I. Build storage between floors and ceilings—at least two feet deep—where you want to lower ceiling heights.
2. Put two alcoves over each other. If each is 6 feet 3 inches, this gives a main ceiling of 13 feet, which is good for very public spaces.
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| Stacked alcoves. |
190 CEILING HEIGHT VARIETY
kv
3. Raise the floor level with steps, instead of lowering the ceiling.
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The floor does it.
4. It is very important to have some rooms with ceilings as low as 7 feet or 7 feet 6 inches—these are very beautiful.
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| Lower ceilings uf stairs. |
3. Except in one-story buildings, tire low ceilinged rooms will make most sense on upper stories; indeed, the average ceiling height will probably get lower and lower with successive stories —the most public rooms, for the largest gatherings, are typically on the ground, and rooms get progressively more intimate the further they are from the ground.
Therefore:
Vary the ceiling heights continuously throughout the building, especially between rooms which open into each other, so that the relative intimacy of different spaces can be felt. In particular, make ceilings high in rooms which are public or meant for large gatherings (10 to 12 feet), lower in rooms for smaller gatherings (7 to 9 feet), and very low in rooms or alcoves for one or two people (6 to 7 feet).
BUILDINGS
| complete range of ceiling heights |
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| ❖ 4* |
The construction of floor vaults will create variations in ceiling height almost automatically since the vault starts about 6 feet 6 inches high and rises a further distance which is one-fifth of the room diameter—floor-ceiling vaults (219). Where ceiling height varies within one story, put storage in the spaces between the different heights—bulk storage (145). Get the shape of individual rooms under any given ceiling height from THE SHAPE OF INDOOR SPACE (191) and STRUCTURE FOLLOWS social spaces (205) ; and vary ceiling heights from story to story—the highest ceilings on the ground floor and the lowest on the top floor—see the table in final column distribution (213). . . .
191 THE shape of
INDOOR SPACE**
. . . from ceiling height varietv (190) you have an overall conception of each floor in the building as a cascade of heights, typically highest in the middle where the largest rooms are, lower toward the edge where the small rooms are, and varying with floor also, so that the lower floors will tend to have a higher average ceiling height than upper floors. This pattern takes each individual space, within this overall cascade, and gives it a more definite shape.
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» • *
The perfectly crystalline squares and rectangles of ultramodern architecture make no special sense in human or in structural terms. They only express the rigid desires and fantasies which people have when they get too preoccupied with systems and the means of their production.
To get away from this madness a new wave of thought has thrown the right angle away completely. Many of the new organic technologies create buildings and rooms shaped more or less like wombs and holes and caves.
| BUILDINGS |
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| . pseudo biological . . |
But these biological rooms are as irrational, as much based on images and fantasies as the rigid crystals they are trying to replace. When we think about the human forces acting on rooms, we see that they need a shape which lies between the two. There are reasons why their sides should be more or less straight; and there are reasons why their angles, or many of them anyway, should be rough right angles. Yet their sides have no good reason to be perfectly equal, their angles have no good reason to be perfectly right angles. They only need to be irregular, rough, imperfect rectangles.
The core of our argument is this. We postulate that every space, which is recognizable and walled enough to be distinct, must have walls which are roughly straight, except when the walls are thick enough to be concave in both directions.
The reason is simple. Every wall has social spaces on both sides of it. Since a social space is convex—see the extensive argument in positive outdoor space (106)—it must either have a wall which is concave (thus forming a convex space) or a wall which is perfectly straight. But any “thin” wall which is concave toward one side, will be convex toward the other and will, therefore, leave a concave space on at least one side.
Two convex spaces pressed up against each other, form a straight wall between them.
191 THE shape of indoor space
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A wall thick enough to be concave on both sides.
A thin wall} makes a convex space on one side} and destroys the other side.
Essentially then, every wall with social spaces on both sides of it, must have straight walls, except where it is thick enough to be concave on both sides. And, of course, a wall may be curved whenever there is no significant social space on the outside of it. This happens sometimes in a position where an entrance butts out into a street, or where a bay window stands in a part of a garden which is unharmed by it.
A place where a wall can be curvedy because it works with the outside.
So much for the walls. They must most often be roughly straight. Now for the angles between walls. Acute angles are hardly ever appropriate, for reasons of social integrity again. It is an uphill struggle to make an acute angle in a room, which works. Since the argument for convexity rules out angles of more than 180 degrees, this means that the corners of spaces must almost
8 MOSAIC OF SUBCULTURES
to do all of this at any moment in their lives. Indeed, if it ever becomes necessary, the law must guarantee each person freedom of access to every subculture. . . .
IV.
It seems clear, then, that the metropolis should contain a large number of mutually accessible subcultures. But why should those subcultures be separated in space. Someone with an aspatial bias could easily argue that these subcultures could, and should, coexist in the same space, since the essential links which create cultures are links between people.
I believe this view, if put forward, would be entirely wrong. I shall now present arguments to show that the articulation of subcultures is an ecological matter; that distinct subcultures will only survive, as distinct subcultures, if they are physically separated in space.
First, there is no doubt that people from different subcultures actually require different things of their environment. Hendricks has made this point clearly. People of different age groups, different interests, different emphasis on the family, different national background, need different kinds of houses, they need different sorts of outdoor environment round about their houses, and above all, they need different kinds of community services. These services can only become highly specialised, in the direction of a particular subculture, if they are sure of customers. They can only be sure of customers if customers of the same subculture live in strong concentrations. People who want to ride horses all need open riding; Germans who want to be able to buy German food may congregate together, as they do around German town, New York; old people may need parks to sit in, less traffic to contend with, nearby nursing services; bachelors may need quick snack food places; Armenians who want to go to the orthodox mass every morning will cluster around an Armenian church; street people collect around their stores and meeting places; people with many small children will be able to collect around local nurseries and open play space.