A pattern language

People cannot work effectively if their workspace is too enclosed or too exposed. A good workspace strikes the balance.

In many offices, people are either completely enclosed and feel too isolated, or they are in a completely open area as in the office landscape and feel too exposed. It is hard for a person to work well at either of these two extremes—the problem is to find the right balance between the two.

To find the proper balance, we conducted a simple experiment. We first defined 13 variables, which we thought might influence a person’s sense of enclosure in his workspace.

These 13 variables are:

1. Presence or absence of a wall immediately behind you.

2. Presence or absence of a wall immediately beside you.

3. Amount of open space in front of you.

4. Area of the workspace.

5. Total amount of enclosure around the immediate workspace.

6. View to the outside.

7. Distance to nearest person.

8. Number of people you are aware of from your workplace.

9. Noise: level and type.

IO. Presence or absence of a person facing you directly.

1 1. Number of different positions you can sit in.

I 2. Number of people you can see from your workspace.

13. The number of people you can talk to without raising your voice.

We then formulated thirteen hypotheses which connect these variables with the comfort of the work space. The hypotheses are listed below. We interviewed 17 men and women who had all worked in several different offices. In the interview, we first asked each person to think of the very best workspace he (or she) had ever worked in and the very worst; and then asked him (or her) to make a sketch plan of both spaces. Then we asked questions to identify the value of each of these 13 variables in the “best” and “worst” workspaces. Thus, for instance, we might point to one of the sketches a person had drawn, and say “How far away was that wall” to establish the value of the third variable. The values of the variables for the 17 best and worst workspaces are given in the following table.

On the basis of this table, we then calculated the probable significance of our hypotheses, according to the chi-squared test. Nine of the hypotheses appear to be significant according to the chi-squared test, and four are not. We now list the nine “significant” hypotheses, and with each one, in parentheses, we venture an explanation for its success.

1. You feel more comfortable in a workspace if there is a wall behind you. (If your back is exposed you feel vulnerable—you can never tell if someone is looking at you, or if someone is coming toward you from behind.) The data support this hypothesis at the I per cent level of significance.

2. You feel more comfortable in a workspace if there is a wall to one side. (If your workspace is open in front and on both sides, you feel too exposed. This is probably due to the fact that though it is possible to be vaguely aware of everything that goes on 180 degrees around you, you cannot feel in real control of such a wide angle without moving your head all the time. If you have a wall on one side, you only have to manage an angle of 90 degrees, which is much easier, so you feel more secure.) The data support this hypothesis at the 5 per cent level of significance.

3. There should be no blank wall closer than 8 feet in front of you. (As you work you want to occasionally look up and rest your

Values of the variables for each hypothesis.

eyes by focusing them on something farther away than the desk. If there is a blank wall closer than 8 feet your eyes will not change focus, and they get no relief. In this case you feel too enclosed.) The data support this' hypothesis at the 5 per cent level of significance.

4. Workspaces where you spend most of the day should be at least 60 square feet in area. (If your workspace is any smaller than 60 square feet you feel cramped and claustrophobic.) The data support this hypothesis at the 5 per cent level of significance.

5. Each workspace should be 50 to 75 per cent enclosed by walls or windows. (We guess that enclosure by windows creates about half the feeling of enclosure that solid walls have, so that a workspace which is surrounded half by wall and half by

BUILDINGS

window is considered to have 75 per cent enclosure, while a workspace completely surrounded by a half-height wall and otherwise open, is considered to have 50 per cent enclosure.) The data support this hypothesis at the 1 per cent level of significance.

6. Every workspace should have a view to the outside. (If you do not have a view to the outside, you feel too enclosed and oppressed by the building, even if you are working in a large open office. Sec windows overlooking life (192).) The data support this hypothesis at the O.i per cent level of significance.

7. No other person should work closer than 8 feet to your workspace. (You should be able to hold conversations either on the phone or in person with someone, without feeling as though someone else can hear every word you are saying. The noise level in an average office is 45 db. At 45 db people closer than 8 feet to you are virtually forced to overhear your conversations. From the Handbook of Noise Measurement by Peterson and Gross, Sixth Edition, West Concord, Mass.: General Radio Company, 1967.) The data support this hypothesis at the 5 per cent level of significance.

8. It is uncomfortable if you are not aware of at least two other persons while you work. On the other hand, you do not want to be aware of more than eight people. (If you are aware of more than eight people, you lose a sense of where you are in the whole organization. You feel like a cog in a huge machine. You are exposed to too many people. On the other hand, if you are not aware of anyone else around you, you feel isolated and as though no one cares about you or your work. In this case, you are too enclosed.) The data support this hypothesis at the 5 per cent level of significance.

9. You should not be able to hear noises very different from the kind of noise you make, from your workplace. (Your workplace should be sufficiently enclosed to cut out noises which are of a different kind from the ones you make. There is some evidence that one can concentrate on a task better if people around him are doing the same thing, not something else.) The data support this hypothesis at the 5 per cent level of significance.

Four of the hypotheses we tested were not supported to a statistically significant extent by the data. They are the following:

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I 83 WORKSPACE ENCLOSURE

10. No one should be sitting directly opposite you and facing you.

I i. Workspaces should allow you to face in different directions.

12. From your workspace, you should be able to see at least two other persons; but no more than four.

13. There should be at least one other person close enough to talk to.

Therefore:

view out

Give each workspace an area of at least 60 square feet. Build walls and windows round each workspace to such an extent that their total area (counting windows at one-half) is 50 to 75 per cent of the full enclosure that would be there if all four walls around the 60 square feet were solid. Let the front of the workspace be open for at least 8 feet in front, always into a larger space. Place the desk so that the person working at it has a view out, either to the front or to the side. If there are other people working nearby, arrange the enclosure so that the person has a sense of connection to two or three others; but never put more than eight workspaces within view or earshot of one another.

50 to 75 per cent enclosure		/8 feet clear in front
wall to one side

wall behind

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For the view, give each workspace a window to the outside— windows overlooking life (192) ; surround the space with thick walls which contain shelves and storage space—half-open

WALL (193), THICK WALLS (197), OPEN SHELVES (200), WAIST-HIGH shelf (201) ; arrange a pool of incandescent light over the work table to set it off—pools of light (252) ; and try to make a sitting place, next to the workspace, so that the pulse of work, and talk can happen easily throughout the day—sitting circle (185). For details on the shape of the workspace, see the shape

OF INDOOR SPACE ( I 9 I). . . .

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184 COOKING LAYOUT*

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. . . within the farmhouse kitchen (139), or any other kind of kitchen, it is essential that the cooking area be fashioned as a workshop for the preparation of food, and not as some kind of magazine kitchen with built-in counters and decorator colors. This down-to-earth and working character of a good kitchen comes in large part from the arrangement of the stove and food and counter.

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Cooking is uncomfortable if the kitchen counter is too short and also if it is too long.

Efficiency kitchens never live up to their name. They are based on the notion that the best arrangement is one that saves the most steps; and this has led to tiny, compact kitchens. These compact layouts do save steps, but they usually don’t have enough counter space. Preparing dinner for a family is a complex operation; several things must go on at once, and this calls for the simultaneous use of counter space for different projects. If there isn’t enough counter space, then the ingredients and utensils for one thing must be moved, washed, or put away before the next thing can be prepared; or else things become so jumbled that extra time and effort must be taken to find what’s needed at the proper moment. On the other hand, if the counter is too long or too spread out, the various points along its length are too far apart—and cooking is again uncomfortable, because your movements as you cook are so inefficient and slow.

Empirical support for the notion that there is insufficient counter space in many kitchens comes from a recent work by the Small Homes Council, University of Illinois. The Council found that in over a hundred housing developments, 67 per cent had too little counter space. No one complained that their kitchens were too large.

In The Owner Built Home (Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1961, Volume IV, p. 30), Ken Kern notes that a principal concept in cooking design is to provide for storage and workspace at each of

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184 COOKING LAYOUT

the major cooking centers in the kitchen. Drawing on a Cornell University study he identifies the major cooking centers as the sink, the stove, the refrigerator, the mixing, and the serving areas. To provide storage for each center requires 12 to 15 feet of free counter space, excluding the sink, drainboards, and stove. (The Cornell Kitchen, Glenn Beyer, Cornell University, 1952.)

As far as the limits on the distance between these major cooking centers are concerned, there is less empirical evidence. Estimates vary. The rule of thumb we postulate is that no two of them should be more than three or four steps, or about 10 feet, apart.

A kitchen that really ivorks: huge, but great.

Therefore:

To strike the balance between the kitchen which is too small, and the kitchen which is too spread out, place the stove, sink, and food storage and counter in such a way that:

1. No two of the four are more than 10 feet apart.

2. The total length of counter—excluding sink, stove, and refrigerator—is at least 12 feet.

3. No one section of the counter is less than 4 feet long.

There is no need for the counter to be continuous or

entirely “built-in” as it is in many modern kitchens—it can even consist of free-standing tables or counter tops. Only the three functional relationships described above are critical.

TOWNS

on it, and confronting others with it. It is easy to defend this weakness of character on the grounds of expediency. But however many excuses are made for it, in the end weakness of character destroys a person; no one weak in character can love himself. The self-hate that it creates is not a condition in which a person can become whole.

By contrast, the person who becomes whole, states his own nature, visibly, and outwardly, loud and clear, for everyone to see. He is not afraid of his own self; he stands up for what he is; he is himself, proud of himself, recognising his shortcomings, trying to change them, but still proud of himself and glad to be himself.

But it is hard to allow that you which lurks beneath the surface to come out and show itself. It is so much easier to live according to the ideas of life which have been laid down by others, to bend your true self to the wheel of custom, to hide yourself in demands which are not yours, and which do not leave you full.

It seems clear, then, that variety, character, and finding your own self, are closely interwoven. In a society where a man can find his own self, there will be ample variety of character, and character will be strong. In a society where people have trouble finding their own selves, people will seem homogeneous, there will be less variety, and character will be weak.

If it is true that character is weak in metropolitan areas today, and we want to do something about it, the first thing we must do, is to understand how the metropolis has this effect.

II.

How does a metropolis create conditions in which people find it hard to find themselves?

We know that the individual forms his own self out of the values, habits and beliefs, and attitudes which his society presents him with. [George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society.] In a metropolis the individual is confronted by a vast tableau of different values, habits and beliefs and attitudes. Whereas, in a primitive society, he had merely to integrate the traditional beliefs (in a sense, there was a self already there for the asking), in modern society each person has literally to fabricate a self, for himself, out of the chaos of values which surrounds him.

If, every day you do something, you meet someone with a slightly different background, and each of these peoples⁵ response to what you do is different even when your actions are the same, the situation becomes more and more confusing. The possibility that you can become secure and strong in yourself, certain of what you are, and certain of what you are doing, goes down radically. Faced constantly with an unpredictable changing social world, people no longer generate the strength to draw on themselves; they draw more and more on the approval of others; they look to see whether people are smiling when they say something, and if they are, they go on saying

12 feet of counter

Place the most Important part of the working surface in the sunlight—sunny counter (199); put all the kitchen tools and plates and saucepans and nonperishable food around the walls, one deep, so all of it is visible, and all of it directly open to reach—thick walls (197), open shelves (200). . . .

185 SITTING CIRCLE*

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. . . according to the sequence of sitting spaces (142), there will be a variety of different kinds of sitting space throughout an office building or a house or workshop—some formal, some informal, some large, some small, laid out in part according to the intimacy gradient (127). This pattern deals with the actual physical layout of any one of these sitting spaces. And of course, it can be used to help create the sequence of sitting spaces, piecemeal, one space at a time.

V

A group of chairs, a sofa and a chair, a pile of cushions —these are the most obvious things in everybody’s life—-and yet to make them work, so people become animated and alive in them, is a very subtle business. Most seating arrangements are sterile, people avoid them, nothing ever happens there. Others seem somehow to gather life around them, to concentrate and liberate energy. What is the difference between the two?

Most important of all, perhaps, is their position. A sitting-circle needs essentially the same position as a common area at the heart (129), but in miniature: a well defined area, with paths running past it, not cutting through it, and placed so that people naturally pass by it, stop and talk, lean on the backs of chairs, gradually sit down, move position, get up again. These characteristics are vital. The reasons are exactly the same as those given in common areas at the heart (129); only the scale is different.

Second, the rough shape of a circle. When people sit down to talk together they try to arrange themselves roughly in a circle. Empirical evidence for this has been presented by Margaret Mead (“Conference Behavior,” Columbia University Forum_y Summer, 1967, pp. 20-25). Perhaps one reason for the circle, as opposed to other forms, is the fact that people like to sit at an angle to one another, not side by side (Robert Sommer, “Studies in Personal Space,” Sociometry, 22 September 1959, pp. 247-60.)

In a circle, even neighbors are at a slight angle to one another. This, together with the first point, suggests that a rough circle is best.

But it is not enough for the chairs to be in a circle. The chairs themselves will only hold this position if the actual architecture— the columns, walls, fire, windows—subtly suggest a partly contained, defined area, which is roughly a circle. The fire especially helps to anchor a sitting circle. Other things can do it almost as well.

Third, we have observed that the seating arrangement needs to be slightly loose—not too formal. Relatively loose arrangements, where there are many different sofas, cushions, and chairs, all free to move, work to bring a sitting circle to life. The chairs can be adjusted slightly, they can be turned at slight angles; and if there are one or two too many, all the better: this seems to animate the group. People get up and walk around, then sometimes sit back down in a new chair.

Therefore:

rough circle

Place each sitting space in a position which is protected, not cut by paths or movement, roughly circular, made so that the room itself helps to suggest the circle—not too strongly—with paths and activities around it, so that people naturally gravitate toward the chairs when they get into the mood to sit. Place the chairs and cushions loosely in the circle, and have a few too many.

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Use a fire, and columns, and half-open walls to form the shape of the circle—the fire ( i 8 i ), the shape of indoor space (191), half-open wall (193); but do not make it too formal or too enclosed—common areas at the heart (129), sequence of sitting spaces (142). Use different chairs (251), big ones, small ones, cushions, and a few too many, so that they are never too perfectly arranged, but always in a bit of a jumble. Make a pool of light (252) to mark the sitting circle, and perhaps a window place (180). . . .