However, in a modern technological society, neither of these two conditions holds good. People move frequently, and houses are increasingly built of factory-made, factory-finished materials, like 4x8 foot sheets of finished plaster board, aluminum windows, prefabricated baked enamel steel kitchens, glass, concrete, steel—these materials do not lend themselves at all to the gradual modification which personal adaptation requires. Indeed, the processes of mass production are almost directly incompatible with the possibility of personal adaptation.
The crux of the matter lies in the walls. Smooth hard flat industrialized walls make it impossible for people to express their own identity, because most of the identity of a dwelling lies in or near its surfaces—in the 3 or 4 feet near the walls. This is where people keep most of their belongings; this is where special lighting fixtures are; this is where special built-in furniture is placed; this is where the special cosy nooks and corners are that individual family members make their own; this is where the identifiable small-scale variation is; this is the place where people
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can most easily make changes and see the product of their own craftsmanship.
The house will become personal only if the walls are so constructed that each new family can leave its mark on them—they must, in other words, invite incremental fine adjustments, so that the variety of the inhabitants who live in it rubs off on them. And the walls must be so constructed that these fine adjustments are permanent—so that they do accumulate over time and so that the stock of available dwellings becomes progressively more and more differentiated.
All this means that the walls must be extremely deep. To contain shelves, cabinets, displays, special lights, special surfaces, deep window reveals, individual niches, built in seats and nooks, the walls must be at least a foot deep; perhaps even three or four feet deep.
And the walls must be made of some material which is inherently structural—so that however much of it gets carved out, the whole remains rigid and the surface remains continuous almost no matter how much is removed or added.
Then, as time goes on, each family will be able to work the wall surfaces in a very gradual, piecemeal, incremental manner. After a year or two of occupancy, each dwelling will begin to show its own characteristic pattern of niches, bay windows, breakfast nooks, seats built into the walls, shelves, closets, lighting arrangements, sunken parts of the floor, raised parts of the ceiling.
Each house will have a memory; the characteristics and personalities of different human individuals can be written in the thickness of the walls; the houses will become progressively more and more differentiated as they grow older, and the process of personal adaptation—both by choice and by piecemeal modification—has room to breathe. The full version of this pattern was originally published by Christopher Alexander: “Thick Walls,” Architectural Design, July 1968, pp. 324—26.
Therefore:
Open your mind to the possibility that the walls of your building can be thick, can occupy a substantial volume— even actual usable space—and need not be merely thin
buildings
membranes which have no depth. Decide where these thick walls ought to be.
i to 4 feet thick
hand-carveable
Where the thickness is 3 or 4 feet, build the thickness and the volume of the walls according to the process described in thickening the outer walls (211) ; where it is less, a foot or 18 inches, build it from open shelves stretched between deep vertical columns—open shelves (200), columns at the corners (212). Get the detailed position of the various things within the wall from the patterns which define them: window place (180), closets between rooms (198), sunny counter (199), waist
HIGH SHELF (20l), BUILT-IN SEATS (202), CHILD CAVES (2O3), SECRET PLACE (204). . . .
91 2
198 CLOSETS BETWEEN
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ROOMS*
. . . given the layout of rooms, it is now necessary to decide exactly where to put the built-in cupboards and closets. Use them, especially, to help form the enclosure around a workspace—workspace enclosure (183), around a dressing space—dressing room (189), and around the doors of rather private rooms so that the doorway itself gets some depth—corner door (196).
The provision of storage and closets usually comes as an afterthought.
But when they are correctly placed, they can contribute greatly to the layout of the building.
Perhaps the most important secondary feature of storage space is its sound insulating quality. The extra wall sections, and the doors enclosing the closet, as well as the clothes, boxes, and so on, that are being stored, all work to create substantial acoustical barriers. You can take advantage of this feature of closet space by locating all required storage areas within the walls separating rooms rather than in exterior walls, where they cut off natural light.
In addition, when storage is placed in the interior walls of a room, around the doorway, the resulting thickness will make the transitions between rooms and corridors more distinct. For the person entering such a room, the thickness of the wall creates a subtle “entry” space, which makes the room more private. This way of making the closet “thickness” around an entrance is therefore appropriate for spaces like the couple’s realm (136) and the various private rooms—a room of one’s own (141).
Closets form the entrance to the room.
9*4
Therefore:
Mark all the rooms where you want closets. Then place the closets themselves on those interior walls which lie between two rooms and between rooms and passages where you need acoustic insulation. Place them so as to create transition spaces for the doors into the rooms. On no account put closets on exterior walls. It wastes the opportunity for good acoustic insulation and cuts off precious light.
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Later, include the ture—thick walls (
closets as part of the overall building struc-197). . . .
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. . . this pattern helps the gradual evolution of mosaic of subcultures (8), by placing families and work together, and so intensifying the emergence of highly differentiated subcultures, each with its individual character.
v 'V
The artificial separation of houses and work creates intolerable rifts in people’s inner lives.
In modern times almost all cities create zones for “work” and other zones for “living” and in most cases enforce the separation by law. Two reasons are given for the separation. First, the work-
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Concentration and segregation of work . . . leads to dead neighborhoods.
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| 199 SUNNY COUNTER* |
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