A pattern language

Traffic accidents are far more frequent where two roads cross than at T junctions.

This follows from the geometry. Where two two-way roads cross, there are 16 major collision points, compared with three for a T junction (John Callendar, Time Saver Standards, Fourth Edition, New York, 1966, p. 1230).

Maps from an empirical study which compares the number of accidents over a period of five years for different street patterns are shown below. They show clearly that T junctions have many fewer accidents than four-way intersections (from Planning for Man and Motor, by Paul Ritter, p. 307).

Further evidence shows that the T junction is safest if it is a right-angled junction. When the angle deviates from the right angle, it is hard for drivers to see round the corner, and accidents increase (Swedish National Board of Urban Planning, “Principles for Urban Planning with Respect to Road Safety,” The Scaft Guidelines iq68, Publication No. 5, Stockholm, Sweden, p. 11).

Therefore:

Lay out the road system so that any two roads which meet at grade, meet in three-way T junctions as near 90 degrees as possible. Avoid four-way intersections and crossing movements.

->

At busy junctions, where pedestrian paths converge, make a special raised crossing for pedestrians, something more than the usual crosswalk—road crossing (54). . . .

SUMMARY OF THE LANGUAGE

191. THE SHAPE OF INDOOR SPACE

192. WINDOWS OVERLOOKING LIFE

193. HALF-OPEN WALL

194. INTERIOR WINDOWS

195. STAIRCASE VOLUME

196. CORNER DOORS

give all the walls some depth, wherever there are to be alcoves, windows, shelves, closets, or seats;

197. THICK WALLS

198. CLOSETS BETWEEN ROOMS

199. SUNNY COUNTER

200. OPEN SHELVES

201. WAIST-HIGH SHELF

202. BUILT-IN SEATS

203. CHILD CAVES

204. SECRET PLACE

At this stage, you have a complete design for an individual building. If you have followed the patterns given, you have a scheme of spaces, either marked on the ground, with stakes, or on a piece of paper, accurate to the nearest foot or so. You know the height of rooms, the rough size and position of windows and doors, and you know roughly how the roofs of the building, and the gardens are laid out.

The next, and last part of the language, tells how to

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. . . this pattern helps to give the character of local roads. Even though it only defines the surface of the road, and the position of parking, the gradual emergence of this pattern in an area, can be used, piecemeal, to create looped local roads (49), t junctions (50), and common land (67). This pattern was inspired by a beautiful road in the north of Denmark, built by Anne-Marie Rubin, and illustrated here.

A

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.

In a typical low density American suburb, more than 50 percent of the land is covered with concrete or asphalt paving. In some areas, like downtown Los Angeles, it is more than 65 per cent.

This concrete and asphalt have a terrible effect on the local environment. They destroy the microclimate; they do nothing useful with the solar energy that falls on them; they are unpleasant to walk on; there is nowhere to sit; nowhere for children to play; the natural drainage of the ground is devastated; animals and plants can hardly survive.

The fact is that asphalt and concrete are only suitable for use on high speed roads. They are unsuitable, and quite unnecessary, on local roads, where a few cars are moving in and out. When local roads are paved, wide and smooth, like major roads, drivers are encouraged to travel past our houses at 35 or 40 miles per hour. What is needed, instead, on local roads is a grassy surface that is adapted to the primary uses of the common land between the buildings, with just enough hard paving to cope with the few cars that do go on it.

The best solution is a field of grass, with paving stones set into it. This arrangement provides for animals and children and makes the street a focal point for the neighborhood. On hot summer

days the air over the grass surface is 10 to 14 degrees cooler than the air over an asphalt road. And the cars are woven into this scheme, but they do not dominate it.

Of course, such a scheme raises immediately the question of parking. How shall it be organized? It is possible to arrange for parking on green streets, so Jong as it is parking for residents and their guests, only. When overflow parking from shopping streets and work communities sprawls onto streets that were intended to be quiet neighborhoods, the character of the neighborhood is drastically altered. The residents generally resent this situation. Often it means they cannot park in front of their own homes. The neighborhood becomes a parking lot for strangers who care nothing about it, who simply store their cars there.

The green street will only work if it is based on the principle that the street need not, and should not, provide for more parking than its people need. Parking for visitors can be in small parking lots at the ends of the street; parking for people in the individual houses and workshops can either be in the same parking lots or in the driveways of the buildings.

This does not imply that commercial activities, shops, and businesses should be excluded from residential areas. In fact, as we have said in scattered work (9), it is extremely important to build such functions into neighborhoods. The point is, however, that businesses cannot assume when they move into a neighborhood that they have the right to a huge amount of free parking. They must pay for their parking; and they must pay for it in a way which is consistent with the environmental needs of the neighborhood.

Therefore:

On 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.

* *

When a road is a green street, it is so pleasant that it naturally tends to attract activity to it. In this case, the paths and the green street are one—common land (67). However, even when the street is green, it may be pleasant to put in occasional very small lanes, a few feet wide, at right angles to the green streets, according to network of paths and cars (52). In order to preserve the greenness of the street, it will be essential, too, to keep parked cars in driveways on the individual lots, or in tiny parking lots, at the ends of the street, reserved for the house owners and their visitors—small parking lots (103). Fruit trees and flowers will make the street more beautiful—fruit trees (170), raised flowers (245)—and the paving stones which form the beds for cars to drive on, can themselves be laid with cracks between them and with grass and moss and flowers in the cracks between the stones—paving with cracks between the stones (247). . . .

52 NETWORK OF PATHS AND CARS**

270

. . . roads may be governed by parallel roads (23), looped

LOCAL ROADS (49)3 GREEN STREETS (5 I ) ; major paths by ACTIVITY NODES (30), PROMENADE ( 3 I ) , and PATHS AND GOALS ( I 20) . This pattern governs the interaction between the two.

4* *»•

Cars are dangerous to pedestrians; yet activities occur just where cars and pedestrians meet.

It is common planning practice to separate pedestrians and cars. This makes pedestrian areas more human and safer. However, this practice fails to take account of the fact that cars and pedestrians also need each other: and that, in fact, a great deal of urban life occurs at just the point where these two systems meet. Many of the greatest places in cities, Piccadilly Circus, Times Square, the Champs Elysees, are alive because they are at places where pedestrians and vehicles meet. New towns like Cumbernauld, in Scotland, where there is total separation between the two, seldom have the same sort of liveliness.

The same thing is true at the local residental scale. A great deal of everyday social life occurs where cars and pedestrians meet. In Lima, for example, the car is used as an extension of the house: men, especially, often sit in parked cars, near their houses, drinking beer and talking. And in one way or another, something like this happens everywhere. Conversation and discussion grow naturally around the lots where people wash their cars. Vendors set themselves up where cars and pedestrians meet; they need all the traffic they can get. Children play in parking

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lots—perhaps because they sense that this is the main point of arrival and departure; and of course because they like the cars. Yet, at the same time, it is essential to keep pedestrians separate from vehicles: to protect children and old people; to preserve the tranquility of pedestrian life.

To resolve the conflict, it is necessary to find an arrangement of pedestrian paths and roads, so that the two are separate, but meet frequently, with the points where they meet recognized as focal points. In general, this requires two orthogonal networks, one for roads, one for paths, each connected and continuous, crossing at frequent intervals (our observations suggest that most points on the path network should be within I 50 feet of the nearest road), meeting, when they meet, at right angles.

In practice, there are several possible ways of forming this relationship between the roads and paths.

It can be done within the system of fast one-way roads about 300 feet apart described in parallel roads (23). Between the roads there are pedestrian paths running at right angles to the roads, with buildings opening off the pedestrian paths. Where the

I'll 5 2 NETWORK OF PATHS AND CARS

paths intersect the roads there are small parking lots with space for kiosks and shops.

It can be applied to an existing neighborhood—as it is in the following sequence of plans drawn by the People’s Architects, Berkeley, California. This shows a beautiful and simple way of creating a path network in an existing grid of streets, by closing off alternate streets, in each direction. As the drawings show, it can be done gradually.

Different again, is our project for housing in Lima. Here the two orthogonal systems are laid out as follows:

In all these cases, we see a global pattern, in which roads and paths are created more or less at the same time—and therefore brought into the proper relationship. However, it is essential to recognize that in most practical applications of this pattern, it is

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not necessary to locate the roads and paths together. Most typically of all, there is an existing road system: and the paths can be put in one by one, piecemeal, at right angles to the existing roads. Slowly, very slowly, a coherent path network will be created by the accumulation of these piecemeal acts.

Finally, note that this kind of separation of cars from pedestrians is only appropriate where traffic densities are medium or medium high. At low densities (for instance, a cul-de-sac gravel road serving half-a-dozen houses), the paths and roads can obviously be combined. There is no reason even to have sidewalks— green streets (51). At very high densities, like the Champs Elysees, or Piccadilly Circus, a great deal of the excitement is actually created by the fact that pedestrian paths are running along the roads. In these cases the problem is best solved by extra wide sidewalks—raised walks (55)—which actually contain the resolution of the conflict in their width. The edge away from the road is safe—the edge near the road is the place where the activities happen.

Therefore:

Except where traffic densities are very high or very low, lay out pedestrian paths at right angles to roads, not along them, so that the paths gradually begin to form a second network, distinct from the road system, and orthogonal to it. This can be done quite gradually—even if you put in one path at a time, but always put them in the middle of the “block,” so that they run across the roads.

52 NETWORK OF PATHS AND CARS

•I* *r ‘I*

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 walk (55) ; on creen streets (51) the paths can be in the road since there is nothing but grass and paving stones there; but even then, occasional narrow paths at right angles to the green streets are very beautiful. Place the paths in detail according to paths and coals (120); shape them according to path shape (121). Finally, treat the important street crossings as crosswalks, raised to the level of the pedestrian path—so cars have to slow down as they go over them—road crossing (54). . . .

make a buildable building directly from this rough scheme of spaces, and tells you how to build it, in detail.

Before you lay out structural details, establish a philosophy of structure which will let the structure grow directly from your plans and your conception of the buildings 3

205. STRUCTURE FOLLOWS SOCIAL SPACES

206. EFFICIENT STRUCTURE

207. GOOD MATERIALS

208. GRADUAL STIFFENING

within this philosophy of structure, on the basis of the plans which you have made, work out the complete structural layout 3 this is the last thing you do on paper, before you actually start to build 3

209. ROOF LAYOUT

210. FLOOR AND CEILING LAYOUT

21 I. THICKENING THE OUTER WALLS

212. COLUMNS AT THE CORNERS

213. FINAL COLUMN DISTRIBUTION

put stakes in the ground to mark the columns on the site, and start erecting the main frame of the building according to the layout of these stakes 3

214. ROOT FOUNDATIONS

215. GROUND FLOOR SLAB

216. BOX COLUMNS

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. . . at various levels in the structure of the town, there are identifiable units. There are neighborhoods—identifiable neighborhood (14), clusters—house cluster (37), communities of work—work community (41) ; and there are many smaller building complexes ringed around some realms of circulation—building complex (95), circulation realms (98). All of them get their identity most clearly from the fact that you pass through a definite gateway to enter them—it is this gateway acting as a threshold which creates the unit.

Any part of a town—large or small—which is to be identified by its inhabitants as a precinct of some kind, will be reinforced, helped in its distinctness, marked, and made more vivid, if the paths which enter it are marked by gateways where they cross the boundary.

Many parts of a town have boundaries drawn around them. These boundaries are usually in people’s minds. They mark the end of one kind of activity, one kind of place, and the beginning of another. In many cases, the activities themselves are made more sharp, more vivid, more alive, if the boundary which exists in people’s minds is also present physically in the world.

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. It will be there, it will be felt, only if the crossing is marked. And essentially, the crossing of a boundary by a path can only be marked by a gateway. That is why all forms of gateway play such an important role in the environment.

A gateway can have many forms: a literal gate, a bridge, a passage between narrowly separated buildings, an avenue of trees, a gateway through a building. All of these have the same function: they mark the point where a path crosses a boundary and help

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maintain the boundary. All of them are “things”—not merely holes or gaps, but solid entities.

In every case, the crucial feeling which this solid thing must create is the feeling of transition.

Therefore:

Mark every boundary in the city which has important human meaning—the boundary of a building cluster, a neighborhood, a precinct—by great gateways where the major entering paths cross the boundary.

278 53 main gateways

Make the gateways solid elements, visible from every line of approach, enclosing the paths, punching a hole through a building, creating a bridge or a sharp change of level—but above all make them “things,” in just the same way specified for main entrance (iio), but make them larger. Whenever possible, emphasize the feeling of transition for the person passing through the gateway, by allowing change of light, or surface, view, crossing water, a change of level—entrance transition (112). In every case, treat the main gateway as the starting point of the pedestrian circulation inside the precinct—circulation realms (98)* • • •

. . . under the impetus of parallel roads (23) and network of paths and cars (52), paths will gradually grow at right angles to major roads—not along them as they do now. This is an entirely new kind of situation, and requires an entirely new physical treatment to make it work.

❖ •{♦

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. Most often the driver does brake. But everyone knows of enough occasions when brakes have failed, or drivers gone to sleep, to be perpetually wary and afraid.

The people who cross a road will only feel comfortable and safe if the road crossing is a physical obstruction, which physically guarantees that the cars must slow down and give way to pedestrians. 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.

What should crossings be like to accommodate the needs of the pedestrians?

The fact that pedestrians feel less vulnerable to cars when they are about 18 inches above them, is discussed in the next pattern raised walk (55). The same principle applies, even more powerfully, where pedestrians have to cross a road. The pedestrians who cross must be extremely visible from the road. Cars should also be forced to slow down when they approach the crossing. If the pedestrian way crosses 6 to 12 inches above the road-

way, and the roadway slopes up to it, this satisfies both requirements. A slope of I in 6, or less, is safe for cars and solid enough to slow them down. To make the crossing even easier to see from a distance and to give weight to the pedestrian’s right to be there, the pedestrian path could be marked by a canopy at the edge of the road—canvas roofs (244).

We know that this pattern is rather extraordinary. For this reason, we consider it quite essential that readers do not try to use it on every road, for formalistic reasons, but only on those roads where it is badly needed. We therefore comolete the problem statement by defining a simple experiment which you can do to decide whether or not a given crossing needs this treatment.

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. (On the basis of Buchanan’s statement that roads become threatening to pedestrians when the volume of traffic on them creates an average delay of two seconds or more, for people trying to cross on foot. See the extensive discussion, Colin Buchanan et ah, Traffic in Towns, HMSO, London, 1963, pp. 203—13.) If you cannot do this experiment, or the road is not yet built, you may be able to guess, by using the chart below. It shows which combinations of volume and width will typically create more than a two-second average delay.

One final note. This pattern may be impossible to implement, in places where traffic engineers are still in control. Nevertheless the functional, issue is vital, and must not be ignored. A big wide road, with several lanes of heavy traffic can form an almost impenetrable barrier. In this case, you can solve the problem, at least partially, by creating islands—certainly one in the middle, and perhaps extra islands, between adjacent lanes. This has a huge effect on a person’s capacity to cross the road, for a very simple reason. If you are trying to cross a wide road, you have to wait for a gap to occur simultaneously in each of the lanes. It is the waiting for this coincidence of gaps that creates the problem. But if you can hop, from island to island, each time a gap occurs in any one lane, one lane at a time, you can get across in no time at all—because the gaps which occur in individual lanes are many many times more frequent, than the big gaps in all lanes at the same time. So, if you can’t raise the crossing, at least use islands, like stepping stones.

Therefore:

At any point where a pedestrian path crosses a road that has enough traffic to create more than a two second delay to people crossing, make a “knuckle” at the crossing:

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narrow the road to the width of the through lanes only; continue the pedestrian path through the crossing about a foot above the roadway; put in islands between lanes; slope the road up toward the crossing (i in 6 maximum); mark the path with a canopy or shelter to make it visible.

On one side or the other of the road make the pedestrian path swell out to form a tiny square, where food stands cluster round

a bus Stop-SMALL PUBLIC SQUARES (6 I ) , BUS STOP (92), FOOD

stands (93) ; provide one or two bays for standing space for buses and cars—small parking lots (103), and when a path must run from the road crossing along the side of the road, keep it to one side only, make it as wide as possible, and raised above the roadway—raised walk (55). Perhaps build the canopy as a trellis or canvas roof—trellised walk (174), canvas roofs

(244). . . .

285

summary of the language

217. PERIMETER BEAMS

218. WALL MEMBRANES

219. FLOOR-CEILING VAULTS

220. ROOF VAULTS

within the main frame of the building, fix the exact positions for openings—the doors and windows—and frame these openingsj

221. NATURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS

222. LOW SILL

223. DEEP REVEALS

224. LOW DOORWAY

225. FRAMES AS THICKENED EDGES

as you build the main frame and its openings, put in the following subsidiary patterns where they are appropriate;

226. COLUMN PLACE

227. COLUMN CONNECTION

228. STAIR VAULT

229. DUCT SPACE

230. RADIANT HEAT

231. DORMER WINDOWS

232. ROOF CAPS

put in the surfaces and indoor details;

233. FLOOR SURFACE

234. LAPPED OUTSIDE WALLS

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. . . this pattern helps complete the network of paths and cars (52) and road crossings (54). It is true that in most cases, pedestrian paths which follow the path network will be running across roads, not next to them. But still, from time to time, especially along major parallel roads (23), between one road crossing and the next, there is a need for paths along the road. This pattern gives these special paths their character.

Where fast moving cars and pedestrians meet in cities, the cars overwhelm the pedestrians. The car is king, and people are made to feel small.

This cannot be solved by keeping pedestrians separate from cars; it is in their nature that they have to meet, at least occasionally—network of paths and cars (52). What can be done at those points where cars and pedestrians do meet?

On an ordinary street, cars make pedestrians feel small and vulnerable because the sidewalks are too narrow and too low. When the sidewalk is too narrow, you feel you are going to fall off, or get pushed off—and there is always a chance that you will step off just in front of a passing car. When the sidewalk is too low, you feel that cars can easily mount the sidewalk, if they go out of control, and crush you. It is clear, then, that pedestrians will feel comfortable, powerful, safe, and free in their movements when the walks they walk on are both wide enough to keep the

286

55 RAISED WALK

people well away from the cars, and high enough to make it quite impossible for any car to drive up on them by accident.

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. A conventional sidewalk is often no more than 6 feet wide; and people really feel the presence of the cars. How can we afford the extra width which people need in order to be comfortable? One way: instead of putting sidewalks along both sides of a road, we can put a double width raised walk along one side of the road only, with road crossings at intervals of 200 to 300 feet. This means, of course, that there can only be shops along one side of the road.

What is the right height for a raised walk? Our experiments suggest that pedestrians begin to feel secure when they are about 18 inches above the cars. There are a number of possible reasons for this finding.

One possible reason. When the car is down low and the pedestrian world physically higher, pedestrians feel, symbolically, that they are more important than the cars and therefore feel secure.

Another possible reason. It may be that the car overwhelms the pedestrian because of a constant, unspoken possibility that a runaway car might at any moment mount the curb and run him down. A car can climb an ordinary six inch curb easily. For the pedestrian to feel certain that a car could not climb the curb, the curb height would have to be greater than the radius of a car tire (10 to 15 inches).

Another possible reason. Most people’s eye level is between 5 1 and 63 inches. A typical car has an overall height of 53 inches. Although tall people can see over cars, even for them, the cars fill the landscape since a standing person’s normal line of sight is 10 degrees below the horizontal (Henry Dreyfus, The Measure of Man, New York, 1958, sheet F). To put a car 12 feet away completely below a pedestrian’s line of sight, it would have to be on a road some 18 to 30 inches below the pedestrian.

Therefore:

We conclude that any pedestrian path along a road carrying fast-moving cars should be about 18 inches above the road, with a low wall or railing, or balustrade along the edge, to mark the edge. Put the raised walk on only one side of the road—make it as wide as possible.

18 inches high

am

•J*

Protect the raised walk from the road, by means of a low wall —sitting wall (243). An arcade built over the walk, will, with its columns, give an even greater sense of comfort and protection -—arcades (119). At the end of blocks and at special points where a car might pull in to pick up or drop passengers, build steps into the raised walk, large enough so people can sit there and wait in comfort—stair seats (125). . . .

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289

. . . within a local transport area (ii) there is a heavy concentration of small vehicles like bikes, electric carts, perhaps even horses, which need a system of bike paths. The bike paths will play a very large role in helping to create the local transport areas, and may also help to modify looped local roads (49) and

NETWORK OF PATHS AND CARS (52).

♦J* ❖

Bikes are cheap, healthy, and good for the environment; but the environment is not designed for them. Bikes on roads are threatened by cars; bikes on paths threaten pedestrians.

In making the environment safe for bikes, the following problems must be solved:

1. Bikes are threatened where they meet or cross heavy automobile traffic.

2. They are also threatened by parked cars. Parked cars make it difficult for the bike rider to see other people, and they make it difficult for other people to see him. In addition, since the bike rider usually has to ride close to parked cars, he is always in danger of someone opening a car door in front of him.

3. Bikes endanger pedestrians along pedestrian paths; yet people often tend to ride bikes along pedestrian paths, not roads, because they are the shortest routes.

4. Where bikes are in heavy use, for instance around schools and universities, they can lay a pedestrian precinct to waste in their own way, just as cars can.

An obvious solution to these problems is to create a completely independent system of bike paths. However, it is doubtful that this is a viable or desirable solution. The study “Students on Wheels” (Jany, Putney, and Ritterj Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 1972) shows that bike riders and nonbike riders want a mixed system, so long as it is reasonably safe.

We also think that it is essential for bike paths to run in streets

56 BIKE PATHS AND RACKS

and along pedestrian paths: if bikes are forced onto a separate system, it will almost certainly be violated by people taking shortcuts across the other networks. And laws which would keep bikes completely off the road and path systems would be discouraging to the already hasseled bike riders. Wherever possible, then, bike paths should coincide with roads and major pedestrian paths.

Where bike paths coincide with major roads, they must be separated from the roadway. It helps put the bike rider in a safer position with respect to the cars if the bike path is raised a few inches from the road; or separated by a row of trees.

Where bike paths run alongside local roads, parking should be removed from that side of the road; the bike surface may simply be part of the road and level with it. An article by Bascome in the Oregon Daily Emerald (October 1971) suggested that bike lanes along streets should always be on tire sunny side of the street.

Where bike paths coincide with major pedestrian paths, they should be separate from the paths, perhaps a few inches below them. Here, the change in level gives the pedestrian a sense of safety from the bikes.

Quiet paths and certain pedestrian precincts should be completely protected from bikes for the same reasons that they need to be protected from cars. This can be handled by making the bike path system bypass these places, or by enclosing these places with steps or low walls which force bike riders to dismount and walk their bikes.

Therefore:

Build a system of paths designated as bike paths, with the following properties: the bike paths are marked clearly with a special, easily recognizable surface (for example, a red asphalt surface). As far as possible they run along local roads, or major pedestrian paths. Where a bike path runs along a local road, its surface may be level with the road —if possible, on the sunny side; where a bike path runs along a pedestrian path, keep it separate from that path and a few inches below it. Bring the system of bike paths to

291

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within ioo feet of every building, and give every building a bike rack near its main entrance.

Build the racks for bikes to one side of the main entrance, so that the bikes don’t interfere with people’s natural movement in and out—main entrance (iio), and give it some shelter, with the path from the racks to the entrance also under shelter— arcades (119); keep the bikes out of quiet walks and quiet gardens—quiet backs (59), garden wale (173). . . •

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57 CHILDREN IN THE CITY

. . . roads, bike paths, and main pedestrian paths are given their position by parallel roads (23), promenade (31), looped LOCAL ROADS (49), GREEN STREETS (51), NETWORK OF PATHS and cars (52), bike paths and racks (56). Some of them are safe for children, others are less safe. Now, finally, to complete the paths and roads, it is essential to define at least one place, right in the very heart of cities, where children can be completely free and safe. If handled properly, this pattern can play a great role in helping to create the network of learning (18).

If children are not able to explore the whole of the adult world round about them, they cannot become adults. But modern cities are so dangerous that children cannot be allowed to explore them freely.

The need for children to have access to the world of adults is so obvious that it goes without saying. The adults transmit their ethos and their way of life to children through their actions, not through statements. Children learn by doing and by copying. If the child’s education is limited to school and home, and all the vast undertakings of a modern city are mysterious and inaccessible, it is impossible for the child to find out what it really means to be an adult and impossible, certainly, for him to copy it by doing.

This separation between the child’s world and the adult world is unknown among animals and unknown in traditional societies. In simple villages, children spend their days side by side with farmers in the fields, side by side with people who are building houses, side by side, in fact, with all the daily actions of the men and women round about them: making pottery, counting money, curing the sick, praying to God, grinding corn, arguing about the future of the village.

But in the city, life is so enormous and so dangerous, that children can’t be left alone to roam around. There is constant danger from fast-moving cars and trucks, and dangerous machinery. There is a small but ominous danger of kidnap, or rape,

57 CHILDREN IN THE CITY

or assault. And, for the smallest children, there is the simple danger of getting lost. A small child just doesn’t know enough to find his way around a city.

The problem seems nearly insoluble. But we believe it can be at least partly solved by enlarging those parts of cities where small children can be left to roam, alone, and by trying to make sure that these protected children’s belts are so widespread and so far-reaching that they touch the full variety of adult activities and ways of life.

We imagine a carefully developed childrens’ bicycle path, within the larger network of bike paths. The path goes past and through interesting parts of the city; and it is relatively safe. It is part of the overall system and therefore used by everyone. It is not a special children’s “ride”—which would immediately be shunned by the adventurous young—but it does have a special name, and perhaps it is specially colored.

The path is always a bike path; it never runs beside cars. Where it crosses traffic there are lights or bridges. There are many homes and shops along the path—adults are nearby, especially the old enjoy spending an hour a day sitting along this path, themselves riding along the loop, watching the kids out of the corner of one eye.

And most important, the great beauty of this path is that it passes along and even through those functions and parts of a town which are normally out of reach: the place where newspapers are printed, the place where milk arrives from the countryside and is bottled, the pier, the garage where people make doors and windows, the alley behind restaurant row, the cemetery.

Therefore:

As part of the network of bike paths, develop one system of paths that is extra safe—entirely separate from automo-

295

SUMMARY OF THE LANGUAGE

235. SOFT INSIDE WALLS

236. WINDOWS WHICH OPEN WIDE

237. SOLID DOORS WITH GLASS

238. FILTERED LIGHT

239. SMALL PANES

240. HALF-INCH TRIM

build outdoor details to finish the outdoors as fully as the indoor spaces;

241. SEAT SPOTS

242. FRONT DOOR BENCH

243. SITTING WALL

244. CANVAS ROOFS

245. RAISED FLOWERS

246. CLIMBING PLANTS

247. PAVING WITH CRACKS BETWEEN THE STONES

248. SOFT TILE AND BRICK

complete the building with ornament and light and color and your own things;

249. ORNAMENT

250. WARM COLORS

251. DIFFERENT CHAIRS

252. POOLS OF LIGHT

253. THINGS FROM YOUR LIFE

XXXIV

biles, with lights and bridges at the crossings, with homes and shops along it, so that there are always many eyes on the path. Let this path go through every neighborhood, so that children can get onto it without crossing a main road. And run the path all through the city, down pedestrian streets, through workshops, assembly plants, warehouses, interchanges, print houses, bakeries, all the interesting “invisible” life of a town—so that the children can roam freely on their bikes and trikes.

Line the children’s path with windows, especially from rooms that are in frequent use, so that the eyes upon the street make it safe for the children—street windows (164); make it touch the children’s places all along the path—connected play (68), ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND (73), SHOPFRONT SCHOOLS (85), children’s home (86), but also make it touch other phases of the life cycle—old people everywhere (40), work community (41), UNIVERSITY AS A MARKETPLACE (43), GRAVE SITES (70), LOCAL SPORTS (72), ANIMALS (74), TEENAGE SOCIETY

(84). . . .

296

in the communities and neighborhoods provide pub lie open land where people can relax_> rub shoulders and renew themselves;

297

298

. . . once in a while, in a subculture which is particularly open to it, a promenade may break into a wilder rhythm—promenade (31), night i.ife (33)—and perhaps every promenade may have a touch of this.

Just as an individual person dreams fantastic happenings to release the inner forces which cannot be encompassed by ordinary events, so too a city needs its dreams.

Under normal circumstances, in today’s world the entertainments which are available are either healthy and harmless—going to the movies, watching TV, cycling, playing tennis, taking helicopter rides, going for walks, watching football—or downright sick and socially destructive—shooting heroin, driving recklessly, group violence.

But man has a great need for mad, subconscious processes to come into play, without unleashing them to such an extent that they become socially destructive. There is, in short, a need for socially sanctioned activities which are the social, outward equivalents of dreaming.

In primitive societies this kind of process was provided by the rites, witch doctors, shamans. In Western civilization during the last three or four hundred years, the closest available source of this outward acknowledgment of underground life has been the circus, fairs, and carnivals. In the middle ages, the market place itself had a good deal of this kind of atmosphere.

Today, on the whole, this kind of experience is gone. The circuses and the carnivals are drying up. But the need persists. In the Bay Area, the annual Renaissance Fair goes a little way to meet the need—but it is much too bland. We imagine something more along the following lines: street theater, clowns, mad games in the streets and squares and houses; during certain weeks, people may live in the carnival; simple food and shelter are free; day and night people mixing; actors who mingle with the crowd and involve you, willy nilly, in processes whose end cannot be

TOWNS

foreseen; fighting—two men with bags on a slippery log, in front of hundreds; Fellini—clowns, death, crazy people, brought into mesh.

Remember the hunchbacked dwarf in Ship of Fools, the only reasonable person on the ship, who says “Everyone has a problem; but I have the good fortune to wear mine on my back, where everyone can see it.”

Therefore:

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.

Dancing in the street, food stands, an outdoor room or two, a square where the theater is, and tents and canvas will all help to make it even livelier—small public squares (6 i ), dancing in THE STREET (63), PUBLIC OUTDOOR ROOM (69), FOOD STANDS (93), PEDESTRIAN STREET (lOO), CANVAS ROOFS (244.). . . .

301

. . . the work places are given their general position by scattered work (9) and their detailed organization and distribution by work communities (41). It is essential though, that they be supported by some kind of quiet, which is complementary to the work. This pattern, and the next few patterns, gives the structure of that quiet.

♦ « *

Any one who has to work in noise, in offices with people all around, needs to be able to pause and refresh himself with quiet in a more natural situation.

The walk along the Seine, through the middle of Paris, is a classic “quiet back” in the middle of a fast city. People drop down from the streets and the traffic and the commerce to stroll along the river, where the mood is slow and reflective.

The need for such places has often been recognized in universities, where there are quiet walks where people go to think, or pause, or have a private talk. A beautiful case is the University of Cambridge: each college has its “backs”—quiet courts stretching down to the River Cam. But the need for quiet backs goes far beyond the university. It exists everywhere where people work in densely populated, noisy areas.

To meet this need, we may conceive all buildings as having a front and a back. If the front is given over to the street life— cars, shopping paths, delivery—then the back can be reserved for quiet.

If the back is to be quiet, a place where you can hear only natural sounds—winds, birds, water—it is critical that it be protected. At the same time, it must be some way from the buildings which it serves. This suggests a walk, some distance behind the buildings, perhaps separated from them by their private small gardens, completely protected by substantial walls and dense planting along its length.

An example we know is the walk through the cathedral close in Chichester. There is a high brick wall on each side of this walk and flowers planted all along it. It leads away from the cathedral,

parallel but set back from the town’s major road. On this path, less than a block from the major crossroads of the town, you can hear the bees buzzing.

If a number of these walks are connected, one to another, then slowly, there emerges a ribbon-like system of tiny backs, pleasant alleyways behind the commotion of the street. Since the sound of water plays such a powerful role in establishing the kind of quiet that is required, these paths should always connect up with the local pools and streams (64). And the longer it can be, the better.

Therefore:

shield of buildings

natural quiet

Give the buildings in the busy parts of town a quiet “back” behind them and away frorti the noise. Build a walk along this quiet back, far enough from the building so that it gets full sunlight, but protected from noise by walls and distance and buildings. Make certain that the path is not a natural shortcut for busy foot traffic, and connect it up with other walks, to form a long ribbon of quiet alley-ways which converge on the local pools and streams and the local greens.

If possible, place the backs where there is water—pools and streams (64), still water (71), and where there are still great trees unharmed by traffic—tree places (171) ; connect them to accessible greens (60) ; and protect them from noise with walls or buildings—garden wall (173). . . .

303

304

. . . at the heart of neighborhoods, and near all work communities, there need to be small greens—identifiable neighborhood (14), work community (41). Of course it makes the most sense to locate these greens in such a way that they help form the boundaries and neighborhoods and backs—subculture

BOUNDARY ( I 3) , NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARY (15), QUIET BACKS

(59)-

4 *!•

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.

Parks are meant to satisfy this need. But parks, as they are usually understood, are rather large and widely spread through the city. Very few people live within three minutes of a park.

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.

This problem can only be solved if hundreds of small parks— or greens—are scattered so widely, and so profusely, that every house and every workplace in the city is within three minutes walk of the nearest one.

In more detail: The need for parks within a city is well recognized. A typical example of this awareness is given by the results of a 1971 citizen survey on open space conducted by the Berkeley City Planning Department. The survey showed that the great majority of people living in apartments want two kinds of outdoor spaces above all others: (a) a pleasant, usable private balcony and (b) a quiet public park within walking distance.

But the critical effect of distance on the usefulness of such

CHOOSING A LANGUAGE FOR YOUR PROJECT

All 253 patterns together form a language. They create a coherent picture of an entire region, with the power to generate such regions in a million forms, with infinite variety in all the details.

It is also true that any small sequence of patterns from this language is itself a language for a smaller part of the environmentj and this small list of patterns is then capable of generating a million parks, paths, houses, workshops, or gardens.

For example, consider the following ten patterns:

PRIVATE TERRACE ON THE STREET (140)

SUNNY PLACE (l6l)

OUTDOOR ROOM ( I 63 )

SIX-FOOT BALCONY ( 167)

PATHS AND GOALS (l20)

CEILING HEIGHT VARIETY (190)

COLUMNS AT THE CORNERS (212)

FRONT DOOR BENCH (242)

RAISED FLOWERS (245)

DIFFERENT CHAIRS (251)

This short list of patterns is itself a language: it is one of a thousand possible languages for a porch, at the front of a house. One of us chose this small language, to build

XXXV

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parks is less well known and understood. In order to study this problem, we visited a small park in Berkeley, and asked 22 people who were in the park how often they came there, and how far they had walked to the park. Specifically, we asked each person three questions:

a. Did you walk or drive?

b. How many blocks have you come?

c. How many days ago did you last visit the park?

On the basis of the first question we rejected five subjects who had come by car or bike. The third question gave for each person a measure of the number of times per week that person comes to the park. For example, if he last came three days ago, we may estimate that he typically comes once per week. This is more reliable than asking the frequency directly, since it relies on a fact which the person is sure of, not on his judgment of a rather intangible frequency.

We now construct a table showing the results. In the first column, we write the number of blocks people walked to get to the park. In the second column we write a measure of the area of the ring-shaped zone which lies at that distance. The area of this ring-shaped zone is proportional to the difference of two squares. For example, the measure of area of the ring at three blocks, is 3² — 2² ~ 5.

60 ACCESSIBLE GREEN

In the third column, we write the number of people who have come from that distance, each person multiplied by the number of trips per week he makes to the park. This gives us a measure of the total number of trips per week, which originate in that ring.

In the fourth column we write the number of trips per week divided by the area of the ring. If we assume that people are distributed throughout the entire area at approximately even density, this gives us a measure of the probability that any one person, in a given ring, will make a trip to the park in a given week.

In the fifth column we write the logarithm (base io) of this probability measure P.

Simple inspection of these data shows that while the probability measure, P, drops in half between one and two blocks, it drops by a factor of four between two and three blocks. Its rate of decrease diminishes from then on. This indicates that an individual’s use of a park changes character radically if he lives more than three blocks away.

For more precision let us examine the relationship between distance and the logarithm of P. Under normal circumstances, the frequency of access to a given center will vary according to some distance decay function, such as P = Ae ^{— Br}, where A and B are constants, and r is the radius. This means that if behavior and motivation are constant with respect to distance, and we plot the log of P against the radius, we should get a straight line. Any aberration from the straight line will show us the threshold where one kind of behavior and motivation changes to another. This plot is shown below:

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We see that the resulting curve is S-shaped. It starts going down at a certain angle, then gets much steeper, and then flattens out again. Apparently there is a threshold somewhere between 2 and 3 blocks, where people’s behavior and motivation change drastically.

Those people who live in close proximity to a green follow a high intensity use function—it has a steep gradient and it is very sensitive to increasing distance. But those people who live far from a green appear to adopt a low intensity use function (indicated by a shallower gradient), and their behavior is not as sensitive to distance. It is as if those people with ready access to a green display a full, free responsiveness to it; while people far away have lost their awareness of it and have suffered a reduced sensitivity to the pleasures of the green—for thees people, the green has ceased to be a vital element in their neighborhood life.

Apparently, within a two to three block radius (a three-minute walking distance) people are able to satisfy their need for access to a green, but a greater distance seriously interferes with their ability to meet this need.

This inference is rather unexpected. We know that people who are close to a green go to it fairly often, presumably because they need the relaxation. The people who live more than three minutes walk from the green also need the relaxation, presumably. But in their case the distance prevents them from meeting their need. It seems then, that to meet this need, everyone—and that means every house and every workplace—must be within three minutes of such a park.

One question remains. How large must a green be in order to satisfy this need? In functional terms this is easy to answer. It must be large enough so that, at least in the middle of it, you feel that you are in touch with nature, and away from the hustle and bustle. Our current estimates suggest that a green should be as much as 60,000 square feet in area, and at least 150 feet wide in the narrowest direction in order to meet this requirement.

Therefore:

Build one open public green within three minutes’ walk —about 750 feet—of every house and workplace. This

60 ACCESSIBLE GREEN

means that the greens need to be uniformly scattered at 1500-foot intervals, throughout the city. Make the greens at least 150 feet across, and at least 60,000 square feet in area.

greens

fB

t

1500 foot intervals

\ <

la

150 feet across

\

•£*

Pay special attention to old trees, look after them—tree places (171); shape the green so that it forms one or more positive room-like spaces and surround it with trees, or walls, or buildings, but not roads or cars—positive outdoor space (106), garden wall (173); and perhaps set aside some part of the green for special community functions—holy ground (66), GRAVE SITES (70), LOCAL SPORTS (72), ANIMALS (74), SLEEPING IN PUBLIC (94) . . . .

3 10

. . . this pattern forms the core which makes an activity node (30): it can also help to generate a node, by its mere existence, provided that it is correctly placed along the intersection of the paths which people use most often. And it can also help to generate a promenade (31), a work community (41), an identifiable neighborhood (14), through the action of the people who gather there. But it is essential, in every case, that it is not too large.

A town needs public squares; they are the largest, most public rooms, that the town has. But when they are too large, they look and feel deserted.

It is natural that every public street will swell out at those important nodes where there is the most activity. And it is only these widened, swollen, public squares which can accommodate the public gatherings, small crowds, festivities, bonfires, carnivals, speeches, dancing, shouting, mourning, which must have their place in the life of the town.

But for some reason there is a temptation to make these public squares too large. Time and again in modern cities, architects and planners build plazas that are too large. They look good on drawings} but in real life they end up desolate and dead.

Our observations suggest strongly that open places intended as public squares should be very small. As a general rule, we have found that they work best when they have a diameter of about 60 feet—at this diameter people often go to them, they become favorite places, and people feel comfortable there. When the diameter gets above 70 feet, the squares begin to seem deserted and unpleasant. The only exceptions we know are places like the Piazza San Marco and Trafalgar Square, which are great town centers, teeming with people.

What possible functional basis is there for these observations? First, we know from the pattern, pedestrian density (123),

3ii

that a place begins to seem deserted when it has more than about 300 square feet per person.

On this basis a square with a diameter of IOO feet will begin to seem deserted if there are less than 33 people in it. There are few places in a city where you can be sure there will always be 33 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.

The second possible basis for our observations depends on the diameter. A person’s face is just recognizable at about 70 feet; and under typical urban noise conditions, a loud voice can just barely be heard across 70 feet. This may mean that people feel half-consciously tied together in plazas that have diameters of

312 61 SMALL PUBLIC SQUARES

70 feet or less—where they can make out the faces and half-hear the talk of the people around them; and this feeling of being at one with a loosely knit square is lost in the larger spaces. Roughly similar things have been said by Philip Thiel (“An Architectural and Urban Space Sequence Notation.” unpublished ms., University of California, Department of Architecture, August i960, p. 5) and by Hans Blumenfeld (“Scale in Civic Design,” Town Planning Review, April 1953, pp. 35-46). For example, Blumenfeld gives the following figures: a person’s face can be recognized at up to 70 or 80 feet; a person’s face can be recognized as “a portrait,” in rich detail, at up to about 48 feet.

Our own informal experiments show the following results. Two people with normal vision can communicate comfortably up to 75 feet. They can talk with raised voice, and they can see the general outlines of the expression on one another’s faces. This 75 foot maximum is extremely reliable. Repeated experiments gave the same distance again and again, ±10 per cent. At 100 feet it is uncomfortable to talk, and facial expression is no longer clear. Anything above 100 feet is hopeless.

Therefore:

Make a public square much smaller than you would at first imagine; usually no more than 45 to 60 feet across, never more than 70 feet across. This applies only to its width in the short direction. In the long direction it can certainly be longer.

• «

♦ ♦

An even better estimate for the size of the square: make a guess about the number of people who will typically be there (say, P), and make the area of the square no greater than I 50 to 300P square feet—pedestrian density (123); ring the square around with pockets of activity where people congregate— activity pockets (124) ; build buildings round the square in such a way that they give it a definite shape, with views out into other larger places—positive outdoor space (106), hierarchy OF open SPACE (114), BUILDING FRONTS (l22), STAIR SEATS (125); and to make the center of the square as useful as the edges, build SOMETHING ROUGHLY IN THE MIDDLE ( I 26) . . . .

3 M

S i £

CHOOSING A LANGUAGE FOR YOUR SUBJECT

a porch onto the front of his house. This is the way the language, and its patterns, helped to generate this porch.

I started with private terrace on the street (140). That pattern calls for a terrace, slightly raised, connected to the house, and on the street side, sunny place (161) suggests that a special place on the sunny side of the yard should be intensified and made into a place by the use of a patio, balcony, outdoor room, etc. I used these two patterns to locate a raised platform on the south side of the house.

To make this platform into an outdoor room (163), I put it half under the existing roof overhang, and kept a mature pyracanthus tree right smack in the middle of the platform. The overhead foliage of the tree added to the roof-like enclosure of the space. I put a wind screen of fixed glass on the west side of the platform too, to give it even more enclosure.

I used six-foot balcony (167) to determine the size of the platform. But this pattern had to be used judiciously and not blindly—the reasoning for the pattern has to do with the minimum space required for people to sit comfortably and carry on a discussion around a small side-table. Since I wanted space for at least two of these conversation areas—one under the roof for very hot or rainy days, and one out under the sky for days when you wanted to be full in the sun, the balcony had to be made 12x12 feet square.

Now paths and goals (I 20) ! Usually, this pattern deals with large paths in a neighborhood, and comes much earlier in a language. But I used it in a special way. It says that the paths which naturally get formed by people’s walking, on the land, should be preserved and intensified. Since the path to our front door cut right across the corner of the place where I had planned to put the platform, I cut the corner of the platform off.

The height of the platform above the ground was determined by ceiling height variety (190). By building the platform approximately one foot above the ground line, the ceiling height of the covered portion came out at between 6 and 7 feet—just right for a space as small as this. Since this height above the ground level is just about right for sitting, the pattern front door bench (242) was automatically satisfied.

There were three columns standing, supporting the roof over

xxxv 1

. . . according to four-story limit (21), most roofs in the community are no higher than four stories, about 40 or 50 feet. However, it is very important that this height limit be punctuated, just occasionally, by higher buildings which have special functions. They can help the character of the small public squares (61) and holy ground (66) ; they can give particular identity to their communities, provided that they do not occur more frequently than one in each community of 7000 (12).

The instinct to climb up to some high place, from which you can look down and survey your world, seems to be a fundamental human instinct.

The tiniest hamlets have a dominating landmark—usually the church tower. Great cities have hundreds of them. The instinct to build these towers is certainly not merely Christian; the same thing happens in different cultures and religions, all over the world. Persian villages have pigeon towers; Turkey, its minarets; San Gimignano, its houses in the form of towers; castles, their lookouts; Athens, its Acropolis; Rio, its rock.

These high places have two separate and complementary functions. They give people a place to climb up to, from which they can look down upon their world. And they give people a place which they can see from far away and orient themselves toward, when they are on the ground.

Listen to Proust:

Combray at a distance, from a twenty-mile radius, as we used to see it from the railway when we arrived there every year in Holy Week, was no more than a church epitomising the town, representing it, speaking of it and for it to the horizon, and as one drew near, gathering close about its long, dark cloak, sheltering from the wind, on the open plain, as a shepherd gathers his sheep, the woolly grey backs of its blocking houses. . . .

From a long way off one could distinguish and identify the steeple of Sainte-Hilaire inscribing its unforgetable form upon a horizon beneath which Combray had not yet appeared; when from the train

316 6 2 HIGH PLACES

which brought us down from Paris at Eastertime my father caught sight of it, as it slipped into every fold of the sky in turn, its little iron cock veering continually in all directions, he could say: “Come, get your wraps together, we are there.” (Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way.)

High places are equally important, too, as^- places from which to look down: places that give a spectacular, comprehensive view of the town. Visitors can go to them to get a sense of the entire area they have come to; and the people who live there can do so too—to reassess the shape and scope of their surroundings. 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 tire car or elevator, and to climb. The act of climbing, even if only for a few steps, clears the mind and prepares the body.

As for distribution, we suggest about one of these high places for each community of 7000, high enough to be seen throughout the community. If high places are less frequent, they tend to be too special, and they have less power as landmarks.

Therefore:

Build occasional high places as landmarks throughout the city. They can be a natural part of the topography, or towers, or part of the roofs of the highest local building— but, in any case, they should include a physical climb.

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* * *

Elaborate the area around the base of the high place—it is a natural position for a small public square (6i) ; give the stair which leads up to the top, openings with views out, so that people can stop on the stair, sit down, look out, and be seen while they are climbing—stair seats (125), zen view (134), open stairs (158). . . .

318

. . . several patterns have laid the groundwork for evening activity in public—magic of the city (io), promenade (31),

NIGHT LIFE (33), CARNIVAL (58), SMALL PUBLIC SQUARES (6l). To make these places alive at night, there is nothing like music and dancing; this pattern simply states the physical conditions which will encourage dancing and music to fill the streets.

4* *!• 4*

Why is it that people don’t dance in the streets today?

All over the earth, people once danced in the streets; in theater, song, and natural speech, “dancing in the street” is an image of supreme joy. Many cultures still have some version of this activity. There are the Balinese dancers who fall into a trance whirling around in the street; the mariachi bands in Mexico—every town has several squares where the bands play and the neighborhood comes out to dance; there is the European and American tradition of bandstands and jubilees in the park; there is the bon odori festival in Japan, when everybody claps and dances in the streets.

But in those parts of the world that have become “modern” and technically sophisticated, this experience has died. Communities are fragmented; people are uncomfortable in the streets, afraid with one another; not many people play the right kind of music; people are embarrassed.

Certainly there is no way in which a change in the environment, as simple as the one which we propose, can remedy these circumstances. But we detect a change in mood. The embarrassment and the alienation are recent developments, blocking a more basic need. And as we get in touch with these needs, things start to happen. People remember how to dance; everyone takes up an instrument; many hundreds form little bands. At this writing, in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland there is a controversy over “street musicians”—bands that have spontaneously begun playing in streets and plazas whenever the weather is good— where should they be allowed to play, do they obstruct traffic, shall people dance?

320 63 DANCING IN THE STREET

It is in this atmosphere that we propose the pattern. Where there is feeling for the importance of the activity re-emerging, then the right setting can actualize it and give it roots. The essentials are straightforward: a platform for the musicians, perhaps with a cover; hard surface for dancing, all around the bandstand; places to sit and lean for people who want to watch and rest; provision for some drink and refreshment (some Mexican bandstands have a beautiful way of building tiny stalls into the base of the bandstand, so that people are drawn though the dancers and up to the music, for a fruit drink or a beer) ; the whole thing set somewhere where people congregate.

Therefore:

Along promenades, in squares and evening centers, make a slightly raised platform to form a bandstand, where street musicians and local bands can play. Cover it, and perhaps build in at ground level tiny stalls for refreshment. Surround the bandstand with paved surface for dancing—no admission charge.

raised bandstand

food and drink

paved surface for dancing

*£♦

Place the bandstand in a pocket of activity, toward the edge of a square or a promenade—activity pockets (124) ; make it a room, defined by trellises and columns—public outdoor room (69); build food stands (93) around the bandstand; and for dancing, maybe colored canvas canopies, which reach out over portions of the street, and make the street, or parts of it, into a great, half-open tent—canvas roofs (244). . . .

321

. . . the land, in its natural state, is hardly ever flat, and was, in its most primitive condition, overrun with rills and streams which carried off the rainwater. There is no reason to destroy this natural feature of the land in a town—sacred sites (24), access to water (25)—in fact, it is essential that it be preserved, or recreated. And in doing so it will be possible to deepen several larger patterns—boundaries between neighborhoods can easily be formed by streams—neighborhood boundary (15), quiet backs can be made more tranquil—quiet backs (59), pedestrian streets can be made more human and more natural—pedestrian STREET ( 100) .

We came from the water; our bodies are largely water; and water plays a fundamental role in our psychology. We need constant access to water, all around us; and we cannot have it without reverence for water in all its forms. But everywhere in cities water is out of reach.

Even in the temperate climates that are water rich, the natural sources of water are dried up, hidden, covered, lost. Rainwater runs underground in sewers; water reservoirs are covered and fenced off; swimming pools are saturated with chlorine and fenced off; ponds are so polluted that no one wants to go near them any more.

And especially in heavily populated areas water is scarce. We cannot possibly have the daily access to it which we and our children need, unless all water, in all its forms, is exposed, preserved, and nourished in an endless local texture of small pools, ponds, reservoirs, and streams in every neighborhood.

There are various ways of expressing the connection between people and water. The biologist, L. J. Henderson, observed that the saline content of human blood is essentially the same as that of the sea, because we came from the sea. Elaine Morgan, an anthropologist, speculates that during the drought of the Pliocene era, we went back to the sea and lived 10 million years as sea mam-'

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TOWNS

mals in the shallow waters along the edge of the ocean. Apparently, this hypothesis explains a great deal about the human body, the way in which it is adapted to water, which is otherwise obscure (The Descent of Woman, New York: Bantam Books, 1973).

Furthermore, among psychoanalysts it is common to consider the bodies of water that appear in people’s dreams as loaded with meaning. Jung and the Jungian analysts take great bodies of water as representing the dreamer’s unconscious. We even speculate, in light of the psychoanalytic evidence, that going into the water may bring a person closer to the unconscious processes in his life. We guess that people who swim and dive often, in lakes and pools and in the ocean, may be closer to their dreams, more in contact with their unconscious, than people who swim rarely. Several studies have in fact demonstrated that water has a positive therapeutic effect; that it sets up growth experience. (For references, see Ruth Hartley et al., Understanding Children’s Play, Columbia University Press, New York: 1964, Chapter V).

All of this suggests that our lives are diminished if we cannot establish rich and abiding contact with water. But of course, in most cities we cannot. Swimming pools, lakes, and beaches are few in number and far away. And consider also the water supply. Our only contact with this water is to turn on the tap. We take the water for granted. But as marvelous as the high technology of water treatment and distribution has become, it does not satisfy the emotional need to make contact with the local reservoirs, and to understand the cycle of water: its limits and its mystery.

But it is possible to imagine a town where there are many hundreds of places near every home and workplace where there is water. Water to swim in, water to sit beside, water where you can dangle your feet. Consider, for example, the running water: the brooks and streams. Today they are paved over and forced underground. Instead of building with them, and alongside them, planners simply get them out of the way, as if to say: “the vagaries of nature have no place in a rational street grid.” But we can build in ways which maintain contact with water, in ponds and pools, in reservoirs, and in brooks and streams. We can

6 4 POOLS AND STREAMS

even build details that connect people with the collection and run-off of rain water.

Think of the shallow ponds and pools that children need. It is possible for these pools and ponds to be available throughout the city, close enough for children to walk to. Some can be part of the larger pools. Others tan be bulges of streams that run through the city, where a balanced ecology is allowed to develop along their edges—ponds witli ducks and carp, with edges safe enough for children to come close.

And consider the system of local and distribution reservoirs. We can locate local reservoirs and distribution reservoirs so that people can get at them; we might build them as kinds of shrines, where people can come to get in touch with the source of their water supply; the place immediately around the water an atmosphere inviting contemplation. These shrines could be set into the public space: perhaps as one end of a promenade, or as a boundary of common land between two communities.

And think of running water, in all its possible forms. People who have been deprived of it in their daily surroundings go to great lengths to get out of their towns into the countryside, where they can watch a river flow, or sit by a stream and gaze at the water. Children are fascinated by running water. They use it endlessly, to play in, to throw sticks and see them disappear, to run little paper boats along, to stir up mud and watch it clear gradually.

CHOOSING A LANGUAGE FOR YOUR SUBJECT

the old porch. They had to stay where they are, because they hold the roof up. But, following columns at the corners (212), the platform was very carefully tailored to their positions—so that the columns help define the social spaces on either side of them.

Finally, we put a couple of flower boxes next to the “front door bench”—it’s nice to smell them when you sit there—according to raised flowers (245). And the old chairs you can see in the porch are different chairs (251).

You can see, from this short example, how powerful and simple a pattern language is. And you are now, perhaps ready to appreciate how careful you must be, when you construct a language for yourself and your own project.

The character of the porch is given by the ten patterns in this short language. In just this way, each part of the environment is given its character by the collection of patterns which we choose to build into it. The character of what you build, will be given to it by the language of patterns you use, to generate it.

XXXVII

Natural streams in their original streambeds, together with their surrounding vegetation, can be preserved and maintained. Rainwater can be allowed to assemble from rooftops into small pools and to run through channels along garden paths and public pedestrian paths, where it can be seen and enjoyed. Fountains can be built in public places. And in those cities where streams have been buried, it may even be possible to unravel them again.

In summary, we propose that every building project, at every scale, take stock of the distribution of water and the access to water in its neighborhood. Where there is a gap, where nourishing contact with water is missing, then each project should make some attempt, on its own and in combination with other projects, to bring some water into the environment. There is no other way to build up an adequate texture of water in cities: we need pools for swimming, ornamental and natural pools, streams of rain water, fountains, falls, natural brooks and streams running through towns, tiny garden pools, and reservoirs we can get to and appreciate.

Therefore:

Preserve natural pools and streams and allow them to run through the city; make paths for people to walk along them and footbridges to cross them. Let the streams form natural barriers in the city, with traffic crossing them only infrequently on bridges.

326 64 POOLS AND STREAMS

Whenever possible, collect rainwater in open gutters and allow it to flow above ground, along pedestrian paths and in front of houses. In places without natural running water, create fountains in the streets.

♦£*

If at all possible, make all the pools and swimming holes part of the running water—not separate—since this is the only way that pools are able to keep alive and clean without the paraphernalia of pumps and chlorine—still water (71). Sometimes, here and there, give the place immediately around the water the atmosphere of contemplation; perhaps with arcades, perhaps some special common land, perhaps one end of a promenade—promenade (3 I ), HOLY GROUND (66) , ARCADES ( I 19) . . . .