A pattern language

I 34 ZEN VIEW*

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. . . how should we make the most of a view? It turns out that the pattern which answers this question helps to govern not the rooms and windows in a building, but the places of transition. It helps to place and detail entrance transition (112), entrance ROOM (130), SHORT PASSAGES (I 3 2.), THE STAIRCASE AS A stage (133) —and outside, paths and goals (I 20).

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The archetypal zen view occurs in a famous Japanese house, which gives this pattern its name.

A Buddhist monk lived high in the mountains, in a small stone house. Far, far in the distance was the ocean, visible and beautiful from the mountains. But it was not visible from the monk’s house itself, nor from the approach road to the house. However, in front of the house there stood a courtyard surrounded by a thick stone wall. As one came to the house, one passed through a gate into this court, and then diagonally across the court to the front door of the house. On the far side of the courtyard there was a slit in the wall, narrow and diagonal, cut through the thickness of the wall. As a person walked across the court, at one spot, where his position lined up with the slit in the wall, for an instant, he could see the ocean. And then he was past it once again, and went into the house.

(4444)

What is it that happens in this courtyard? The view of the distant sea is so restrained that it stays alive forever. Who, that

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134 ^ZEN view

has ever seen that view, can ever forget it? Its power will never fade. Even for the man who lives there, coming past that view day after day for fifty years, it will still be alive.

This is the essence of the problem with any view. It is a beautiful thing. One wants to enjoy it and drink it in every day. But the more open it is, the more obvious, the more it shouts, the sooner it will fade. Gradually it will become part of the building, like the wallpaper; and the intensity of its beauty will no longer be accessible to the people who live there.

Therefore:

If there is a beautiful view, don’t spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which look onto the view at places of transition— along paths, in hallways, in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms.

If the view window is correctly placed, people will see a glimpse of the distant view as they come up to the window or pass it: but the view is never visible from the places where people stay.

Put in the windows to complete the indirectness of the view —natural doors and windows (22i); place them to help the tapestry of light and dark (135) ; and build a seat from which a person can enjoy the view—window place ( i 8o). If the view must be visible from inside a room, make a special corner of the room which looks onto the view, so that the enjoyment of the view becomes a definite act in its own right. . . .

135 tapestry of light

AND DARK*

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. . . passages, entrances, stairs are given their rough position by

THE FLOWTHROUGH ROOMS ( I 3 I ) , SHORT PASSAGES (132), STAIRCASE as a stage (I 33), zen vrEvv (134). This pattern helps you fine tune their positions by placing light correctly.

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In a building with uniform light level, there are few “places” which function as effective settings for human events. This happens because, to a large extent, the places which make effective settings are defined by light.

People are by nature phototropic—they move toward light, and, when stationary, they orient themselves toward the light. As a result the much loved and much used places in buildings, where the most things happen, are places like window seats, verandas, fireside corners, trellised arbors; all of them defined by nonuniformities in light, and all of them allowing the people who are in them to orient themselves toward the light.

We may say that these places become the settings for the human events that occur in the building. Since there is good reason to believe that people need a rich variety of settings in their lives (see for instance, Roger Barker, The Stream of Behavior: Explorations of its Structure and Content, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963), and since settings are defined by “places,” which in turn seem often to be defined by light, and since light places can only be defined by contrast with darker ones, this suggests that the interior parts of buildings where people spend much time should contain a great deal of alternating-light and dark. The building needs to be a tapestry of light and dark.

This tapestry of light and dark must then fit together with the flow of movement, too. As we have said, people naturally tend to walk toward the light. It is therefore obvious that any entrance, or any key point in a circulation system, must be systematically lighter than its surroundings—with light (daylight and artificial light) flooded there, so that its intensity becomes a

3 CITY COUNTRY FINGERS

Every city dweller would have access to the countryside; the open country would be a half-hour bicycle ride from downtown. Therefore:

Keep interlocking fingers of farmland and urban land, even at the center of the metropolis. The urban fingers should never be more than i mile wide, while the farmland fingers should never be less than i mile wide.

	country fingers, at least i mile wide
city fingers, at most i mile wide

Whenever land is hilly, keep the country fingers in the valleys and the city fingers on the upper slopes of hillsides—agricultural valleys (4). Break the city fingers into hundreds of distinct self-governing subcultures—mosaic of subcultures (8), and run the major roads and railways down the middle of these city fingers—web of public transportation (16), ring roads (17). . . .

BUILDINGS

natural target. The reason is simple. If there are places which have more light than the entrances and circulation nodes, people will tend to walk toward them (because of their phototropic tendency) and will therefore end up in the wrong place—with frustration and confusion as the only possible result.

If the flaces where the light falls are not the flaces you are meant to go toward, or if the light is uniform, the environment is giving information which contradicts its own meaning. The environment is only functioning in a single-hearted manner, as information, when the lightest spots coincide with the points of maximum importance.

Therefore:

Create alternating areas of light and dark throughout the building, in such a way that people naturally walk toward the light, whenever they are going to important places: seats, entrances, stairs, passages, places of special beauty, and make other areas darker, to increase the contrast.

strong natural light

Where the light to walk toward is natural light, build seats and alcoves in those windows which attract the movement— window place (180). If you use skylights, then make the surfaces around the skylight warm in color—warm colors (250) ; otherwise the direct light from the sky is almost always cold. At night make pools of incandescent light which guide the movement—pools of light (25 2). . . .

within the framework of the wings and their internal gradients of space and movement_y define the most important areas and rooms. First, for a house;

136 couple’s realm*

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. . . this pattern helps to complete the family (75), house FOR A SMALL FAMILY (76) and HOUSE FOR A COUPLE (77). It also ties in to a particular position on the intimacy gradient (127), and can be used to help generate that gradient, if it doesn’t exist already.

The presence of children in a family often destroys the closeness and the special privacy which a man and wife need together.

Every couple start out sharing each other’s adult lives. When children come, concern for parenthood often overwhelms the private sharing, and everything becomes exclusively oriented toward the children.

In most houses this is aggravated by the physical design of the environment. Specifically:

1. Children are able to run everywhere in the house, and therefore tend to dominate all of it. No rooms are private.

2. The bathroom is often placed so that adults must walk past children’s bedrooms to reach it.

3. The walls of the master bedroom are usually too thin to afford much acoustical privacy.

The result is that the private life of the couple is continually interrupted by the awareness that the children are nearby. Their role as parents rather than as a couple permeates all aspects of their private relations.

On the other hand, of course, they do not want to be completely separated from the children’s rooms. They also want to be close to them, especially while the children are young. A mother wants to run quickly to the bed of an infant in an emergency.

These problems can only be solved if there is a part of the house, which we call the couple’s realm; that is, a world in which the intimacy of the man and woman, their joys and sorrows, can be shared and lived through. It is a place not only insulated from the children’s world, but also complete in itself, a

BUILDINGS

world, a domain. In many respects it is a version of the pattern house for a couple (77), embedded in the larger house with children.

The couple’s realm needs to be the kind of place that one might sit in and talk privately, perhaps with its own entrance to the outdoors, to a balcony. It is a sitting room, a place for privacy, a place for projects; the bed is part of it, but tucked away into an alcove with its own window; a fireplace is wonderful; and it needs some kind of a double door, an ante-room, to protect its privacy.

Therefore:

Make a special part of the house distinct from the common areas and all the children’s rooms, where the man and woman of the house can be together in private. Give this place a quick path to the children’s rooms, but, at all costs, make it a distinctly separate realm.

Even if it’s very tiny, give it a sitting area, a place to relax, read, make love, play music—sitting circle (185). Give it light on two sides (I 5 9). At the heart of the couple’s realm, place the bed—marriage bed (187) so it has morning light— sleeping to the east (138), and, beside it, the dressing room (189) ; if possible, try to place the bathing room to open off the couple’s realm—bathing room (144). For the shape of this room in fine detail and its construction, see the shape of indoor space (191). And keep the area private with a low doorway (224) or two doors—closets between rooms (198). . . .

137 children’s realm*

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, . . in a house for a small family (76), there are three main areas: a common area at the heart (129), a couple’s realm (136), and a children’s realm which overlaps the common area. If the common area and couple’s realm are in position, it is now possible to weave in this partly separate, partly overlapping place for children, which we call a realm, although we recognize that it is not a separate realm but more an aspect of the house, reserved for children, a mode of functioning which is physically separate only in certain parts. It is that component of connected play (68) which acts within the individual houses.

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If children do not have space to release a tremendous amount of energy when they need to, they will drive themselves and everybody else in the family up the wall.

A frenzy in the dining room.

For a graphic example, visualize what happens when children bring in friends after school and have a whole number of ideas in their heads of what to do or play. They are loud and boisterous after being pent up in school all day and they need a lot of indoor and outdoor space to expend all this energy. Obviously, the mood calls for space which contains long distances because they suggest the possibility of physical freedom much more.

137 children’s realm

And, in general, the child’s world is not some single space or room—it is a continuum of spaces. The sidewalk where he sells lemonade and talks with friends, the outdoor play area of his house into which he can invite his friends, the indoor play-space, his private space in the house where he can be alone with a friend, the bathroom, the kitchen where his mother is, the family room where the rest of the family is—for the child, all of these together form his world. If any other kind of space interrupts this continuum, it will be swallowed up into the child’s world as part of his circulation path.

If the private rooms, the couple’s realm, the quiet sitting areas are scattered randomly among the places that form the children’s world, then they will certainly be violated. But if the children’s world is one continuous swath, then these quiet, private, adult places will be protected by the mere fact that they are not part of the continuum. We therefore conclude that all the places which children need and use should form one continuous geometrical swath, which does not include the couple’s realm, the adult private rooms, or any formal, quiet sitting spaces. This continuous playspace needs certain additional properties.

1. Children are apt to be very demanding of everyone’s attention when they are in this specially energetic state. The mother is particularly susceptible to being totally swallowed up by them. They will want to show her things, ask her questions, ask her to do things . . . “Look what I found. Look what I made. Where shall I put this? Where’s the clay? Make some paint.” The mother must be available for all this, but not forced to be in the thick of it. Her workroom and the kitchen need to be protected, yet tangential to the playspace.

2. The family room is also part of the continuum since it is where children and the rest of the family have contact with each other. The playspace, therefore, should enter the common area— preferably to one side—sec common area at the heart (129).

3. The children’s private spaces (whether they are alcoves or bedrooms) can be off the playspace, but it must be possible to close them off. Children naturally want to be exclusive at times— they often invite their closest friends into such a space for a private chat or to show off some prized possession.

4. It is usually too expensive to create a special playspace; but it is always possible to make a hallway function as the mdoor part of the playspace. It needs to be a bit wider than a normal hall (perhaps seven feet) with nooks and stages along the edge. Children take up the suggestive qualities of spaces—on sight of a little cave-like space, they will decide to play house; on sight of a raised platform, they will decide to put on a play. Thus, both indoor and outdoor parts of the playspace need different levels, little nooks, counters, or tables, and so on. A lot of open storage for toys, costumes, and so forth should also be provided in these spaces. When toys are visible, they are more likely to be used.

5. The outdoor space just adjacent to the indoor space should be partially roofed, to provide transition between the two and to reinforce the continuity.

Remember that this kind of playspace is as much in the interest of the adults in the family, as in the interest of the children. If the house is organized so that the children’s world gradually spreads throughout the home, it will disrupt and dominate the world of tranquility, preciousness, and freedom that adults need, to live their own lives. If there is an adequate children’s world, in the manner described in this pattern, then both the adults and children can co-exist, each without dominating the other.

Therefore:

Start by placing the small area which will belong entirely to the children—the cluster of their beds. Place it in a separate position toward the back of the house, and in such a way that a continuous playspace can be made from this cluster to the street, almost like a wide swath inside the house, muddy, toys strewn along the way, touching those family rooms which children need—the bathroom and the kitchen most of all—passing the common area along one side (but leaving quiet sitting areas and the couple’s realm entirely separate and inviolate), reaching out to the street, either through its own door or through the entrance room, and ending in an outdoor room, connected

to the street, and sheltered, and large enough so that the children can play in it when it rains, yet still be outdoors.

clusterofbeds

entranceStreet

v 4*

As you place this swath between the children’s beds and the street, place the farmhouse kitchen (139) and the home workshop (157) to one side of the path, touching it, yet not violated by it. Do the same for bathing room (144), and give it some connection to the children’s beds. Develop the cluster of children’s beds according to bed clusters (143); make the long passages which form the realm as light and warm as possible —short passages (132); make the outdoor room (163) large enough for boisterous activity. . . .

4 AGRICULTURAL VALLEYS*

26

138 SLEEPING TO THE EAST*

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. . . at the back of the intimacy gradient (127), the position of the couple’s realm (136) and children’s realm (137), give some idea of where bedrooms will be. This pattern settles the position of the bedrooms by placing them to face the east, and thereby complements the effect of indoor sunlight (128), which places the more public rooms toward the south.

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This is one of the patterns people most often disagree with. However, we believe they are mistaken.

People’s attitude to this pattern often runs along the following lines: “The pattern suggests that 1 should sleep somewhere where the sun can wake me up; but I don’t want the sun to wake me up; I want to be able to sleep late, whenever I can. I guess I have a different style of life; so the pattern doesn’t apply to me.”

We believe there may be fundamental biological matters at stake here and that no one who once understands them will want to ignore them, even if his present style of life does seem to contradict them.

The facts, as far as we can tell, are these. Our human organism contains a number of very sensitive biological clocks. We are creatures of rhythms and cycles. Whenever we behave in a way which is not in tune with our natural rhythms and cycles, we run a very good chance of disturbing our natural physiological and emotional functioning.

Specifically, these cycles have a great deal to do with sleep. And the cycle of the sun governs our physiology to such an extent, that we cannot afford to sleep out of touch with this cycle. Consider the fact that the body reaches its lowest metabolic activity in the middle of the sun’s night, at about 2 a.m. It seems very likely, then, that the most nourishing kind of sleep is a sleep whose curve more or less coincides with the curve of metabolic activity—which is in turn dependent on the sun.

It has recently been shown by Dr. London at the San Francisco Medical School, that our whole day depends critically on the

conditions under which we waken. If we wake up immediately after a period of dreaming (REM sleep), we will feel ebullient, energetic, and refreshed for the whole day, because certain critical hormones are injected into the bloodstream immediately after REM sleep. If, however, we wake up during delta sleep (another type of sleep, which happens in between periods of dreaming), we will feel irritable, drowsy, flat, and lethargic all day long: the relevant hormones are not in the bloodstream at the critical moment of awakening.

Now, obviously, anyone who is woken by an alarm clock, will sometimes be woken in the middle of delta sleep and will, on those days, have a lethargic day; and will sometimes wake up just after REM sleep and will, on those days, have an energetic day. Of course this is tremendously oversimplified—many other matters intervene. But if these facts about sleep are correct, they cannot help but have some impact on your waking hours.

Now, the only way to make sure that you wake up at the right time, with the closure of REM sleep, is to wake up naturally. But you can only wake up naturally, and in accordance with the other, larger cycle of metabolic activity, if you wake up with the sun. The sun warms you, increases the light, gently nudges you to wake up—but in a way that is so gentle, that you will still actually wake up at the moment which serves you best— that is, just ajter a dream.

We believe, in short, that this pattern is fundamental to the process of having a healthy, active, energetic day—and that anyone who rejects this pattern on the grounds that he does not want to be woken by the sun, is making a serious mistake about the functioning of his or her own body.

What about details? You want to see the sunlight, but you don’t want the sun to shine on the bed itself or you’ll wake up hot and uncomfortable. The right kind of place is one which provides morning light—consequently a window in the room that lets in the eastern light—and a bed that provides a view of the light without being directly in the light shaft.

And finally, the matter of the view from the bed is worth mentioning. People look out in the morning to see what kind of day its going to be. Some views give this information very well; others not at all. A good morning window looks out on some kind

of constant object or growing thing, which reflects the changes of season and the weather, and allows a person to establish the mood of the day as soon as Ire wakes up.

Therefore,

fJ
eastern light

Give those parts of the house where people sleep, an eastern orientation, so that they wake up with the sun and light. This means, typically, that the sleeping area needs to be on the eastern side of the house; but it can also be on the western side provided there is a courtyard or a terrace to the east of it.

Place all the beds with care, so that they get the morning light, not only as a group—couple’s realm (136), bed cluster (143), but individually, so that each gets eastern light from some specific window—-marriage bed (187), bed alcove (188). Use filtered light (238) to prevent the sun from shining too directly on the bed. If there is room, make this window function as a window place (180). Place the window nearest the bed carefully so that it frames a view which tells a person waking what the weather is like—natural doors and windows (22 1). . . .

139 farmhouse kitchen**

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. . . you have laid out, or already have, some kind of common area at the center of the building. In many cases, especially in houses, the heart of this common area is a kitchen or an eating area since shared food has more capacity than almost anything to be the basis for communal feelings—common area at the heart (129), communal eating (147). This pattern defines an ancient kind of kitchen where the cooking and the eating and the living are all in a single place.

The isolated kitchen, separate from the family and considered as an efficient but unpleasant factory for food is a hangover from the days of servants; and from the more recent days when women willingly took over the servants’ role.

In traditional societies, where there were no servants and the members of a family took care of their own food, the isolated kitchen was virtually unknown. Even when cooking was entirely in the hands of women, as it very often was, the work of cooking was still thought of as a primal, communal function; and the “hearth,” the place where food was made and eaten, was the heart of family life.

As soon as servants took over the function of cooking, in the palaces and manor houses of the rich, the kitchens naturally got separated from the dining halls. Then, in the middle class housing of the nineteenth century, where the use of servants became rather widespread, the pattern of the isolated kitchen also spread, and became an accepted part of any house. But when the servants disappeared, the kitchen was still left separate, because it was thought “genteel” and “nice” to eat in dining rooms away from any sight or smell of food. The isolated kitchen was still associated with those houses of the rich, where dining rooms like this were taken for granted.

But this separation, in a family, lias put the woman in a very difficult position. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that it

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has helped to generate those circumstances which have made the woman’s position in mid-twentieth century society unworkable and unacceptable. Very simply, the woman who accepted responsibility for making food agreed to isolate herself in the “kitchen”— and subtly then agreed to become a servant.

Modern American houses, with the so-called open plan, have gone some way toward resolving this conflict. They very often have a kitchen that is half-separated from the family room: not isolated, and not entirely in the family room. This does create a circumstance where the people who are cooking are in touch with the rest of the family, while they are working. And it does not have the obvious stigma and unpleasantness of separated sculleries and kitchens.

But it does not go far enough. If we look beneath the surface, there is in this kind of plan still the hidden supposition that cooking is a chore and that eating is a pleasure. So long as this mentality rules over the arrangement of the house, the conflict which existed in the isolated kitchen is still present. The difficulties which surround the situation will only disappear, finally, when all the members of the family are able to accept, fully, the fact that taking care of themselves by cooking is as much a part of life as taking care of themselves by eating. This will only happen when the communal hearth is once more gathered round the big kitchen table, as it is in primitive communities, where the taking care of necessary functions is an everyday part of life, and has not been lost to people’s consciousness through the misleading function of the servant.

We are convinced that the solution lies in the pattern of the old farmhouse kitchen. In the farmhouse kitchen, kitchen wmrk and family activity were completely integrated in one big room. The family activity centered around a big table in the middle: here they ate, talked, played cards, and did work of all kinds including some of the food preparation. The kitchen work was done communally both on the table, and on counters round the walls. And there might have been a comfortable old chair in the corner where someone could sleep through the activities.

Therefore:

Make the kitchen bigger than usual, big enough to in-

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139 FARMHOUSE KITCHEN

elude the “family room” space, and place it near the center of the commons, not so far back in the house as an ordinary kitchen. Make it large enough to hold a good big table and chairs, some soft and some hard, with counters and stove and sink around the edge of the room; and make it a bright and comfortable room.

Give the kitchen light on two sides (159). When you place the kitchen counters later, make them really long and generous and toward the south to get the light—cooking layout (184), sunny counter (199) ; leave room for an alcove or two around the kitchen—alcoves (179); make the table in the middle big, and hang a nice big warm single light right in the middle to draw the family around it—eating atmosphere (182); surround the walls, when you detail them, with plenty of open shelves for pots, and mugs, and bottles, and jars of jam—open shelves (200), waist-high shelf (201). Put in a comfortable chair somewhere—sequence of sitting spaces (142). And for the room shape and construction, start with the shape of indoor space (191). . . .

140 PRIVATE TERRACE ON THE STREET**

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. . . among the common areas and sitting spaces—common AREAS AT THE HEART (129), SEQUENCE OF SITTING SPACES (142) —there is a need for one, at least, which puts the people in the house in touch with the world of the street outside the house. This pattern helps to create the half-hidden garden (ill) and gives life to the street—green street (51) or pedestrian street (100).

The relationship of a house to a street is often confused: either the house opens entirely to the street and there is no privacy; or the house turns its back on the street, and communion with street life is lost.

We have within our natures tendencies toward both com-munality and individuality. A good house supports both kinds of experience: the intimacy of a private haven and our participation with a public world.

But most homes fail to support these complementary needs. Most often they emphasize one, to the exclusion of the other: we have, for instance, the fishbowl scheme, where living areas face the street with picture windows and the “retreat,” where living areas turn away from the street into private gardens.

The old front porch, in traditional American society, solved this problem perfectly. Where the street is quiet enough, and the house near enough to the street, we cannot imagine a much better solution. But if the street is different, a slightly different solution will be necessary.

Early in his career, Frank Wright experimented with one possible solution. When he built beside lively streets he built a wide terrace between the living room and the street.

To our knowledge, Grant Hildebrand first pointed out this pattern in Wright’s work, in his paper, “Privacy and Participation: Frank Lloyd Wright and the City Street,” School of

. . . this pattern helps maintain the independent recions (i) by making regions more self-sufficient agriculturally; and it will create city country fingers (3) almost automatically by preserving agricultural land in urban areas. But just exactly which land ought to be preserved, and which land built upon?

The land which is best for agriculture happens to be best for building too. But it is limited—and once destroyed, it cannot be regained for centuries.

In the last few years, suburban growth has been spreading over all land, agricultural or not. It eats up this limited resource and, worse still, destroys the possibility of farming close to cities once and for all. But we know, from the arguments of city country fingers (3), that it is important to have open farmland near the places where people live. Since the arable land which can be used for farming lies mainly in the valleys, it is essential that the valley floors within our urban regions be left untouched and kept for farming.

The most complete study of this problem that we know, comes from Ian McHarg (Design With Nature, New York: Natural History Press, 1969). In his “Plan for the Valleys” (Wallace-McHarg Associates, Philadelphia, 1963), he shows how town development can be diverted to the hillsides and plateaus, leaving the valleys clear. The pattern is supported, also, by the fact that there are several possible practical approaches to the task of implementation (McHarg, pp. 79—93).

Therefore:

Preserve all agricultural valleys as farmland and protect this land from any development which would destroy or lock up the unique fertility of the soil. Even when valleys

BUILDINGS

Section of -private terrace and street.

Architecture, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington: 1970. Hildebrand gives an interesting account of the way this pattern works in the Cheney house:

As the pedestrian looks toward the house from the sidewalk, the masonry terrace wall is located so that his line of sight over its top falls at the lower edge of the elaborately leaded upper glass zone of the terrace doors. Vision into the living room from the sidewalk thus is carefully controlled. If the occupant within the house is standing near the doors only his head and shoulders are dimly visible through a diffusing surface. If the occupant is sitting he is, of course, completely hidden from the pedestrian’s view.

But whereas the pedestrian cannot effectively intrude on the privacy of the house, the inhabitant on the other hand has a number of options available at will. As he stands or sits on the terrace itself, well above the sidewalk, the effect is of easy participation in the full panorama of the street. From the elevated platform vision is unobstructed. Neighbors and friends can be waved at, greeted, invited in for a chat. Thus the terrace, projecting toward the street, linked— and still links—the Cheney house and its inhabitants to the community life of Oak Park. The configuration is so successful thatj as in the Robie house, there has never been much need for curtains. The parapets and the leaded glass, carefully placed, do it all. Thus out of the decision to face the living room toward the street has come not a sacrifice of privacy, but a much richer range of alternative experiences for the occupant.

We believe that Wright’s use of this pattern was based on accurate intuitions about a fundamental human need. Indeed, there are empirical grounds for believing that the need for a house to be in touch with the street outside is a fundamental psychological necessity: and that its opposite—the tendency some people have to keep their houses away from the street, locked up, barred, and disconnected from the street—-is a symptom of a serious emotional disorder—the autonomy-withdrawal syndrome. See Alexander, “The City as a Mechanism for Sustaining Human Contact,” W. Ewald, ed., Environmxnt for Man, Indiana University Press, 1967, pp. 60-102.

Here is an example of this pattern from Greece. It is clear that

140 PRIVATE TERRACE ON THE STREET

the pattern can be expressed in many ways, so long as the relationship, the balance of privacy and street contact, is maintained.

Private terrace on the street.

Therefore:

Let the common rooms open onto a wide terrace or a porch which looks into the street. Raise the terrace slightly above street level and protect it with a low wall, which you can see over if you sit near it, but which prevents people on the street from looking into the common rooms.

If possible, place the terrace in a position which is also congruent with natural contours—terraced slope (169). The wall, if low enough, can be a sitting wall (243) ; in other cases, where you want more privacy, you can build a full garden wall, with openings in it, almost like windows, which make the connection with the street—garden wall (173), half-open wall (193). In any case, surround the terrace with enough things to give it at least the partial feeling of a room—outdoor room (163). . . .

141 A ROOM of one’s own**

. . . the intimacy gradient (127) makes it clear that every house needs rooms where individuals can be alone. In any household which has more than one person, this need is fundamental and essential—the family (75), house for a small family (76), house for a couple (77). This pattern, which defines the rooms that people can have to themselves, is the natural counterpart and complement to the social activity provided for in

COMMON AREAS AT THE HEART ( I 29) .

No one can be close to others, without also having frequent opportunities to be alone.

A person in a household without a room of his own will always be confronted with a problem: he wants to participate in family-life and to be recognized as an important member of that group; but he cannot individualize himself because no part of the house is totally in his control. It is rather like expecting one drowning man to save another. Only a person who has a well-developed strong personal self, can venture out to participate in communal life.

This notion has been explored by two American sociologists, Foote and Cottrell:

There is a critical point beyond which closer contact with another person will no longer lead to an increase in empathy. (A) Up to a certain point, intimate interaction with others increases the capacity to empathize with them. But when others are too constantly present, the organism appears to develop a protective resistance to responding to them. . . . This limit to the capacity to empathize should be taken into account in planning the optimal size and concentration of urban populations, as well as in planning the schools and the housing of individual families. (B) Families who provide time and space for privacy, and who teach children the utility and satisfaction of withdrawing for private reveries, will show higher average empathic capacity than those who do not. (Foote, N. and L. Cottrell, Identity and Interpersonal Competence, Chicago, 1955, pp. 72-73, 79-)

Alexander Leighton has made a similar point, emphasizing the mental damage that results from a systematic lack of privacy

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[“Psychiatric Disorder and Social Environment,” Psychiatry, 18

(3), P- 374, 19551-

In terms of space, what is required to solve the problem? Simply, a room of one’s own. A place to go and close the door; a retreat. Visual and acoustic privacy. And to make certain that the rooms are truly private, they must be located at the extremities of the house: at the ends of building wings; at the ends of the intimacy gradient (127) ; far from the common areas.

We shall now look at the individual members of the family one at a time, in slightly more detail.

Wife. We put the wife first, because, classically, it is she who has the greatest difficulty with this problem. She belongs everywhere, and every place inside the house is in a vague sense hers— yet it is only very rarely that the woman of the house has a small room which is specifically and exclusively her own. Virginia Woolf’s famous essay “A room of one’s own” is the strongest and most important statement on this issue—and has given this pattern its name.

Husband. In older houses, the man of the house usually had a study or a workshop of his own. However, in modern houses and apartments, this has become as rare as the woman’s own room. And it is certainly just as essential. Many a man associates his house with the mad scene of young children and the enormous demands put on him there. If he has no room of his own, he has to stay at his office, away from home, to get peace and quiet.

Teenagers. For teenage children, we have devoted an entire pattern to this problem: teenager’s cottage (154). We have argued there that it is the teenagers who are faced with the problem of building a firm and strong identity; yet among the adults, it is the young who are most often prevented from having a place in the home that is clearly marked as their own.

Children. Very young children experience the need for privacy less—but they still experience it. They need some place to keep their possessions, to be alone at times, to have a private visit with a playmate. See bed cluster (143) and bed alcove (188). John Madge has written a good survey of a family’s need for private space (“Privacy and Social Interaction,” Transactions of the Bartlett Society, Vol. 3, 1964-63), and concerning the children he says:

The bedroom is often the repository of most of these items of personal property around which the individual builds his own satisfactions and which help to differentiate him from the other members of the inner circle of his life—indeed he will often reveal them more freely to a peer in age and sex than to a member of his own family.

In summary then, we propose that a room of one’s own—an alcove or bed nook for younger children—is essential for each member of the family. It helps develop one’s own sense of identity; it strengthens one’s relationship to the rest of the family; and it creates personal territory, thereby building ties with the house itself.

Therefore:

Give each member of the family a room of his own, especially adults. A minimum room of one’s own is an alcove with desk, shelves, and curtain. The maximum is a cottage—like a TEENAGER’S COTTAGE (154), or an old age cottage (155). In all cases, especially the adult ones, place these rooms at the far ends of the intimacy gradient— far from the common rooms.

Use this pattern as an antidote to the extremes of “togetherness” created by common areas at the heart (129). Even for

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small children, give them at least an alcove in the communal sleeping area—bed alcove ( i 88) ; and for the man and woman, give each of them a separate room, beyond the couples realm they share5 it may be an expanded dressing room—dressing room (189), a home workshop—home workshop (157), or once again, an alcove off some other room—alcoves (179), workspace enclosure (i 83). If there is money for it, it may even be possible to give a person a cottage, attached to the main structure—teenager’s cottage (154), old age cottage (155). In every case there must at least be room for a desk, a chair, and things from your life (253). And for the detailed shape of the room, see light on two sides of every room (159) and THE SHAPE OF INDOOR SPACE ( 191 ) . . . .

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