning which made sense to them. By contrast, the isolated and over-administered university of today kills the variety and intensity of the different ideas at the university and also limits the student’s opportunity to shop for ideas.
By contrast, in traditional Chinese medicine, people pay the doctor only when they are healthy; when they are sick, he is obliged to treat them, without payment. The doctors have incentives to keep people well.
Wherever there is a sharp separation between residential and nonresidential parts of town, the nonresidential areas will quickly turn to slums.
We conclude that many parts of the environment have the arid quality of not being cared for personally, for the simple reason that indeed nobody lives there.
Nobody wants fast through traffic going by their homes.
Dead-end streets are also loops, according to the definition. However, cul-de-sacs are very bad from a social standpoint—they force interaction and they feel claustrophobic, because there is only one entrance. When auto traffic forms a dead end, make sure that the pedestrian path is a through path, leading into the cul-de-sac from one direction, and out of it in another direction.
A loop is defined as any stretch of road which makes it impossible for cars that don’t have destinations on it to use it as a shortcut.
Make all the junctions between local roads three-way T junctions, never four-way intersections—T
Traffic accidents are far more frequent where two roads cross than at T junctions.
Planning for Man and Motor, by Paul Ritter,
There is too much hot hard asphalt in the world. A local road, which only gives access to buildings, needs a few stones for the wheels of the cars; nothing more. Most of it can still be green.
The neighborhood becomes a parking lot for strangers who care nothing about it, who simply store their cars there.
local roads, closed to through traffic, plant grass all over the road and set occasional paving stones into the grass to form a surface for the wheels of those cars that need access to the street Make no distinction between street and sidewalk. Where houses open off the street, put in more paving stones or gravel to let cars turn onto their own land.
plans drawn by the People’s Architects, Berkeley, California.
Where paths have to run along major roads—as they do occasionally—build them 18 inches higher than the road, on one side of the road only, and twice the usual width—RAISED
A boundary around an important precinct, whether a neighborhood, a building complex, or some other area, is most critical at those points where paths cross the boundary. If the point where the path crosses the boundary is invisible, then to all intents and purposes the boundary is not there.
Where paths cross roads, the cars have power to frighten and subdue the people walking, even when the people walking have the legal right-of-way. This will happen whenever the path and the road are at the same level. No amount of painted white lines, crosswalks, traffic lights, button operated signals, ever quite manage to change the fact that a car weighs a ton or more, and will run over any pedestrian, unless the driver brakes.
In many places it is recognized by law that pedestrians have the right-of-way over automobiles. Yet at the crucial points where paths cross roads, the physical arrangement gives priority to cars. The road is continuous, smooth, and fast, interrupting the pedestrian walkway at the junctions. This continuous road surface actually implies that the car has the right-of-way.
Go to the road in question several times, at different times of day. Each time you go, count the number of seconds you have to wait before you can cross the road. If the average of these waiting times is more than two seconds, then we recommend you use the pattern.
We first consider the width. What is the appropriate width for a raised walk? The famous example, of course, is the Champs Elysees, where the sidewalk is more than 30 feet wide, and very comfortable. In our own experience, a walk of half this width, along a typical shopping street with traffic, is still comfortable; but 12 feet or less, and a pedestrian begins to feel cramped and threatened by cars.
If children are not able to explore the whole of the adult world round about them, they cannot become adults. But modem cities are so dangerous that children cannot be allowed to explore them freely.
Set aside some part of the town as a carnival—mad sideshows, tournaments, acts, displays, competitions, dancing, music, street theater, clowns, transvestites, freak events, which allow people to reveal their madness; weave a wide pedestrian street through this area; run booths along the street, narrow alleys; at one end an outdoor theater; perhaps connect the theater stage directly to the carnival street, so the two spill into and feed one another.
People need green open places to go to; when they are close they use them. But if the greens are more than three minutes away, the distance overwhelms the need.
Our research suggests that even though the need for parks is very important, and even though it is vital for people to be able to nourish themselves by going to walk, and run, and play on open greens, this need is very delicate. The only people who make full, daily use of parks are those who live less than three minutes from them. The other people in a city who live more than 3 minutes away, don’t need parks any less; but distance discourages use and so they are unable to nourish themselves, as they need to do.
we know from the pattern, PEDESTRIAN DENSITY (123), that a place begins to seem deserted when it has more than about 300 square feet per person.
a square with a diameter of 100 feet will begin to seem deserted if there are less than 3 3 people in it. There are few places in a city where you can be sure there will always be 3 3 people. On the other hand, it only takes 4 people to give life to a square with a diameter of 35 feet, and only 12 to give life to a square with a diameter of 60 feet. Since there are far far better chances of 4 or 12 people being in a certain place than 33, the smaller squares will feel comfortable for a far greater percentage of the time.
But these visits to the high places will have no freshness or exhilaration if there is a ride to the top in a car or elevator. To get a full sense of the magnificence of the view, it seems necessary to work for it, to leave the car or elevator, and to climb. The act of climbing, even if only for a few steps, clears the mind and prepares the body.
Without common land no social system can survive.
Give over 25 per cent of the land in house clusters to common land which touches, or is very very near, the homes which share it Basic: be wary of the automobile; on no account let it dominate this land.
There are very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighborhoods where people can hang out, comfortably, for hours at a time.
What is needed is a framework which is just enough defined so that people naturally tend to stop there; and so that curiosity naturally takes people there, and invites them to stay. Then, once community groups begin to gravitate toward this framework, there is a good chance that they will themselves, if they are permitted, create an environment which is appropriate to their activities.
In every neighborhood, provide some still water—a pond, a pool—for swimming. Keep the pool open to the public at all times, but make the entrance to the pool only from the shallow side of the pool, and make the pool deepen gradually, starting from one or two inches deep.
Any kind of playground which disturbs, or reduces, the role of imagination and makes the child more passive, more the recipient of someone else’s imagination, may look nice, may be clean, may be safe, may be healthy—but it just cannot satisfy the fundamental need which play is all about.
Huge abstract sculptured play-lands are just as bad as asphalt playgrounds and jungle gyms. They are not just sterile; they are useless. The functions they perform have nothing to do with the child’s most basic needs.
Unfortunately, it seems very likely that the nuclear family is not a viable social form. It is too small.
Each person in a nuclear family is too tightly linked to other members of the family; any one relationship which goes sour, even for a few hours, becomes critical; people cannot simply tum away toward uncles, aunts, grandchildren, cousins, brothers. Instead, each difficulty twists the family unit into ever tighter spirals of discomfort;
In a house for a small family, it is the relationship between children and adults which is most critical.
To help achieve a balance, a house for a small family needs three distinct areas: a couple’s realm, reserved for the adults; a children’s realm, where children’s needs hold sway; and a common area, between the two, connected to them both.
The couple’s realm should be more than a room, although rooms are a part of it. It is territory which sustains them as two adults, a couple—not father and mother.
Give the house three distinct parts: a realm for parents, a realm for the children, and a common area. Conceive these three realms as roughly similar in size, with the commons the largest
In a small household shared by two, the most important problem which arises is the possibility that each may have too little opportunity for solitude or privacy.
1. Of course, the couple need a shared realm, where they can function together, invite friends, be alone together. This realm needs to be made up of functions which they share. 2. But it is also true that each partner is trying to maintain an individuality, and not be submerged in the identity of the other, or the identity of the “couple.” Each partner needs Space to nourish this need.
It is essential, therefore, that a small house be conceived as a place where the two people may be together but where, from time to time, either one of them may also be alone, in comfort, in dignity, and in such a way that the other does not feel left out or isolated.
To this end, there must be two small places—perhaps rooms, perhaps large alcoves, perhaps a corner, screened off by a half-wall—places which are clearly understood as private territories, where each person can keep to himself, pursue his or her own activities.
While we believe that the solution proposed in this pattern helps, the problem will not be entirely settled until the couple itself is in some close, neighborly, and family-like relationship to other adults. Then, when one needs privacy, the other has other possibilities for companionship at hand.
In the first years of a couple’s life, as they learn more about each other, and find out if indeed they have a future together, the evolution of the house plays a vital role. Improving the house, fixing it up, enlarging it, provides a frame for learning about one another; it brings out conflict, and offers the chance, like almost no other activity, for concrete resolution and growth. This suggests that a couple find a place that they can change gradually over the years, and not build or buy for themselves a “dream” home from scratch. The experience of making simple changes in the house, and tuning it to their lives, provides some grist for their own growth. Therefore, it is best to start small, with plenty of room for growth and change.
It is important to realize that very many of the patterns in this book can be built into a small house; small size does not preclude richness of form. The trick is to intensify and to overlay; to compress the patterns; to reduce them to simple expressions; to make every inch count double. When it is well done, a small house feels wonderfully continuous—cooking
People cannot be genuinely comfortable and healthy in a house which is not theirs. All forms of rental—whether from private landlords or public housing agencies—work against the natural processes which allow people to form stable, self-healing communities.
it is very clear that all those processes which encourage speculation in land, for the sake of profit, are unhealthy and destructive, because they invite people to treat houses as commodities, to build things for “resale,” and not in such a way as to fit their own needs.
the typical piece of rental property degenerates over the years. Then landlords try to build new rental properties which are immune to neglect—gardens are replaced with concrete, carpets are replaced with lineoleum, and wooden surfaces by formica: it is an attempt to make the new units maintenance-free, and to stop the slums by force; but they turn out cold and sterile and again turn into slums, because nobody loves them.
Therefore: Do everything possible to make the traditional forms of rental impossible, indeed, illegal.
Keep the emphasis in the definition of ownership on control, not on financial ownership.
No one enjoys his work if he is a cog in a machine. A man enjoys his work when he understands the whole and when he is responsible for the quality of the whole.
“Work in America,” commissioned by Elliot Richardson, as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Department, 1972. This study finds that the single best predictor of long life is not whether a person smokes or how often he sees a doctor, but the extent to which he is satisfied with his job.
A great deal of evidence shows that red tape occurs largely as a result of impersonal relationships in large institutions. When people can no longer communicate on a face-to-face basis, they need formal regulations, and in the lower echelons of the organization, these formal regulations are followed blindly and narrowly.
They have no more responsibility or authority in a high school than the children in a kindergarten do. They are responsible for putting away their things, and for playing in the school band, perhaps even for electing class leaders. But these things all happen in a kindergarten too. There is no new form of society, which is a microcosm of adult society, where they can test their growing adulthood in any serious way. And under these circumstances, the adult forces which are forming in them, lash out, and wreak terrible vengeance. Blind adults can easily, then, call this vengeance “delinquency.”
At that point, these five kids, ranging in age from 9 to u were within two one hundredths of discovering tr and I was having trouble containing myself. I suppose I could have extended the lesson by having them convert one-eighth to decimals, but I was too excited. “Look,” I said, “I want to tell you a secret.
(Charles W. Rusch, “Moboc: The Mobile Open Classroom,” School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles, November 1973.)
by eliminating the building and the salaries of all those persons who do not directly work with the children, the student/teacher ratio can be reduced from something like 35/1 to 10/1.
York: Praeger Press, 1966). Apparently this is because local stores are an important destination for neighborhood walks. People go to them when they feel like a walk as well as when they need a carton of milk. In this way, as a generator of walks, they draw a residential area together and help to give it the quality of a neighborhood.
To find out how far people will walk to a store we interviewed 20 people at a neighborhood store in Berkeley. We found that 80 per cent of the people interviewed walked, and that those who walked all came three blocks or less. Over half of them had been to the store previously within two days.
At distances around four blocks, or greater, people who rode outnumbered those who walked. It seems then, that corner groceries need to be within walking distance, three to four blocks or 1200 feet, of every home.
It seems, then, that a corner grocery can survive under circumstances where there are 1000 people within three or four blocks—a net density of at least 20 persons per net acre, or six houses per net acre. Most neighborhoods do have this kind of density. One might even take this figure as a lower limit for a viable neighborhood, on the grounds that a neighborhood ought to be able to support a comer grocery, for the sake of its own social cohesion.
It has been shown that the rents which owners of small retail businesses are willing to pay vary directly with the amount of pedestrian traffic passing by, and are therefore uniformly higher on street corners than in the middle of the block.
A public drinking house, where strangers and friends are drinking companions, is a natural part of any large community. But all too often, bars degenerate and become nothing more than anchors for the lonely.
Drink helps people to relax and become open with one another, to sing and dance. But it only brings out these qualities when the setting is right. We think that there are two critical qualities for the setting: 1. The place holds a crowd that is continuously mixing between functions—the bar, the dance floor, a fire, darts, the bathrooms, the entrance, the seats; and these activities are concentrated and located round the edge so that they generate continual criss-crossing. 2. The seats should be largely in the form of tables for four to eight set in open alcoves—that is, tables that are defined for small groups, with walls, columns, and curtains—but open at both ends.
Bus stops are often dreary because they are set down independently, with very little thought given to the experience of waiting there, to the relationship between the bus stop and its surroundings.
Bus stops are often dreary because they are set down independently, with very little thought given to the experience of waiting there, to the relationship between the bus stop and its surroundings. They are places to stand idly, perhaps anxiously, waiting for the bus, always watching for the bus. It is a shabby experience; nothing that would encourage people to use public transportation.
The possibilities for each bus stop to become part of such a web are different—in some cases it will be right to make a system that will draw people into a private reverie—an old tree; another time one that will do the opposite—give shape to the social possibilities—a coffee stand, a canvas roof, a decent place to sit for people who are not waiting for the bus.
But, above all, work on the site, stay on the site, let the site tell you its secrets.
the form will grow gradually as you go through the sequence, beginning as something very loose and amorphous, gradually becoming more and more complicated, more refined and more differentiated, more finished. Don’t rush this process. Don’t give the form more order than it needs to meet the patterns and the conditions of the site, each step of the way.
as you build each pattern into the design, you will experience a single gestalt that is gradually becoming more and more coherent.
The sequence of the language will guarantee that you will not have to make enormous changes which cancel out your earlier decisions. Instead, the changes you make will get smaller and smaller, as you build in more and more patterns, like a series of progressive refinements, until you finally have a complete design.
make the essential points and lines which are needed to fix the pattern, on the site with bricks, or sticks or stakes. Try not to design on paper; even in the case of complicated buildings find a way to make your marks on the site.
We conclude that any environment which requires that a person pay attention to it constantly is as bad for a person who knows it, as for a stranger.
We emphasize finally, that these realms at every level must have names; and this requires, in turn, that they be well enough defined physically, so that they can in fact be named, and so that one knows where the realm of that name starts, and where it stops. The realms do not have to be as precise as in the two examples we have given. But they must have enough psychological substance and existence so that they can honestly work as realms in somebody’s mind.
For any collection of buildings, decide which building in the group houses the most essential function—which building is the soul of the group, as a human institution. Then form this building as the main building, with a central position, higher roof.
Finally it should be noted that the pedestrian streets which seem most comfortable are the ones where the width of the street does not exceed the height of the surrounding buildings.
(In London, a recent court ruling established that an individual has a right to walk on the street but no legal right merely to stand on it.)
A person will not use a public place if he has to make a special motion toward it, a motion which indicates the intention to use the facility “officially.” b. If people are asked to state their reason for being in a place (for example, by a receptionist or clerk) they won’t use it freely. c. Entering a public space through doors, corridors, changes of level, and so on, tends to keep away people who are not entering with a specific goal in mind.
The street width, therefore, should be at least 11 feet.
An entrance that is 15 feet wide begins to have this character.
As far as possible, the indoor street should be a continuation of the circulation outside the building. To this end, the path into the building should be as continuous as possible, and the entrance quite wide—more a gateway than a door. An entrance that is 15 feet wide begins to have this character.
Buildings must always be built on those parts of the land which are in the worst condition, not the best. This idea is indeed very simple. But it is the exact opposite of what usually happens; and it takes enormous will power to follow it through.
People use open space if it is sunny, and do not use it if it isn’t, in all but desert climates.
Outdoor spaces which are merely “left over” between buildings will, in general, not be used.
in such a house or office there are strong reasons to make the building even longer and thinner still. This pattern was originally formulated by Christie Coffin.
Place the main entrance of the building at a point where it can be seen immediately from the main avenues of approach and give it a bold, visible shape which stands out in front of the building.
If the front door is set back, and there is a transition space between it and the street, this domain is well established. This would explain why people are often unwilling to go without a front lawn, even though they do not “use it.”
Both family and visitors tend, more and more, to come and go by car. Since people always try to use the door nearest the car (see Vere Hole, et al., “Studies of 800 Houses in Conventional and Radbum Layouts,” Building Research Station, Garston, Herts, England, 1966), the entrance nearest the parking spot always becomes the “main” entrance, even if it was not planned that way.
In order to ensure that both the kitchen and formal living room are conveniently located with respect to can and that each space maintains its integrity in terms of use and privacy, there must be one and only one primary entrance into the house, and the kitchen and living room must be both directly accessible from this entrance.
Secondary entrances, like patio and garden doors and teenager’s private entrances, are very important. But they should never be placed so that they are in between the main entrance and the natural place to arrive by car—otherwise, they will compete with the main entrance and, again, confuse the way the house plan works.
Place the parking place for the car and the main entrance, in such a relation to each other, that the shortest route from the parked car into the house, both to the kitchen and to the living rooms, is always through the main entrance.
Make the parking place for the car into an actual room which makes a positive and graceful place where the car stands, not just a gap in the terrain.
Whatever space you are shaping—whether it is a garden, terrace, street, park, public outdoor room, or courtyard, make sure of two things. First, make at least one smaller space, which looks into it and forms a natural back for it Second, place it, and its openings, so that it looks into at least one larger space.
There seem to be three distinct ways in which these courtyards fail. 1. There is too little ambiguity between indoors and outdoors. If the walls, sliding doors, doors which lead from the indoors to the outdoors, are too abrupt, then there is no opportunity for a person to find himself half way between the two—and then, on the impulse of a second, to drift toward the outside. People need an ambiguous in-between realm—a porch, or a veranda, which they naturally pass onto often, as part of their ordinary life within the house, so that they can drift naturally to the outside. 2. There are not enough doors into the courtyard. If there is just one door, then the courtyard never lies between two activities inside the house; and so people are never passing through it, and enlivening it, while they go about their daily business. To overcome this, the courtyard should have doors on at least two opposite sides, so that it becomes a meeting point for different activities, provides access to them, provides overflow from them, and provides the cross-circulation between them. 3. They are too enclosed. Courtyards which are pleasant to be in always seem to have “loopholes” which allow you to see beyond them into some larger, further space. The courtyard should never be perfectly enclosed by the rooms which surround it, but should give at least a glimpse of some other space beyond.
We shall explain that ROOF GARDENS (118), wherever they occur, should not be over the top floor, but always on the same level as the rooms they serve. This means, naturally, that the building tends to get lower toward the edges since the roof gardens step down from the top toward the outer edge of the ground floor.
you see the building, you see the roof. This is perhaps the most
A vast part of the earth’s surface, in a town, consists of roofs. Couple this with the fact that the total area of a town which can be exposed to the sun is finite, and you will realize that is is natural, and indeed essential, to make roofs which take advantage of the sun and air.
Flat roof gardens have always been prevalent in dry, warm climates, where they can be made into livable environments.
The layout of paths will seem right and comfortable only when it is compatible with the process of walking. And the process of walking is far more subtle than one might imagine. Essentially there are three complementary processes: 1. As you walk along you scan the landscape for intermediate destinations—the furthest points along the path which you can see. You try, more or less, to walk in a straight line toward these points. This naturally has the effect that you will cut corners and take “diagonal” paths, since these are the ones which often form straight lines between your present position and the point which you are making for.
The layout of paths will seem right and comfortable only when it is compatible with the process of walking. And the process of walking is far more subtle than one might imagine.
The proper arrangements of paths is one with enough intermediate goals, to make this process workable. If there aren’t enough intermediate goals, the process of walking becomes more difficult, and consumes unnecessary emotional energy.
To lay out paths, first place goals at natural points of interest Then connect the goals to one another to form the paths. The paths may be straight, or gently curving between goals; their paving should swell around the goal. The goals should never be more than a few hundred feet apart.
Streets should be for staying in, and not just for moving through, the way they are today.
Now, in a number of subtle ways, the modern city has made streets which are for “going through,” not for “staying in.” This is reinforced by regulations which make it a crime to loiter, by the greater attractions inside the side itself, and by streets which are so unattractive to stay in, that they almost force people into their houses.
Building set-backs from the street, originally invented to protect the public welfare by giving every building light and air, have actually helped greatly to destroy the street as a social space.
different degrees of intimacy. A bedroom or boudoir is most intimate; a back sitting room or study less so; a common area or kitchen more public still; a front porch or entrance room most public of all. When there is a gradient of this kind, people can give each encounter different shades of meaning, by choosing its position on the gradient very carefully.
At the tame time that common areas are to the front, make tore that they are alto at the heart and sou] of the activity, and that all paths between more private rooms pass tangent to the common ones—COMMON AREAS AT THE HEART (129). In private houses make the ENTRANCE ROOM (130) the most formal and public place and arrange the most private areas so that each person has a room of his own, where he can retire to be alone—A
If the right rooms are facing south, a house is bright and sunny and cheerful; if the wrong rooms are facing south, the house is dark and gloomy.
The fact is that very few things have so much effect on the feeling inside a room as the sun shining into it. If you want to be sure that your house, or building, and the rooms in it are wonderful, comfortable places, give this pattern its due. Treat it seriously; cling to it tenaciously; insist upon it. Think of the rooms you know which do have sunshine in them, and compare them with the many rooms you know that don’t.