Cow dung plaster in an Indian village house.
Therefore:
Make every inside surface warm to the touch, soft enough to take small nails and tacks, and with a certain slight “give” to the touch. Soft plaster is very good; textile hangings, canework, weavings, also have this character. And wood is fine, where you can afford it.
SOFT INSIDE WALLS
235
soft to the touch
enough “give” for nails
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In our own building system, we find it is worth putting on a light skim coat of plaster over the inner surfaces of the wall membrane (218) and floor-ceiling vaults (219), Wherever finish plaster meets columns, and beams, and doors and window frames, cover the joint with half-inch wooden trim—half-inch trim (240). . . .
236 WINDOWS WHICH OPEN WIDE*
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. , . this pattern helps to complete window place (180), windows OVERLOOKING LIFE (192), and NATURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS (22l).
v %• ❖
Many buildings nowadays have no opening windows at all; and many of the opening windows that people do build, don’t do the job that opening windows ought to do.
It is becoming the rule in modern design to seal up window's and create “perfect” indoor climates with mechanical air conditioning systems. This is crazy.
A window is your connection to the outside. It is a source of fresh air; a simple way of changing the temperature, quickly, when the room gets too hot or too cold; a place to hang out and smell the air and trees and flowers and the weather; and a hole through which people can talk to each other.
What is the best kind of window?
Double-hung windows cannot be fully opened—only half of the total window area can ever be opened at once. And they often get stuck—sometimes because they have been painted, sometimes because their concealed operating system of cords, counter-weights, and pulleys gets broken; it becomes such an effort to open them that no one bothers.
Sliding windows have much of the same problem—only part of the window area can be open, since one panel goes behind another; and they often get stuck too.
The side hung casement is easy to open and close. It gives the greatest range of openings, and so creates the greatest degree of control over air and temperature; and it makes an opening which is large enough to put your head and shoulders through. It is the easiest wdndow to climb in and out of too.
The old time French windows are a stunning example of this pattern. They are narrow', full length upstairs windows, which swing out onto a tiny balcony, large enough only to contain the open windows. When you open them you fill the frame, and can stand drinking in the air: they put you intensely close to the out-
1 101
CONSTRUCTION
side—yet in a perfectly urban sense, as much in Paris or Madrid as in the open countryside.
Therefore:
Decide which of the windows will be opening windows. Pick those which are easy to get to, and choose the ones which open onto flowers you want to smell, paths where you might want to talk, and natural breezes. Then put in side-hung casements that open outward. Here and there, go all the way and build full French windows.
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Complete the subframe of the casement with small panes (239). . . .
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2 37 SOLID DOORS WITH GLASS
. . . this pattern finishes the doors defined by corner doors (196) and low doorway (224). It also helps to finish tapestry of light and dark (135) and interior windows (194), since it requires glazing in the doors, and can help to create daylight in the darker parts of indoor places.
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An opaque door makes sense in a vast house or palace, where every room is large enough to be a world unto itself; but in a small building, with small rooms, the opaque door is only very rarely useful.
What is needed is a kind of door which gives some sense of visual connection together with the possibility of acoustic isolation: a door which you can see through but can’t hear through.
Glazed doors have been traditional in certain periods—they are beautiful, and enlarge the sense of connection and make the life in the house one, but still leave people the possibility of privacy they need. A glazed door allows for a more graceful entrance into a room and for a more graceful reception by people in the room, because it allows both parties to get ready for each other. It also allows for different degrees of privacy: You can leave the door open, or you can shut it for ac'oustical privacy but maintain the visual connection; or you can curtain the window for visual and acoustic privacy. And, most important, it gives the feeling that everyone in the building is connected—not isolated in private rooms.
Therefore:
As often as possible build doors with glazing in them, so that the upper half at least, allows you to see through them. At the same time, build the doors solid enough, so
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that they give acoustic isolation and make a comfortable “thunk” when they are closed.
| solid and with glass |
|---|
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Glaze the door with small panes of glass—small panes (239) ; and make the doors more solid, by building them like wall membranes (218). . . .
| 238 FILTERED LIGHT* |
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. . . the mosaic of subcultures (8) is made up of a great number of large and small self-governing communities and neighborhoods. Community of 7000 helps define the structure of the large communities.
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Individuals have no effective voice in any community of more than 5000-10,000 persons.
People can only have a genuine effect on local government when the units of local government are autonomous, self-governing, self-budgeting communities, which are small enough to create the possibility of an immediate link between the man in the street and his local officials and elected representatives.
This is an old idea. It was the model for Athenian democracy in the third and fourth centuries b.c.; it was Jefferson’s plan for American democracy; it was the tack Confucius took in Iris book on government, The Great Digest.
For these people, the practice of exercising power over local matters was itself an experience of intrinsic satisfaction. Sophocles wrote that life would be unbearable were it not for the freedom to initiate action in a small community. And it was considered that this experience was not only good in itself, but was the only way of governing that would not lead to corruption. Jefferson wanted to spread out the power not because “the people” were so bright and clever, but precisely because they were prone to error, and it was therefore dangerous to vest power in the hands of a few who would inevitably make big mistakes. “Break the country into wards” was his campaign slogan, so that the mistakes will be manageable and people will get practice and improve.
Today the distance between people and the centers of power that govern them is vast—both psychologically and geographically. Milton Kotler, a Jeffersonian, has described the experience: