A pattern language

Rooms without a view are prisons for the people who have to stay in them.

When people are in a place for any length of time they need to be able to refresh themselves by looking at a world different from the one they are in, and with enough of its own variety and life to provide refreshment.

Amos Rapoport gives written descriptions of three windowless seminar rooms at the University of California. The descriptions —by teachers and students of English who were asked to write descriptions of the rooms as part of a writing exercise—are heavily negative, even though they were not asked to be, and in many cases refer directly to the windowless, boxed-in, or isolated-from-the-world character of the rooms.

Here are two examples:

Room 56+6 is an unpleasant room in which to attend class because in it one feels detached and isolated from the rest of the world under the buzzing fluorescent lights and the high sound-proofed ceilings, amid the sinks, cabinets, and pipes, surrounded by empty space.

The large and almost empty, windowless room with its sturdy, enclosing, and barren grey walls inspired neither disgust nor liking -_y one might easily have forgotten how trapped one was. (Amos Rapoport, “Some Consumer Comments on a Designed Environment,” Arena—The Architectural Association Journal, January 1967,

pp. 176-78.)

Brian Wells, studying office workers’ choice of working positions, found that 81 per cent of all subjects chose positions next to

890 192 WINDOWS OVERLOOKING LIFE

a window. (Office Design: A Study of Environment, Peter Manning, ed., Pilkington Research Unit, Department of Building Science, University of Liverpool, 1965, pp. 118-21.) Many of the subjects gave “daylight” rather than “view” as a reason for their choice. But it is shown elsewhere in the same report that subjects who are far from windows grossly overestimate the amount of daylight they receive as compared with artificial light (Office Design p. 58). This suggests that people want to be near windows for other reasons over and above the daylight. Our conjecture that it is the view which is critical is given more weight by the fact that people are less interested in sitting near windows which open onto light wells, w'hich admit daylight, but present no view.

And Thomas Markus presents evidence which shows clearly that office workers prefer windows with meaningful views—views of city life, nature—as against views which also take in large areas, but contain uninteresting and less meaningful elements. (Thomas A. Markus, “The Function of Windows: A Reappraisal,” Building Science, 2, 1967, pp. 97-1 2 1; see especially p. 109.)

Assume then that people do need to be able to look out of window's, at some w'orld different from their immediate surroundings. We now give very rough figures for the total area of the windows in a room. The area of window needed will depend to a large extent on climate, latitude, and the amount of reflecting surfaces around the outside of the building. However, it is fairly reasonable to believe that the floor/window ratio, though different in different regions, may be more or less constant within any given region.

We suggest, therefore, that you go round the town where you live, and choose half a dozen rooms in which you really like the light. In each case, measure the w'indow area as a percentage of the floor area; then take the average of the different percentages.

In our part of the world—Berkeley, California—we find that rooms are most pleasant when they have about 25 per cent window—sometimes as much as 50 per cent—(that is, 25-50 square feet of window for every 100 square feet of floor). But we repeat, obviously this figure will vary enormously from one part of the w'orld to another. Imagine: Rabat, Timbuctoo, Antarctica, Northern Norw'ay, Italy, Brazilian jungle. . . .

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Therefore:

	views over life
Fine tune the exact positions of the windows at the time that you build them—natural doors and windows (221); break the area of each window into small panes (239) ; give each window a very low sill (222) to improve the view and deep reveals (223) to make the light as soft as possible inside. . . .

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In each room, place the windows in such a way that their total area conforms roughly to the appropriate figures for your region (25 per cent or more of floor area, in the San Francisco Bay Area), and place them in positions which give the best possible views out over life: activities in streets, quiet gardens, anything different from the indoor scene.

193 half-open wall*

. . . THE SHAPE of indoor space (191) defines the shapes of rooms and minor rooms. This pattern gives more detail to the walls between these rooms. Wherever there are half-private OFFICES (152), SIX-FOOT BALCONIES (167) , ALCOVES ( I 79) , SITTING CIRCLES (185), BED ALCOVES ( I 8 8) j BUILDING THOROUGHFARES ( I 0 I ) , ARCADES ( I 19), Or THE FLOW THROUGH rooms (131), the spaces must be given a subtle balance of enclosure and openness by partly opening up the walls or keeping them half-open.

*£♦

Rooms which are too closed prevent the natural flow of social occasions, and the natural process of transition from one social moment to another. And rooms which are too open will not support the differentiation of events which social life requires.

A solid room, for instance, with four walls around it can obviously sustain activities which are quite different from the activities in the next room. In this sense it is excellent. But it is very hard for people to join in these activities or leave them naturally. This is only possible if the door is glazed, or if there is a window in the wall, or if there is an opening, so that people can gradually come forward, just when there is a lull in the conversation, and naturally become a part of what is happening.

On the other hand, an open space with no walls around it, just a place marked by a carpet on the floor and a chair arrangement, but entirely open to the spaces all around it, is so exposed that people never feel entirely comfortable there. No one activity can establish itself because it is too vulnerable; and so the things that happen there tend to be rather bland—a drink, reading the paper, watching television, staring at the view, “sitting around”: you will not find animated conversations, arguments, excitement,

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people making things, painting, card games, charades, or someone practicing the violin. People let themselves go into these more highly differentiated activities, when there is some degree of enclosure around them—at least a half-wall, a railing, columns, some separation from the other nearby spaces.

In short, tire subtle conflict between exposure and enclosure naturally requires a balance. But for some reason the modern images of rooms and indoor space lead people to the two extremes, and hardly ever to the balance which is needed.

The kind of space which most easily supports both differentiation of activities and the transition between different activities has less enclosure than a solid room, and more enclosure—far more —-than a space inside an open plan.

A wall which is half-open, half-enclosed—an arch, a trellised wall, a wall that is counter height with ornamented columns, a wall suggested by the reduction of the opening or the enlargement of the columns at the corners, a colonnade of columns in the wall—all these help get the balance of enclosure and openness right; and in these places people feel comfortable as a result.

Examfles.

From workspace enclosure (183) we have some evidence for the amount of enclosure required. We found there that a person is comfortable W'hen he is about “half” enclosed—when he has material around him on about two sides, or the four sides around him are about half solid and half-open.

We therefore guess that the enclosure of any half-open wall should itself consist of about 50 per cent void and 50 per cent solid. This does not mean that it has to be a screen. For example,

894-193 half-open wall

a combination of thick columns, deep beams, arched openings, also creates this balance of openings and enclosures. A railing is too open. But a balustrade with thick supports will often be just right.

This applies very strongly to outdoor rooms and balconies; and equally to all those indoor spaces which are connected to larger rooms but partly separate from them—an alcove, workspace, kitchen, bed. In all these cases the wall which forms the enclosure and separates the smaller space from the larger one, needs to be partially open and partially closed.

Among ourselves and many of our friends, we have found that the urge to remodel a house is virtually one and the same with the urge to create half-open walls between various parts of the house. It seems that without ever naming this pattern, people have the instinct to “open up” a room; or to give “more enclosure” to some other space.

Therefore:

Adjust the walls, openings, and windows in each indoor space until you reach the right balance between open, flowing space and closed cell-like space. Do not take it for granted that each space is a room; nor, on the other hand, that all spaces must flow into each other. The right balance will always lie between these extremes: no one room entirely enclosed; and no space totally connected to another. Use combinations of columns, half-open walls, porches, indoor windows, sliding doors, low sills, french doors, sitting walls, and so on, to hit the right balance.

50 per cent opening
50 per cent solid

Therefore:

Do everything possible to enrich the cultures and subcultures of the city, by breaking the city, as far as possible, into a vast mosaic of small and different subcultures, each with its own spatial territory, and each with the power to create its own distinct life style. Make sure that the subcultures are small enough, so that each person has access to the full variety of life styles in the subcultures near his own.

hundreds of different subcultures

We imagine that the smallest subcultures will be no bigger than 150 feet across; the largest perhaps as much as a quarter of a mile -COMMUNITY OF 7OOO (l2), IDENTIFIABLE NEIGHBORHOOD

(14), house cluster (37). To ensure that the life styles of each subculture can develop freely, uninhibited by those which are adjacent, it is essential to create substantial boundaries of nonresidential land between adjacent subcultures—subculture

BOUNDARY (13). . . .

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Wherever a small space is in a larger space, yet slightly separate from it, make the wall between the two about half-open and half-solid—alcoves (179), workspace enclosure (183). Concentrate the solids and the openings, so that there are essentially a large number of smallish openings, each framed by thick columns, waist high shelves, deep soffits, and arches or braces in the corners, with ornament where solids and openings meet—interior windows (194), COLUMNS AT THE CORNERS (212), COLUMN PLACE (226), COLUMN CONNECTIONS (227), SMALL PANES (239), ORNAMENT (249)....

194 interior windows

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. . . at various places in the building, there are walls between rooms where windows would help the rooms to be more alive by creating more views of people and by letting extra light into the darkest corners. For instance, between passages and rooms or between adjacent living rooms, or between adjacent work rooms

-BUILDING THOROUGHFARE (lOl), ENTRANCE ROOM ( I 30),

THE FLOW THROUGH ROOMS ( I 3 I), SHORT PASSAGES (132), TAPESTRY OF LIGHT AND DARK ( I 3 5) , SEQUENCE OF SITTING SPACES (l42), HALF-OPEN WALL ( I 93 ) .

Windows are most often used to create connections between the indoor and the outdoors. But there are many cases when an indoor space needs a connecting window to another indoor space.

This is most often true for corridors and passages. These places can easily seem deserted. People feel more connected to one another by interior windows, and the passages in the building become less deserted.

The same may hold for certain rooms, especially small rooms. Three bare walls and a window can seem like a prison. Windows placed between rooms, or between a passage and a room, will help to solve these problems and will make both the passages and the rooms more lively.

Furthermore, when rooms and passages are visibly connected to one another, it is possible to grasp the overall arrangement of a building far more clearly than in a building with blank walls between all the rooms.

It is enough if these windows allow people to see through them; they do not need to be open nor the kind which can be opened. Ordinary, cheap, fixed glazing will do all that is required.

Therefore:

Put in fully glazed fixed windows between rooms which

194 interior windows

tend to be dead because they have too little action in them or where inside rooms are unusually dark.

Make the windows the same as any other windows, with small panes of glass—small panes (239). In some case it may be right to build interior windows in the doors—solid doors with glass

(²37)- • • •

195 STAIRCASE VOLUME*

rK)'J £ to vole*

900

. . . STAIRCASE AS A STAGE ( I 3 3) and OPEN STAIRS ( I 5 8) will tell you roughly where to place the various stairs, both indoors and outdoors. This pattern gives each stair exact dimensions and treats it like a room so that it becomes realistic in the plan.

•I- v v

We are putting this pattern in the language because our experiments have shown us that lay people often make mistakes about the volume which a staircase needs and therefore make their plans unbuildable.

Staircase froblems—too short

... no ufstairs volume.

Here are some examples of the stairs which people who arc not used to building, draw, or think of, when they try to lay out houses for themselves.

Obviously, these stairs will not work; and the misunderstandings of the nature of the stair are so basic, that it is hard to correct

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these plans without destroying them. In order to put in a realistic stair, it would be necessary to rethink the plan entirely. To avoid this kind of mental backtracking, it is essential that stairs be more or less realistic from the very start.

The simplest way to understand a stair is this. Every staircase occupies a volume, two stories high. If this volume is the right shape, and large enough to give the stair its rise, then it will be possible to fill it later, with a stair which works.

Two-story space.

There are several possible layouts for this volume: any one of them will work, provided that the length of run is long enough for the slope of the stair, and the floor to floor height. We urge you to be as free as possible when you decide the slope of the stair. Unfortunately, the search for perfect safety in housing laws, insurance standards, and bank policies, has exaggerated the

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195 STAIRCASE VOLUME

standardisation of slopes. For example, Federal Housing Authority regulations specify that stairs should be between 30 and 35 degrees in slope. But in some cases—a very small house, a stair to the roof—such a shallow stair is a waste of space; a steep stair is far more appropriate. And in other cases—a main stair in a public building, or an outdoor stair—a much shallower stair is more generous, and more appropriate.

Therefore:

Make a two story volume to contain the stairs. It may be straight, L-shaped, U-shaped, or C-shaped. The stair may be 2 feet wide (for a very steep stair) or 5 feet wide for a generous shallow stair. But, in all cases, the entire stairwell must form one complete structural bay, two stories high.

Do not assume that all stairs have to have the “standard” angle of 30 degrees. The steepest stair may almost be a ladder. The most generous stair can be as shallow as a ramp and quite wide. As you work out the exact slope of your stair, bear in mind the relationship: riser -\- tread = 17V2 inches.

v v

Construct the staircase as a vault, within a space defined by columns, just like every other room—columns at the corners (212), stair vault (228). And make the most of the staircase; underneath it is a place where the children can play and hide— child caves (203) ; and it is a place to sit and talk—stair seats (125). . . .

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