A warning: take care that such places are not stuck artificially onto the building. Keep them real; find the places along the building edge that offer a direct and useful connection with the life indoors—the space outside the stair landing, the space to one side of the bedroom alcove, and so on.
These places should be an integral part of the building territory, and contain seats, tables, furniture, places to stand and talk, places to work outside—all in the public view—private terrace on the street (140), outdoor room (163); make the spaces deep enough to be really useful—six-foot balcony (167)—with columns heavy enough to provide at least partial enclosure—halfopen wall (193), column places (226). . . .
I Oy SIX-FOOT BALCONY**
781
. . . in various places arcades ( i i 9) and gallery surround (166) have helped you to imagine some kind of a balcony, veranda, terrace, porch, arcade along the building edge or halfway into it. This pattern simply specifies the depth of this arcade or porch or balcony, to make sure that it really works.
V V
Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly ever used.
Balconies and porches are often made very small to save money; but when they are too small, they might just as well not be there.
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| Six feet deep. |
A balcony is first used properly when there is enough room for two or three people to sit in a small group with room to stretch their legs, and room for a small table where they can set down glasses, cups, and the newspaper. No balcony works if it is so narrow that people have to sit in a row facing outward. The critical size is hard to determine, but it is at least six feet. The following drawing and photograph show roughly why:
167 SIX-FOOT BALCONY
Our observations make it clear that the difference between deep balconies and those which are not deep enough is simply astonishing. In our experience, almost no balconies at all which are 3 or 4 feet deep manage to gather life to them or to get used. And almost no balconies which are more than six feet deep are not used.
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Narrow balconies are useless.
Two other features of the balcony make a difference in the degree to which people will use it: its enclosure and its recession into the building.
As far as enclosure goes, we have noticed that among the deeper balconies, it is those with half-open enclosures around them—columns, wooden slats, rose-covered trellises-—which are used most. Apparently, the partial privacy given by a half-open screen makes people more comfortable—see half-open wall
(*93)-
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| Not this ... ... this. |
And recesses seem to have a similar effect. On a cantilevered balcony people must sit outside the mass of the building; the balcony lacks privacy and tends to feel unsafe. In an English study (“Private Balconies in Flats and Maisonettes,” Architect's Journal, March 1957, pp. 372-76), two-thirds of the people that never used their balconies gave lack of privacy as their reason,
and said that they preferred recessed balconies, because, in contrast to cantilevered balconies, the recesses seemed more secure.
Therefore:
Whenever you build a balcony, a porch, a gallery, or a terrace always make it at least six feet deep. If possible, recess at least a part of it into the building so that it is not cantilevered out and separated from the building by a simple line, and enclose it partially.
Enclose the balcony with a low wall—sitting wall (243), heavy columns—column places (226), and half-open walls or screens—half-open wall (193). Keep it open toward the south—sunny place (161). Treat it as an outdoor room (163), and get the details of its shape and its construction from THE SHAPE OF INDOOR SPACE ( I 91) . . . .
168 CONNECTION TO THE EARTH**
785
One example of support for this idea lies in the Blueprint for Survival, and the proposal there to give traditional communities stewardship over certain estuaries and marshes. These wetlands are the spawning grounds for the fish and shellfish which form the base of the food chain for 60 per cent of the entire ocean harvest, and they can only be properly managed by a group who respects them as a cooperating part in the chain of life. (The Ecologist, England: Penguin, 1972, p. 41.)
The residential forests of Japan provide another example. A village grows up along the edge of a forest; the villagers tend the forest. Thinning it properly is one of their responsibilities. The forest is available to anyone who wants to come there and partake in the process:
The farmhouses of Kurume-machi stand in a row along the main road for about a mile. Each house is surrounded by a belt of trees of similar species, giving the aspect of a single large forest. The main trees are located so as to produce a shelter-belt. In addition, these small forests are homes for birds, a device for conserving water, a source of firewood and timber, which is selectively cut, and a means of climate control, since the temperature inside the residential forest is cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
It should be noted that these residential forests, established more than 300 years ago, are still intact as a result of the careful selective cutting and replacement program followed by the residents. (John L. Creech, “Japan—Like a National Park,” Yearbook of Agriculture 1963, U. S. Department of Agriculture, pp. 525-28.)
Therefore:
Define all farms as parks, where the public has a right to be; and make all regional parks into working farms.
Create stewardships among groups of people, families and cooperatives, with each stewardship responsible for one part of the countryside. The stewards are given a lease for the land, and they are free to tend the land and set ground rules for its use—as a small farm, a forest, marshland, desert, and so forth. The public is free to visit the land, hike there, picnic, explore, boat, so long as they conform to the ground rules. With such a setup, a farm near a city might have picnickers in its fields every day during the summer.
. . . this pattern helps to create the building edge (160) and
its ARCADES ( I 19), PRIVATE TERRACE ON THE STREET ( 140), the GALLERY SURROUND (l66), and SIX-FOOT BALCONY (167),
by specifying the way the floor of the building reaches out into the land and gardens round about it.
A house feels isolated from the nature around it, unless its floors are interleaved directly with the earth that is around the house.
We shall understand this best by contrasting those houses which are sharply separated from the earth with those in which there is a continuity between the two.
Look first at this house where there is no continuity.
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| An average house—but look at it closely. It lacks this fattern utterly. |