A pattern language

In many modern building complexes the problem of disorientation is acute. People have no idea where they are, and they experience considerable mental stress as a result.

. . . the terror of being lost comes from the necessity that a mobile organism be oriented in its surroundings. Jaccard quotes an incident of native Africans who became disoriented. They were stricken with panic and plunged wildly into the bush. Witkin tells of an experienced pilot who lost his orientation to the vertical, and who described it as the most terrifying experience in his life. Many other writers in describing the phenomenon of temporary disorientation in the modern city, speak of the accompanying emotions of distress. (Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, i960, p. 125.)

It is easiest to state the circulation problem for the case of a complete stranger who has to find his way around the complex of buildings. Imagine yourself as the stranger, looking for a particular address, within the building. From your point of view, the building is easy to grasp if someone can explain the position of this address to you, in a way you can remember easily, and carry in your head while you are looking for it. To put this in its most pungent form: a person must be able to explain any given address within the building, to any other person, who does not know his way around, in one sentence. For instance, “Come straight through the main gate, down the main path and turn into the second little gate, the small one with the blue grillwork—you can’t miss my door.”

At first sight, it might seem that the problem is only important for strangers—since a person who is familiar with a building can find his way around no matter how badly it is organized.

BUILDINGS

However, psychological theory suggests that the effect of badly laid out circulation has almost as bad an effect on a person who knows a building, as it does on a stranger. We may assume that every time a person goes toward some destination, he must carry some form of map or instruction in his mind. The question arises: How much of the time does he have to be consciously thinking about this map and his destination;¹ If he spends a great deal of time looking out for landmarks, thinking about where to go next, then his time is entirely occupied, and leaves him little time for the process of reflection, tranquil contemplation, and thought.

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. A good environment is one which is easy to understand, without conscious attention.

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What makes an environment easy to understand? What makes an environment confusing? Let us imagine that a person is going to a particular address within a building. Call this address A. The person who is looking for A does not go directly toward A—unless it happens to be visible from the point where he starts. Instead, he sets his journey up to form a series of steps, in which each step is a kind of temporary intermediate goal, and a taking off point for the next step. For example: First go through the gate, then to the second courtyard on the left, then to the right-hand arcade of the courtyard, and then through the third door. This sequence is a kind of map which the person has in his head. If it is always easy to construct such a map, it is easy to find your way around the building. If it is not easy, it is hard to find your way around.

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The way the map in your mind, works.

482 98 CIRCULATION REALMS

A map works because it identifies a nested system of realms (in the case of our example the realms arc first, the building itself, then the courtyard, then the arcade, then the room itself, the destination). The map guides you to the entrance of the largest realm, and from there to the entrance of the next largest realm, and so on. You make one decision at a time, and each decision you make narrows down the extent of the building which remains to be explored, until you finally narrow it down to the particular address you are looking for.

It seems reasonable to say that any useful map through a building complex must have this structure, and that any building complex in which you cannot create maps of this kind is confusing to be in. This is borne out by intuition. Consider these two examples; each has a system of realms which allows you to make such maps very easily.

An Oxford college. Here the college is made up of courts, each court has a collection of rooms called a “staircase” opening off it, and the individual suites of rooms open off these staircases. The realms are; College, Courts, Staircases, Rooms.

Manhattan. Here the city is made up of major areas, each major area has certain central streets and arteries. The realms are: Manhattan, Districts, Realms defined by the avenues, and Realms defined by cross streets and individual buildings. Manhattan is clear because the districts are so well defined, and the realms defined by the streets are subordinate to the realms defined by the avenues.

We conclude that in order to be clear, a building complex must follow three rules:

1. It is possible to identify a nested system of realms in the complex, the first and largest of these realms being the entire complex.

2. Each realm has a main circulation space, which opens directly from the entrances to that realm.

3. The entrances to any realm open directly off the circulation space of the next larger realm above it.

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.

Therefore:

Lay out very large buildings and collections of small buildings so that one reaches a given point inside by passing through a sequence of realms, each marked by a gateway and becoming smaller and smaller, as one passes from each one, through a gateway, to the next. Choose the realms so that each one can be easily named, so that you can tell a person where to go, simply by telling him which realms to go through.

Treat the first entrances to the whole system of circulation realms, the very largest ones, as gateways—main gateways (53) ■, make the major realms, which open off the gateways, pedestrian streets or common land—common eand (67), pedestrian street (100) ; then, make minor realms with individual buildings, and courtyards, and major indoor streets—main building

(99), BUILDING THOROUGHFARE (iOl), HIERARCHY OF OPEN

space (i 14), courtyards which live (I I 5) ; and mark the entrance to these minor realms with minor entrances that still stand out quite clearly—family of entrances (102), main entrance (1 10). Make the layout of paths consonant with paths and goals (1 20)....

99 main building*

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Do what you can to establish a world government_y with a thousand independent regions, instead of countries;

I. INDEPENDENT REGIONS

. . . once you have decided more or ]ess how people will move around within the building complex (95), and roughly how high the buildings will be—number of stories (96)—it is time to try and find the natural heart or center of the building complex, to help complete its circulation realms (98).

A complex of buildings with no center is like a man without a head.

In circulation realms we have explained how people understand their surroundings and orient themselves in their surroundings by making mental maps. Such a map needs a point of reference: some point in the complex of buildings, which is very obvious, and so placed, that it is possible to refer all the other paths and buildings to it. A main building, which is also the functional soul of the complex, is the most likely candidate for this reference point. Without a main building, there is very little chance of any natural points of reference being strong enough to act as an organizer for one’s mental map.

Furthermore, from the point of view of the group of users—the workers or the inhabitants—the sense of community and connection is heightened when one building or a part of one building is singled out and treated as a main building, common to all, the heart of the institution. Some examples: the meeting hall among a collection of government buildings; a guild hall in a work community; the kitchen and family room in a communal household; the merry-go-round in a park; a temple on sacred ground; the swimming pavilion in a health center; the workshop in an office.

Great care must be taken to pick that function which is actually the soul of the group, in human terms, for the main building. Otherwise, some irrelevant set of functions will dominate the building complex. The United Nations complex in New York fails for just this reason. Tire General Assembly, the heart and soul of the institution, is dwarfed by the bureaucratic Secretariat. And, indeed, this institution has suffered from the

486

99 main building

red-tape mentality. (See the excellent series of articles by Lewis Mumford, discussing the U.N. buildings in From the Ground, Up, Harvest Books, 1956, pp. 20-70.)

Therefore:

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.

Even if the building complex is so dense that it is a single building, build the main part of it higher and more prominent than the rest, so that the eye goes immediately to the part which is the most important.

high roof

Build all the main paths tangent to the main building, in arcades or glazed corridors, with a direct view into its main functions—common areas at the heart (129). Make the roof cascade down from the high roof over the main building to lower roofs over the smaller buildings—cascade of roofs ( i 16). And for the load bearing structure, engineering, and construction, begin with STRUCTURE FOLLOWS SOCIAL SPACES (2O5). . . .

100 PEDESTRIAN STREET**
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488

. . . the earlier patterns—promenade (31), shopping street (32) and network of paths and cars (52), all call for dense pedestrian streets; row houses (38), housing hill (39), university as A MARKETPLACE (43), MARKET OF MANY SHOPS (46), all do the same; and within the building complex (95), circulation realms (98) calls for the same. As you build a pedestrian street, make sure you place it so that it helps to generate a network of paths and cars (52), raised walks (55), and circulation realms (98) in the town around it.

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The simple social intercourse created when people rub shoulders in public is one of the most essential kinds of social “glue” in society.

In today’s society this situation, and therefore this glue, is largely missing. It is missing in large part because so much of the actual process of movement is now taking place in indoor corridors and lobbies, instead of outdoors. This happens partly because the cars have taken over streets, and made them uninhabitable, and partly because the corridors, which have been built in response, encourage the same process. But it is doubly damaging in its effect.

It is damaging because it robs the streets of people. Most of the moving about which people do is indoors—hence lost to the street; the street becomes abandoned and dangerous.

And it is damaging because the indoor lobbies and corridors are most often dead. This happens partly because indoor space is not as public as outdoor space; and partly because, in a multi-story building each corridor carries a lower density of traffic than a public outdoor street. It is therefore unpleasant, even unnerving, to move through them; people in them are in no state to generate, or benefit from, social intercourse.

To recreate the social intercourse of public movement, as far as possible, the movement between rooms, offices, departments, buildings, must actually be outdoors, on sheltered walks, arcades, paths,

streets, which are truly public and separate from cars. Individual wings, small buildings, departments must as often as possible have their own entrances—so that the number of entrances onto the street increases and life comes back to the street.

In short, the solution to these two problems we have mentioned —the streets infected by cars and the bland corridors—is the pedestrian street. Pedestrian streets are both places to walk along (from car, bus, or train to one’s destination) and places to pass through (between apartments, shops, offices, services, classes).

To function properly, pedestrian streets need two special properties. First, of course, no cars; but frequent crossings by streets with traffic, see network of paths and cars (52): deliveries and other activities which make it essential to bring cars and trucks onto the pedestrian street must be arranged at the early hours of the morning, when the streets are deserted. Second, the buildings along pedestrian streets must be planned in a way which as nearly as possible eliminates indoor staircases, corridors, and lobbies, and leaves most circulation outdoors. This creates a street lined with stairs, which lead from all upstairs offices and rooms directly to the street, and many many entrances, which help to increase the life of the street.

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. (See “Vehicle free zones in city centers,” International Brief U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of International Affairs, June 1972).

About square ... or even narrower.

Therefore:

Arrange buildings so that they form pedestrian streets with many entrances and open stairs directly from the upper storys to the street, so that even movement between rooms is outdoors, not just movement between buildings.

100 PEDESTRIAN STREET

no cars

The street absolutely will not work unless its total area is small enough to be well filled by the pedestrians in it—pedestrian density (123). Make frequent entrances and open stairs along the street, instead of building indoor corridors, to bring the people out; and give these entrances a family resemblance so one sees them as a system—family of entrances (102), open stairs (158) ; give people indoor and outdoor spaces which look on the street—private terrace on the street (140), street windows (164), OPENING to THE STREET (165), GALLERY SURROUND (166), six-foot balcony (167); and shape the street to make a space of it—arcade (119), path shape (121). . . .

491

IOI BUILDING THOROUGHFARE

492

. . . if the building complex is built at high density, then at least part of the circulation cannot be made of outdoor pedestrian streets (loo) because the buildings cover too much of the land; in this case, the main spines of the circulation realms (98) must take the form of building thoroughfares similar to pedestrian streets, but partly or wholly inside the buildings. Building thoroughfares replace the terrible corridors which destroy so much of modern building, and help to generate the indoor layout of a BUILDING COMPLEX (95 ) .

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When a public building complex cannot be completely served by outdoor pedestrian streets, a new form of indoor street, quite different from the conventional corridor, is needed.

An indoor street.

The problem arises under two conditions.

1. Cold weather. In very cold climates to have all circulation outdoors inhibits social communication instead of helping it. Of course, a street can be roofed, particularly with a glass roof. But as soon as it becomes enclosed, it has a different social ecology and begins to function differently.

2. High density. When a building complex is so tightly packed

493

on the site that there is no reasonable space for outdoor streets because the entire building complex is a continuous two, three, or four story building, it becomes necessary to think of major thoroughfares in different terms.

To solve the problems posed by these conditions, streets must be replaced by indoor thoroughfares or corridors. But the moment we put them indoors and under cover, they begin to suffer from entirely new problems, which are caused by the fact that they get sterilized by their isolation. First, they become removed from the public realm, and are often deserted. People hardly ever feel free to linger in public corridors when they are off the street. And second, the corridors become so unfriendly that nothing ever happens there. They are designed for scuttling people through, but not for staying in.

In order to solve these new problems, created when we try to put a street indoors, the indoor streets—or building thoroughfares —need five specific characteristics.

I. Shortcut

Public places are meant to invite free loitering. The public places in community buildings (city halls, community centers, public libraries) especially need this quality, because when people feel free to hang around they will necessarily get acquainted with what goes on in the building and may begin to use it.

But people rarely feel free to stay in these places without an Official Reason. Goffman describes this situation as follows:

Being present in a public place without an orientation to apparent goals outside the situation is sometimes called lolling, when position is fixed, and loitering, when some movement is entailed. Either can be deemed sufficiently improper to merit legal action. On many of our city streets, especially at certain hours, the police will question anyone who appears to be doing nothing and ask him to “move along.” (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.) In Chicago, an individual in the uniform of a hobo can loll on “the stem,” but once off this preserve he is required to look as if he were intent on getting to some business destination. Similarly, some mental patients owe their commitment to the fact that the police found them wandering on the streets at off hours without any apparent destination or purpose in mind. (Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, New York: Free Press, 1963, p. 56.)

494

IOI BUILDING THOROUGHFARE

If a public space is to be really useful it must somehow help to counter the anti-loitering tendency in modern society. Specifically, we have observed these problems:

a. 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.

Places which overcome these problems, like the Galleria in Milan, all have a common characteristic: they all have public thoroughfares which slice through them, lined with places to stop and loiter and watch the scene.

Shortcuts.

2. Width

An indoor street needs to be wide enough for people to feel comfortable walking or stopping along the way. Informal experiments help to determine how much space people need when they pass others. Since the likelihood of three people passing three people is not high, we consider as a maximum two people passing two people, or three people passing one person. Each person takes about two feet; there needs to be about one foot between two groups which pass, so that they do not feel crowded; and

495

I INDEPENDENT REGIONS**
10

BUILDINGS

people usually walk at least one foot away from the wall. The street width, therefore, should be at least n feet.

Our experiments also indicate that a person seated or standing at the edge of a street feels uncomfortable if anyone passes closer than five feet. Thus, in places in the street where seats, activities, entrances, and counters are placed, the street should widen to about 16 feet (one-sided) or 20 feet (two-sided).

J. Height

Ceiling heights should also feel comfortable for people walking or standing along an indoor street. According to ceiling height variety (190), the height of any space should be equal to the appropriate horizontal social distances between people for the given situation—the higher the ceiling, the more distant people seem from each other.

Edward Hall, in The Hidden Dimension, suggests that a comfortable distance between strangers is the distance at which you cannot distinguish the details of their facial features. He gives this distance as being between 12 and 16 feet. Thus, the ceiling height in an indoor street should be at least in that range.

Where people sit and stand talking to each other, the appropriate social distance is more intimate. Hall gives it a dimension of four to seven feet. Thus, the ceiling in activity and “edge” places should be seven feet.

This suggests, for a large indoor street, a ceiling that is high in the middle and low at the edges. In the middle, where people are passing through and are more anonymous, the ceiling may be 12 to 20 feet high, or even higher, according to the scale of the passage. Along the edges of the thoroughfare, where people are invited to stop and become slightly more engaged in the life of the building, the ceilings may be lower. Here are three sections through an indoor street which have this property.

JX A.

Cross sections of an indoor street.

IOI BUILDING THOROUGHFARE

4. Wide entrance

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.

5. Involvements along the edge

To invite the free loitering described above under Shortcut, the street needs a continuum of various “involvements” along its edge.

Rooms next to the street should have windows opening onto the street. We know it is unpleasant to walk down a corridor lined with blank walls. Not only do you lose the sense of where you are but you get the feeling that all the life in the building is on the other side of the walls, and you feel cut off from it. We guess that this contact with the public is not objectionable for the workers, so long as it is not too extreme, that is, as long as the workplace is protected either by distance or by a partial wall.

The corridor should be lined with seats and places to stop, such as newspaper, magazine, and candy stands, bulletin boards, exhibits, and displays.

Where there are entrances and counters of offices and services off the corridor, they should project into the corridor. Like activities, entrances and counters create places in the corridor, and should be combined with seats and other places to stop. In most public service buildings these counters and entrances are usually set back from corridors which makes them hard to see, and emphasizes the difference between the corridor as a place for passing through, and the office as a place where things happen. The problems can be solved if the entrances and counters project into the corridor and become part of it.

Therefore:

Wherever density or climate force the main lines of circulation indoors, build them as building thoroughfares. Place each thoroughfare in a position where it functions as a shortcut, as continuous as possible with the public street

outside, with wide open entrances. And line its edges with windows, places to sit, counters, and entrances which project out into the hall and expose the buildings’ main functions to the public. Make it wider than a normal corridor—at least n feet wide and more usually, 15 to 20 feet wide; give it a high ceiling, at least 15 feet, with a glazed roof if possible and low places along the edge. If the street is several stories high, then the walkways along the edges, on the different stories, can be used to form the low places.

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Treat the thoroughfare as much like a pedestrian street (100) as possible, with open stairs (158) coming into it from upper storys. Place entrances, reception points, and seats to form the pockets of activity under the lower ceilings at the edges—

FAMILY OF ENTANCES (l02), ACTIVITY POCKETS (124), RECEPTION WELCOMES YOU ( I 49), WINDOW PLACE (l8o), CEILING

height variety (190), and give these places strong natural light—tapestry of light and dark (I 35). Make a connection to adjacent rooms with interior windows (194) and solid doors with glass (237). To give the building thoroughfare the proper sense of liveliness, calculate its overall size according to pedestrian DENSITY (123). . . .

102 FAMILY OF ENTRANCES*

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. . . this pattern is an embellishment of circulation realms (98). circulation realms portrayed a series of realms, in a large building or a building complex, with a major entrance or gateway into each realm and a collection of minor doorways, gates, and openings off each realm. This pattern applies to the relationship between these “minor” entrances.

When a person arrives in a complex of offices or services or workshops, or in a group of related houses, there is a good chance he will experience confusion unless the whole collection is laid out before him, so that he can see the entrance of the place where he is going.

In our work at the Center we have encountered and defined several versions of this pattern. To make the general problem clear, we shall go through these cases and then draw out the general rule.

I. In our multi-service center project we called this pattern Overview of Services. We found that people could find their way around and see exactly what the building had to offer, if the various services were laid out in a horseshoe, directly visible from the threshold of the building. See A Pattern Language Which Generates Multi-Service Centers, pp. 123—26.

Overview of services.

2. Another version of the pattern, called Reception Nodes, was used for mental health clinics. In these cases we specified one

102 FAMILY OF ENTRANCES

dearly defined main entrance, with main reception clearly visible inside this main entrance and each “next” point of reception then visible from the previous one, so that a patient who might be frightened or confused could find his way about by asking receptionists—and could always be directed to the next, visible receptionist down the line.

Reception nodes.

3. In our project for re-building the Berkeley City Hall complex, we used another version of the pattern. Within the indoor streets, the entrance to each service was made in a similar way—each one bulged out slightly into the street, so that people could easily find their way around among the resulting family of entrances.

Family of entrances.

jmmm.

4. We have also applied the pattern to houses which are laid out to form a cluster. In one example the pattern drew different house entrances together to make a mutually visible collection of them, and again gave each of them a similar shape.

In all these cases, the same central problem exists. A person who is looking for one of several entrances, and doesn’t know his way around, needs to have some simple way of identifying the one entrance he wants. It can be identified as “the blue one,” “the one with the mimosa bush outside,” “the one with a big 18 on it,” or “the last one on the right, after you get round the

corner/’ but in every case the identification of “the one . . can only make sense if the entire collection of possible entrances can first be r en and understood as a collection. Then it is possible to pick one particular entrance out, without conscious effort.

Therefore:

Lay out the entrances to form a family. This means:

1. They form a group, are visible together, and each is visible from all the others.

2. They are all broadly similar, for instance all porches, or all gates in a wall, or all marked by a similar kind of doorway.

family of entrances

In detail, make the entrances bold and easy to see—main entrance (iio); when they lead into private domains, houses and the like, make a transition in between the public street and the inside—entrance transition (112); and shape the entrance itself as a room, which straddles the wall, and is thus both inside and outside as a projecting volume, covered and protected from the rain and sun—entrance room (130). If it is an entrance from an indoor street into a public office, make reception part of the entrance room—reception welcomes you (149). . . .

103 SMALL PARKING LOTS*

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. . . since a small parking lot is a kind of gateway—the place where you leave your car, and enter a pedestrian realm—this pattern helps to complete shopping streets (32), house

CLUSTER (37), WORK COMMUNITY (41), GREEN STREETS (51),

main gateways (53), circulation realms (98), and any other areas which need small and convenient amounts of parking. But above all, if it is used correctly, this pattern, together with shielded parking (97), will help to generate nine per cent parking (22) gradually, by increments.

v * *

Vast parking lots wreck the land for people.

In nine per cent parking (22), we have suggested that the fabric of society is threatened by the mere existence of cars, if areas for parked cars take up more than 9 or 10 per cent of the land in a community.

We now face a second problem. Even when parked cars occupy less than 9 per cent of the land, they can still be distributed in two entirely different ways. They can be concentrated in a few huge parking lots; or they can be scattered in many tiny parking lots. The tiny parking lots are far better for the environment than the large ones, even when their total areas are the same.

Large parking lots have a way of taking over the landscape, creating unpleasant places, and having a depressing effect on the

The destruction of human scale.

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103 SMALL PARKING LOTS

open space around them. They make people feel dominated by cars; they separate people from the pleasure and convenience of being near their cars; and, if they are large enough to contain unpredictable traffic, they are dangerous for children, since children inevitably play in parking lots.

The problems stem essentially from the fact that a car is so much bigger than a person. Large parking lots, suited for the cars, have all the wrong properties for people. They are too wide; they contain too much pavement; they have no place to linger. In fact, we have noticed that people speed up when they are walking through large parking lots to get out of them as fast as possible.

It is hard to pin down the exact size at which parking lots become too big. Our observations suggest that parking lots for four cars are still essentially pedestrian and human in character; that lots for six cars are acceptable; but that any area near a parking lot which holds eight cars is already clearly identifiable as “car dominated territory.”

This may be connected with the well-known perceptual facts about the number seven. A collection of less than five to seven objects can be grasped as one thing, and the objects in it can be grasped as individuals. A collection of more than five to seven things is perceived as “many things.” (See G. Miller, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information,” in D. Beardslee and M. Wertheimer, eds., Readings in Perception, New York, 1958, esp. p. 103.) It may be true that the impression of a “sea of cars” first comes into being with about seven cars.

The small lots can be quite loosely placed.

Metropolitan regions will not come to balance until each one is small and autonomous enough to be an independent sphere of culture.

There are four separate arguments which have led us to this conclusion: I. The nature and limits of human government. 2. Equity among regions in a world community. 3. Regional planning considerations. 4. Support for the intensity and diversity of human cultures.

I. There are natural limits to the size of groups that can govern themselves in a human way. The biologist J. B. S. Haldane has remarked on this in his paper, “On Being the Right Size”:

. . . just as there is a best size for every animal, so the same is true for every human institution. In the Greek type of democracy all the citizens could listen to a series of orators and vote directly on questions of legislation. Hence their philosophers held that a small city was the largest possible democratic state. ... (J. B. S Haldane, “On Being the Right Size,” The World of Mathematics, Vol, 77, J. R. Newman, ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956, pp. 962-67).

It is not hard to see why the government of a region becomes less and less manageable with size. In a population of N persons, there are of the order of N² person-to-person links needed to keep channels of communication open. Naturally, when N goes beyond a certain limit, the channels of communication needed for democracy and justice and information are simply too clogged, and too complex; bureaucracy overwhelms human processes.

And, of course, as N grows the number of levels in the hierarchy of government increases too. In small countries like Denmark there are so few levels, that any private citizen can have access to the Minister of Education. But this kind of direct access is quite impossible in larger countries like England or the United States.

We believe the limits are reached when the population of a region reaches some 2 to 10 million. Beyond this size, people become remote from the large-scale processes of government. Our estimate may seem extraordinary in the light of modern history: the nation-states have grown mightily and their governments hold power over tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, of people. But these huge powers cannot claim to have a natural size.

11

BUILDINGS

Therefore:

Make parking lots small, serving no more than five to seven cars, each lot surrounded by garden walls, hedges, fences, slopes, and trees, so that from outside the cars are almost invisible. Space these small lots so that they are at least too feet apart.

five to seven cars

«£♦ *$♦

Place entrances and exits of the parking lots in such a way that they fit naturally into the pattern of pedestrian movement and lead directly, without confusion, to the major entrances to individual buildings—circulation realms (98). Shield even these quite modest parking lots with garden walls, and trees, and fences, so that they help to generate the space around them— POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE (l06), TREE PLACES ( 171 ), GARDEN WALLS (l73). . • •

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fix the position of individual buildings on the site, within the complex_y one by one_y according to the nature of the site_} the trees, the sun: this is one of the most important moments in the language;

104. SITE REPAIR

105. SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS

106 POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE

107. WINGS OF LIGHT

108. CONNECTED BUILDINGS

109. LONG THIN HOUSE

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104 SITE repair**

. . . the most general aspects of a building complex are established in BUILDINC COMPLEX (95), NUMBER OF STORIES (96), and circulation realms (98). The patterns which follow, and all remaining patterns in the language, concern the design of one single building and its surroundings. This pattern explains the very first action you must take—-the process of repairing the site. Since it tends to identify very particular small areas of any site as promising areas of development, it is greatly supported by building complex (95) which breaks buildings into smaller parts, and therefore makes it possible to tuck them into different corners of the site in the best places.

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.

What usually happens when someone thinks of building on a piece of land? He looks for the best site—where the grass is most beautiful, the trees most healthy, the slope of the land most even, the view most lovely, the soil most fertile—and that is just where he decides to put his house. The same thing happens whether the piece of land is large or small. On a small lot in a town the building goes in the sunniest corner, wherever it is most pleasant. On a hundred acres in the country, the buildings go on the miost pleasant hillside.

It is only human nature; and, for a person ■ who lacks a total view of the ecology of the land, it seems the most obvious and sensible thing to do. If you are going to build a building, “. . . build it in the best possible place.”

But think now of the three-quarters of the available land which are not quite so nice. Since people always build on the one-quarter which is healthiest, the other three-quarters, already less healthy ecologically, become neglected. Gradually, they become

less and less healthy. Who is ever going to do anything on that corner of the lot which is dark and dank, where the garbage accumulates, or that part of the land which is a stagnant swamp, or the dry, stony hillside, where no plants are growing!¹

Not only that. When we build on the best parts of the land, those beauties which are there already—the crocuses that break through the lawn each spring, the sunny pile of stones where lizards sun themselves, the favorite gravel path, which we love walking on—it is always these things which get lost in the shuffle. When the construction starts on the parts of the land which are already healthy, innumerable beauties are wiped out with every act of building.

People always say to themselves, well, of course, we can always start another garden, build another trellis, put in another gravel path, put new crocuses in the new lawn, and the lizards will find some other pile of stones. But it just is not so. These simple things take years to grow—it isn’t all that easy to create them, just by wanting to. And every time we disturb one of these precious details, it may take twenty years, a lifetime even, before some comparable details grow again from our small daily acts.

If we always build on that part of the land which is most healthy, we can be virtually certain that a great deal of the land will always be less than healthy. If we want the land to be healthy all over—all of it—then we must do the opposite. We must treat every new act of building as an opportunity to mend some rent in the existing cloth; each act of building gives us the chance to make one of the ugliest and least healthy parts of the environment more healthy—as for those parts which are already healthy and beautiful—they of course need no attention. And in fact, we must discipline ourselves most strictly to leave them alone, so that our energy actually goes to the places which need it. This is the principle of site repair.

The fact is, that current development hardly ever does well by this pattern: everyone has a story about how some new building or road destroyed a place dear to them. The following news article from the San Francisco Chronicle (February 6, 1973) headlined ^ccAngry Boys Bulldoze House” struck us as the perfect case:

Two 13-year old boys—enraged over a swath of suburban homes being built in the midst of their rabbit-hunting turf—were arrested

5¹⁰ 104 ^SITE repair

after they admitted flattening one of the homes with a purloined bulldozer.

According to the Washoe County sheriff’s office, the youths started up a bulldozer used at the construction site about four miles north of Reno, then plowed the sturdy vehicle through one of the homes four times late last Friday night.

The ranch-style house—which was nearly completed—was a shambles when workmen arrived yesterday morning. Damage was estimated at $7800 by the contractor. One of the boys told authorities the home along with several others nearby was ruining a “favorite rabbit-hunting preserve.”

The two boys were booked on charges of felonious destruction.

The idea of site repair is just a beginning. It deals with the problem of how to minimize damage. But the most talented of traditional builders have always been able to use built form, not only to avoid damage, but also to improve the natural landscape. This attitude is so profoundly different from our current view of building, that concepts which will help us decide how to place buildings to imfrove the landscape don’t even exist yet.

Therefore:

On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, comfortable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now.

5¹¹

BUILDINGS

❖ * *

Above all, leave trees Intact and build around them with great care—tree places (171); keep open spaces open to the south of buildings, for the sun—south facing outdoors (105); try, generally, to shape space in such a way that each place becomes positive, in its own right—positive outdoor space (106). Repair slopes if they need it with terraced slope (169), and leave the outdoors in its natural state as much as possible—garden growing wild (172). If necessary, push and shove the building into odd corners to preserve the beauty of an old vine, a bush you love, a patch of lovely grass—wings of light ( 107) , LONG THIN HOUSE ( 109) . . . .

105 SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS**

513

. . . within the general ideas of location which site repair (104) creates, this pattern governs the fundamental placing of the building and the open space around it with respect to sun.

❖ *$• ❖

People use open space if it is sunny, and do not use it if it isn’t, in all but desert climates.

This is perhaps the most important single fact about a building. If the building is placed right, the building and its gardens will be happy places full of activity and laughter. If it is done wrong, then all the attention in the world, and the most beautiful details, will not prevent it from being a silent gloomy place. Thousands of acres of open space in every city are wasted because they are north of buildings and never get the sun. This is true for public buildings, and it is true for private houses. The recently built Bank of America building in San Francisco—a giant building built by a major firm of architects—has its plaza on the north side. At lunchtime, the plaza is empty, and people eat their sandwiches in the street, on the south side where the sun is.

North facing outdoors.

Just so for small private houses. The shape and orientation of lots common in most developments force houses to be surrounded by open space which no one will ever use because it isn’t in the sun.

A survey of a residential block in Berkeley, California, confirms this problem dramatically. Along Webster Street—an east-west street—I 8 of 20 persons interviewed said they used only the sunny part of their yards. Half of these were people living on

the north side of the street—these -people did not use their backyards at all, but would sit in the front yard, beside the sidewalk, to be in the south sun. The north-facing back yards were used primarily for storing junk. Not one of the persons interviewed indicated preference for a shady yard.

Favorite outdoor places to the south.

The survey also gave credence to the idea that sunny areas won’t be used if there is a deep band of shade up against the house, through which you must pass to get to the sun. Four north facing backyards were large enough to be sunny toward the rear. In only one of these yards was the sunny area reported as being used—in just the one where it was possible to get to the sun without passing through a deep band of shade.

Although the idea of south-facing open space is simple, it has great consequences, and there will have to be major changes in land use to make it come right. For example, residential neighborhoods would have to be organized quite differently from the way they are laid out today. Private lots would have to be longer north to south, with the houses on the north side.

Blocks reorganized to catch the sun.

5 * 5

TOWNS

They cannot claim to have struck the balance between the needs of towns and communities, and the needs of the world community as a whole. Indeed, their tendency has been to override local needs and repress local culture, and at the same time aggrandize themselves to the point where they are out of reach, their power barely conceivable to the average citizen.

2. Unless a region has at least several million people in it, it will not be large enough to have a seat in a world government, and will therefore not be able to supplant the power and authority of present nation-states.

We found this point expressed by Lord Weymouth of Warminster, England, in a letter to the New York Times, March 15, 1973-

world FEDERATION: A THOUSAND STATES

. . . the essential foundation stone for world federation on a democratic basis consists of regionalization within centralized government. . . . This argument rests on the idea that world government is lacking in moral authority unless each delegate represents an approximately equal portion of the world’s population. Working backward from an estimate of the global population in the year 2000, which is anticipated to rise to the 10,000 million mark, I suggest that we should be thinking in terms of an ideal regional state at something around ten million, or between five and fifteen million, to give greater flexibility. This would furnish the U.N. with an assembly of equals of 1000 regional representatives: a body that would be justified in claiming to be truly representative of the world’s population.

Weymouth believes that Western Europe could take some of the initiative for triggering this conception of world government. He looks for the movement for regional autonomy to take hold in the European Parliament at Strasbourg; and hopes that power can gradually be transferred from Westminister, Paris, Bonn, etc., to regional councils, federated in Strasbourg.

I am suggesting that in the Europe of the future we shall see England split down into Kent, Wessex, Mercia, Anglia and Northumbria, with an independent Scotland, Wales and Ireland, of course. Other European examples will include Brittany, Bavaria and Calabria. The national identities of our contemporary Europe will have lost their political significance.

3. Unless the regions have the power to be self-governing, they

I 2

BUILDINGS

Note that this pattern was developed in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of course, its significance varies as latitude and climate change. In Eugene, Oregon, for example, with a rather rainy climate, at about $0° latitude, the pattern is even more essential: the south faces of the buildings are the most valuable outdoor spaces on sunny days. In desert climates, the pattern is less important; people will want to stay in outdoor spaces that have a balance of sun and shade. But remember that in one way or another, this pattern is absolutely fundamental.

Therefore:

Always place buildings to the north of the outdoor spaces that go with them, and keep the outdoor spaces to the south. Never leave a deep band of shade between the building and the sunny part of the outdoors.

building to the north

outdoors south

A *% • •

Let half-hidden garden (ill) influence the position of the outdoors too. Make the outdoor spaces positive—positive outdoor space (106)—and break the building into narrow wings —wings of light (107). Keep the most important rooms to the south of these wings—indoor sunlight (128) ; and keep storage, parking, etc, to the north—north face (162). When the building is more developed, you can concentrate on the special sunny areas where the outdoors and building meet, and make definite places there, where people can sit in the sun—sunny place (161). . . .

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106 POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE**

. . . in making south facing outdoors (105) you must both choose the place to build, and also choose the place for the outdoors. You cannot shape the one without the other. This pattern gives you the geometric character of the outdoors; the next one— wings of light (107)—gives you the complementary shape of the indoors.

Outdoor spaces which are merely “left over” between buildings will, in general, not be used.

There are two fundamentally different kinds of outdoor space: negative space and positive space. Outdoor space is negative when it is shapeless, the residue left behind when buildings— which are generally viewed as positive—are placed on the land. An outdoor space is positive when it has a distinct and definite shape, as definite as the shape of a room, and w'hen its shape is as important as the shapes of the buildings w^;hich surround it. These two kinds of space have entirely different plan geometries, w'hich may be most easily distinguished by their figure-ground reversal.

Buildings that create negative, leftover space . . . buildings that create positive outdoor space.

If you look at the plan of an environment where outdoor spaces are negative, you see the buildings as figure, and the outdoor space as ground. There is no reversal. It is impossible to see the outdoor space as figure, and the buildings as ground. If you look at the plan of an environment where outdoor spaces are positive, you may see the buildings as figure, and outdoor spaces as ground—and, you may also see the outdoor spaces as

106 POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE

figure against the ground of the buildings. The plans have figure-ground reversal.

Another way of defining the difference between “positive” and “negative” outdoor spaces is by their degree of enclosure and their degree of convexity.

Convex and nonconvex.

In mathematics, a space is convex when a line joining any two points inside the space itself lies totally inside the space. It is nonconvex, when some lines joining two points lie at least partly outside the space. According to this definition, the following irregular squarish space is convex and therefore positive; but the L-shaped space is not convex or positive, because the line joining its two end points cuts across the corner and therefore goes outside the space.

Positive spaces are partly enclosed, at least to the extent that their areas seem bounded (even though they are not, in fact, because there are always paths leading out, even whole sides open), and the “virtual” area which seems to exist is convex. Negative spaces are so poorly defined that you cannot really tell where their boundaries are, and to the extent that you can tell, the shapes are nonconvex.

This space can be felt: it is distinct:—a place . . . and it is convex. This space is vague_} amorphous, “nothing.”

Now, what is the functional relevance of the distinction between “positive” and “negative” outdoor spaces. We put forward the following hypothesis. People jeel com] or table in spaces which are “positive” and use these spaces; people jeel relatively uncomfortable in spaces zvhich are “negative” and such spaces tend to remain unused.

519

BUILDINGS

The case for this hypothesis has been most fully argued by Camillo Sitte, in City Planning According to Artistic Principles (republished by Random House in 1965). Sitte has analyzed a very large number of European city squares, distinguishing those which seem used and lively from those which don’t, trying to account for the success of the lively squares. He shows, with example after example, that the successful ones—those which are greatly used and enjoyed—have two properties. On the one hand, they are partly enclosed; on the other hand, they are also open to one another, so that each one leads into the next.

The fact that people feel more comfortable in a space which is at least partly enclosed is hard to explain. To begin with, it is obviously not always true. For example, people feel very comfortable indeed on an open beach, or on a rolling plain, where there may be no enclosure at all. But in the smaller outdoor spaces —gardens, parks, walks, plazas—enclosure does, for some reason, seem to create a feeling of security.

Tr seems likely that the need for enclosure goes back to our most

Four examples of positive outdoor space.

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10 6 POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE

primitive instincts. For example, when a person looks for a place to sit down outdoors, he rarely chooses to sit exposed in the middle of an open space—he usually looks for a tree to put his back against; a hollow in the ground, a natural cleft which will partly enclose and shelter him. Our studies of people’s space needs in workplaces show a similar phenomenon. To be comfortable, a person wants a certain amount of enclosure around him and his work—but not too much—see workspace enclosure (183). Clare Cooper has found the same thing in her study of parks: people seek areas which are partially enclosed and partly open—not too open, not too enclosed (Clare Cooper, Open Space Study, San Francisco Urban Design Study, San Francisco City Planning Dept., 1969).

Most often, positive outdoor space is created at the same time that other patterns are created. The following photograph shows one of the few places in the world where a considerable amount of building had no other purpose whatsoever except to create a positive outdoor space. It somehow underlines the pattern’s urgency.

The squ-are at Nancy.

When open space is negative, for example, L-shaped—it is always possible to place small buildings, or building projections, or walls in such a way as to break the space into positive pieces.

Transform this......to this.

BUILDINGS

v

And when an existing open space is too enclosed, it may be possible to break a hole through the building to open the space up.

Transform this......to this.

Therefore:

convex shape

♦S#

Make all the outdoor spaces which surround and lie between your buildings positive. Give each one some degree of enclosure; surround each space with wings of buildings, trees, hedges, fences, arcades, and trellised walks, until it becomes an entity with a positive quality and does not spill out indefinitely around corners.

Place wings of light (107) to form the spaces. Use open trellised walks, walls, and trees to close off spaces which are too exposed—tree places (171), garden wall (173), trellised walk (174); but make sure that every space is always open to

some larger space, so that It is not too enclosed—hierarchy OF OPEN SPACE ( I 14) . Use BUILDING FRONTS (l22) tO help create the shape of space. Complete the positive character of the outdoors by making places all around the edge of buildings, and so make the outdoors as much a focus of attention as the buildings—building edge (160). Apply this pattern to courtyards WHICH LIVE (115), ROOF GARDENS ( I I 8) , PATH SHAPE (l2l), OUTDOOR ROOM (16 3), GARDEN GROWING WILD (172).

107 WINGS OF LIGHT**

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. . . at this stage, you have a rough position for the building or buildings on the site from south facing outdoors (105) and positive outdoor space (106). Before you lay out the interior of the building in detail, it is necessary to define the shapes of roofs and buildings in rather more detail. To do this, go back to the decisions you have already made about the basic social components of the building. In some cases, you will have made these decisions according to the individual case; in other cases you may have used the fundamental social patterns to define the basic entities—

THE FAMILY (75), HOUSE FOR A SMALL FAMILY (76), HOUSE FOR A COUPLE (77), HOUSE FOR ONE PERSON (78), SELF-GOVERNING WORKSHOPS AND OFFICES (80), SMALL SERVICES WITHOUT RED TAPE (8l), OFFICE CONNECTIONS (82), MASTER AND APPRENTICES

(83), individually owned shops (87). Now it is time to start giving the building a more definite shape based on these social groupings. Start by realizing that the building needn’t be a massive hulk, but may be broken into wings.

'I*

Modern buildings are often shaped with no concern for natural light—they depend almost entirely on artificial light. But buildings which displace natural light as the major source of illumination are not fit places to spend the day.

A monster building—no concern for daylight inside.

I INDEPENDENT REGIONS

will not be able to solve their own environmental problems. The arbitrary lines of states and countries, which often cut across natural regional boundaries, make it all but impossible for people to solve regional problems in a direct and humanly efficient way.

An extensive and detailed analysis of this idea has been given by the French economist Gravier, who has proposed, in a series of books and papers, the concept of a Europe of the Regions, a Europe decentralized and reorganized around regions which cross present national and subnational boundaries. (For example, the Basel-Strasbourg Region includes parts of France, Germany, and Switzerland; the Liverpool Region includes parts of England and parts of Wales). See Jean-Frangois Gravier, “L’Europe des regions,” in 1965 Internationale Regio Planertagung, Schriften der Regio 3, Regio, Basel, 1965, pp. 211-22; and in the same volume see also Emrys Jones, “The Conflict of City Regions and Administrative Units in Britain,” pp. 223—35.

4. Finally, unless the present-day great nations have their power greatly decentralized, the beautiful and differentiated languages, cultures, customs, and ways of life of the earth’s people, vital to the health of the planet, will vanish. In short, we believe that independent regions are the natural receptacles for language, culture, customs, economy, and laws and that each region should be separate and independent enough to maintain the strength and vigor of its culture.

The fact that human cultures within a city can only flourish when they are at least partly separated from neighboring cultures is discussed in great detail in mosaic of subcultures (8). We are suggesting here that the same argument also applies to regions —that the regions of the earth must also keep their distance and their dignity in order to survive as cultures.

In the best of medieval times, the cities performed this function. They provided permanent and intense spheres of cultural influence, variety, and economic exchange; they were great communes, whose citizens were co-members, each with some say in the city’s destiny. We believe that the independent region can become the modern polis—the new commune—that human entity which provides the sphere of culture, language, laws, services, economic exchange, variety, which the old walled city or the polis provided for its members.

This simple statement, if taken seriously, will make a revolution in the shape of buildings. At present, people take for granted that it is possible to use indoor space which is lit by artificial light; and buildings therefore take on all kinds of shapes and depths.

If we treat the presence of natural light as an essential—not optional—feature of indoor space, then no building could ever be more than 20—25 feet deep, since no point in a building which is more than about I 2 or 15 feet from a window, can get good natural light.

Later on, in light on two sides (159), we shall argue, even more sharply, that every room where people can feel comfortable must have not merely one window, but two, on different sides. This adds even further structure to the building shape: it requires not only that the building be no more than 25 feet deep, but also that its outer walls are continually broken up by corners and reentrant corners to give every room two outside walls.

The present pattern, which requires that buildings be made up of long and narrow wings, lays the groundwork for the later pattern. Unless the building is first conceived as being made of long, thin wings, there is no possible way of introducing light on two sides (159), in its complete form, later in the process. Therefore, we first build up the argument for this pattern, based on the human requirements for natural light, and later, in light on two sides (159), we shall be concerned with the organization of windows within a particular room.

There are two reasons for believing that people must have buildings lit essentially by sun.

First, all over the world, people are rebelling against windowless buildings; people complain when they have to work in places without daylight. By analyzing words they use, Rapoport has shown that people are in a more positive frame of mind in rooms with windows than in rooms without windows. (Amos Rapoport, “Some Consumer Comments on a Designed Environment,” Arena, January, 1967, pp. 176-78.) Edward Hall tells the story of a man who worked in a windowless office for some time, all the time saying that it was “just fine, just fine,” and then abruptly quit. Hall says, “The issue was so deep, and so serious, that this man could not even bear to discuss it, since just discussing it would have opened the floodgates.”

107 WINGS OF LIGHT

Second, there is a growing body of evidence which suggests that man actually needs daylight, since the cycle of daylight somehow plays a vital role in the maintenance of the body’s circadian rhythms, and that the change of light during the day, though apparently variable, is in this sense a fundamental constant by which the human body maintains its relationship to the environment. (See, for instance, R. G. Hopkinson, Architectural Physics: Lighting, Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, Building Research Station, HMSO, London, 1963, pp. 116-17.) If this is true, then too much artificial light actually creates a rift between a person and his surroundings and upsets the human physiology.

Many people will agree with these arguments. Indeed, the arguments merely express precisely what all of us know already: that it is much more pleasant to be in a building lit by daylight than in one which is not. But the trouble is that many of the buildings which are built without daylight are built that way because of density. They are built compact, in the belief that it is necessary to sacrifice daylight in order to reach high densities.

Lionel March and Leslie Martin have made a major contribution to this discussion. (Leslie Martin and Lionel March, Land Use and Built Form, Cambridge Research, Cambridge University, April 1966.) Using the ratio of built floor area to total site area as a measure of density and the semi-depth of the building as a measure of daylight conditions, they have compared three different arrangements of building and open space, which they call So, Si, and S2.

Three building types.

Of the three arrangements, S2, in which buildings surround the outdoors with thin wings, gives the best daylight conditions

BUILDINGS

for a fixed density. It also gives the highest density for a fixed level of daylight.

There is another criticism that is often leveled against this pattern. Since it tends to create buildings which are narrow and rambling, it increases the perimeter of buildings and therefore raises building cost substantially. How big is the difference? The following figures are taken from a cost analysis of standard office buildings used by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, in the program BOP (Building Optimization). These figures illustrate costs for a typical floor of an office building and are based on costs of 2 1 dollars per square foot for the structure, floors, finishes, mechanical, and so on, not including exterior wall, and a cost of 110 dollars per running foot for the perimeter wall. (Costs arc for 1969.)

We see then, that at least in this one case, the cost of the extra perimeter adds very little to the cost of the building. The narrowest building costs only 6 per cent more than the squarest. We believe this case is fairly typical and that the cost savings to be achieved by square and compact building forms have been greatly exaggerated.

Now, assuming that this pattern is compatible with the problems of density and perimeter cost, we must decide how wide a building can be, and still be essentially lit by the sun.

We assume, first of all, that no point in the building should have less than 20 lumens per square foot of illumination. This is the level found in a typical corridor and is just below the level required for reading. We assume, second, that a place will only seem “naturally” lit, if more than 50 per cent of its light comes from the sky: that is, even the points furthest from the windows must be getting at least 10 lumens per square foot of their illumination from the sky.

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Let us now look at a room analyzed In detail by Hopkinson and Kay. The room, a classroom, is I 8 feet deep, 24 feet wide, with a window all along one side starting three feet above the floor. Walls have a reflectance of 40 per cent—a fairly typical value. With a standard sky, the desks 15 feet from the window are just getting 10 lumens per square foot from the sky—our minimum. Yet this is a rather well lit room. R. G. Hopkinson and J. G. Kay, The Lighting of Buildings, New York: Praeger, 1969, p. 108).

It is hard to imagine then, that many rooms more than 15 feet deep will meet our standards. Indeed, many patterns in this book will tend to reduce the window area—windows overlooking

LIFE (192), NATURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS (22l), DEEP REVEALS

(223), small panes (239), so that in many cases rooms should be no more than 12 feet deep—more only if the walls are very light or the ceilings very high. We conclude, therefore, that a building wing that is truly a “wing of light” must be about 25 feet wide—never wider than 30 feet—with the interior rooms “one deep” along the wing. When buildings are wider than this, artificial light, of necessity, takes over.

A building which simply has to be wide—a large hall for example—can have the proper level of natural light if there are extra clerestory windows in the roof.

Therefore:

Arrange each building so that it breaks down into wings which correspond, approximately, to the most important natural social groups within the building. Make each wing long and as narrow as you can—never more than 25 feet wide.

BUILDINGS

•£•

Use the wings to form outdoor areas which have a definite shape, like courts and rooms—positive outdoor space (106); connect the wings, whenever possible, to the existing buildings round about so that the building takes its place within a long and rambling continuous fabric—connected buildings (108). When you get further down and start defining individual

rooms, make use of the daylight which the wings provide by giv

ing each room light on two sides (159).

Give each wing its own roof in such a way that all the wings together form a great cascade of roofs—cascade of roofs (116) ; if the wing contains various houses, or workgroups, or a sequence of major rooms, build access to these rooms and groups of

rooms from one side, from an arcade, or gallery, not from a

central corridor—arcades (119), short passages (132). For the load bearing structure of the wings, begin with structure follows social spaces (205). . . .

BUILDINGS

favorable for building, since its effect is not concentrated anywhere but is scattered all about it. Such an exposed building will always appear like a cake on a serving-platter. To start with, any life-like organic integration with the site is ruled out. . . .

It is really a foolish fad, this craze for isolating buildings. . . . (Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Princifles₎ New York: Random House, 1965, pp. 25-31.)

A fabric of connected buildings.

Therefore:

Connect your building up, wherever possible, to the existing buildings round about. Do not keep set backs between buildings; instead, try to form new buildings as continuations of the older buildings.

Connect buildings with arcades, and outdoor rooms, and courtyards where they cannot be connected physically, wall to wall—

COURTYARDS WHICH LIVE ( I I 5) , ARCADES ( I I 9) , OUTDOOR ROOMS (163). . . .

IOB CONNECTED BUILDINGS

When buildings are isolated and free standing, it is of course not necessary for the people who own them, use them, and repair them to interact with one another at all. By contrast, in a town where buildings lean against each other physically, the sheer fact of their adjacency forces people to confront their neighbors, forces them to solve the myriad of little problems which occur between them, forces them to learn how to adapt to other people’s foibles, forces them to learn how to adapt to the realities outside them, which are greater, and more impenetrable than they are.

Not only is it true that connected buildings have these healthy consequences and that isolated buildings have unhealthy ones. It seems very likely—though we have no evidence to prove it— that, in fact, isolated buildings have become so popular, so automatic, so taken for granted in our time, because people seek refuge from the need to confront their neighbors, refuge from the need to work out common problems. In this sense, the isolated buildings are not only symptoms of withdrawal, but they also perpetuate and nurture the sickness.

If this is so, it is literally not too much to say that in those farts of tozvn where densities are relatively high., isolated buildings, and the laws which create and enforce them, are undermining the fabric of society as forcibly and as persistently as any other social evil of our time.

By contrast, Sitte gives a beautiful discussion, with many examples, of the normal way that buildings were connected in ancient times:

The result is indeed astonishing, since from amongst 255 churches: 41 have one side attached to other buildings 96 have two sides attached to other buildings

110 have three sides attached to other buildings 2 have four sides obstructed by other buildings ■6 are free standing

255 churches in all; only 6 free-standing.

Regarding Rome then, it can be taken as a rule that churches were never erected as free-standing structures. Almost the same is true, in fact, for the whole of Italy, As is becoming clear, our modern attitude runs precisely contrary to this well-integrated and obviously thought-out procedure. We do not seem to think it possible that a new church can be located anywhere except in the middle of its building lot, so that there is space all around it. But this placement offers only disadvantages and not a single advantage. It is the least

. . . this pattern helps to complete building complex (95), wings of light (107), and POSITIVE outdoor space (106). It helps to create positive outdoor space, especially, hy eliminating all the wasted areas between buildings. As you connect each building to the next you will find that you make the outdoor space positive, almost instinctively.

* * *

Isolated buildings are symptoms of a disconnected sick society.

Even in medium and high density areas where buildings are very close to each other and where there are strong reasons to connect them in a single fabric, people still insist on building isolated structures, with little bits of useless space around them.

These buildings p re tend to be independent of one another— and this pretense leads to useless space around them.

Indeed, in our time, isolated, free-standing buildings are so common, that we have learned to take them for granted, without realizing that all the psycho-social disintegration of society is embodied in the fact of their existence.

It is easiest to understand this at the emotional level. The house, in dreams, most often means the self or person of the dreamer. A town of disconnected buildings, in a dream, would be a picture of society, made up of disconnected, isolated, selves. And the real towns which have this form, like dreams, embody just this meaning: they perpetuate the arrogant assumption that people stand alone and exist independently of one another.

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Io8 CONNECTED BUILDINGS*

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