Here is an example—a sunny place at the edge of a building, directly related to the inside, and set in a nook of the building. Someone comes there every day to sit for a moment, water the hanging plants, see how they are doing, and take in some sun.
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| Sunny flace . . . |
A particularly beautiful version of this pattern can be made when several sunny places are placed together—perhaps for a house cluster (37) or a work community (4.1). If the places can be set down so that they form a south-facing half-necklace of sunny spots, each within hailing distance of all the others, it makes the act of coming out into the sun a communal affair.
Therefore:
Inside a south-facing court, or garden, or yard, find the spot between the building and the outdoors which gets the best sun. Develop this spot as a special sunny place— make it the important outdoor room, a place to work in the sun, or a place for a swing and some special plants, a place to sunbathe. Be very careful indeed to place the
BUILDINGS
sunny place in a position where it is sheltered from the wind. A steady wind will prevent you from using the most beautiful place.
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Make the place itself as much as possible like a room—private TERRACE ON THE STREET (140) > OUTDOOR ROOM (163)5 always at least six feet deep, no less—six-foot balcony (167) 5 perhaps with foliage or a canvas to filter the light on hot days—filtered LIGHT (238), TRELLISED WALK (174), CANVAS ROOF (244). Put in seats according to seat spots (241). . . .
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162 NORTH FACE
. . . even if the building has been placed correctly according to south-facing outdoors (105) and there is little outdoor space toward the north, there is usually still some kind of area or volume on the north face of the building. It is necessary to take care of this north-facing place to supplement the work of indoor sunlight (128) and sunny place (161).
V*
Look at the north sides of the buildings which you know. Almost everywhere you will find that these are the spots which are dead and dank, gloomy and useless. Yet there are hundreds of acres in a town on the north sides of buildings; and it is inevitable that there must always be land in this position, wherever there are buildings.
If a building has a sheer north face, during many months of the year it will cast a long shadow out behind it.
These dead and gloomy north sides not only waste enormous areas of land; they also help to kill the larger environment, by
BUILDINGS
cutting it up with shadow areas which no one wants to cross, and which therefore break up the various areas of the environment from one another. It is essential to find a way of making these north-facing areas alive, at least in their own terms, so that they help the land around them instead of breaking it apart.
The shadow cast by the north face is essentially triangular. To keep this triangle of shade from becoming a forlorn place, it is necessary to fill it up with things and places which do not need the sun. For example, the area to the north may form a gentle cascade which contains the car shelter, perhaps a bath suite, storage, garbage cans, a studio. If this cascade is properly made, then for most of the year the outdoors beyond it to the north will have enough sun for a garden, a greenhouse, a private garden seat, a workshop, paths.
North cascade.
Furthermore, if there are north rooms that are inevitably gloomy, it helps enormously to make a reflecting walclass="underline" a wall standing some ways to the north of the building, painted white or yellow, and set in a position which gets the sun and reflects it back into the building. This wall might be the wall of a nearby building, a garden wall, etc.
Therefore:
Make the north face of the building a cascade which slopes down to the ground, so that the sun which normally casts a long shadow to the north strikes the ground immediately beside the building.
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I 62 NORTH FACE
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Use the triangle inside this north cascade for car, garbage, storage, shed, a studio which requires north light, closets—those parts of the building which can do very well without interior sunlight-CAR CONNECTION ( I I 3) > BULK STORAGE (145), COM
POST (178), closets between rooms (198). If it is at all practical, use a white or yellow wall to the north of the building to reflect sunlight into the north-facing rooms—indoor sunlight (128), LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF EVERY ROOM ( I 5 9) , GARDEN WALL (I 73). . . .
| 163 OUTDOOR ROOM** |
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. . . every building has rooms where people stay and live and talk together—common areas at the heart (129), farmhouse kitchen (139), sequence of sitting spaces (142). Whenever possible, these rooms need to be embellished by a further “room” outdoors. This kind of outdoor room also helps to form a part of any public outdoor room (69), half-hidden garden (hi),
PRIVATE TERRACE ON THE STEET ( I 40) , Or SUNNY PLACE ( I 6 I ) .
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A garden is the place for lying in the grass, swinging, croquet, growing flowers, throwing a ball for the dog. But there is another way of being outdoors: and its needs are not met by the garden at all.
For some moods, some times of day, some kinds of friendship, people need a place to eat, to sit in formal clothes, to drink, to talk together, to be still, and yet outdoors.
They need an outdoor room, a literal outdoor room—a partly enclosed space, outdoors, but enough like a room so that people behave there as they do in rooms, but with the added beauties of the sun, and wind, and smells, and rustling leaves, and crickets.
This need occurs everywhere. It is hardly too much to say that every building needs an outdoor room attached to it, between it and the garden; and more, that many of the special places in a garden—sunny places, terraces, gazebos—need to be made as outdoor rooms, as well.
The inspiration for this pattern comes from Bernard Ru-dofsky’s chapter, “The Conditioned Outdoor Room,” in Behind the Picture Window (New York: Oxford Press, 1955).
In a superbly Iayed out house-garden, one ought to be able to work and sleep, cook and eat, play and loaf. No doubt, this sounds specious to the confirmed indoor dweller and needs elaboration.
As a rule, the inhabitant of our climate makes no sallies into his immediate surroundings. His farthest outpost is the screened porch. The garden—if there is one—remains unoccupied between garden
. . . within each region, in between the towns, there are vast areas of countryside—farmland, parkland, forests, deserts, grazing meadows, lakes, and rivers. The legal and ecological character of this countryside is crucial to the balance of the region. When properly done, this pattern will help to complete the distribution
OF TOWNS (2), CITY COUNTRY FINGERS (3), AGRICULTURAL VALLEYS (4), LACE OF COUNTRY STREETS (5) and COUNTRY TOWNS (6) .