Place the bus stops mainly along major roads, as far as this can be consistent with the fact that no one ever has to walk more than 600 feet to the nearest one—parallel roads (23); put one in every interchange (34) ; and make each one a place where a few minutes’wait is pleasant—bus stop (92). . . .
I 12
establish community and neighborhood folicy to control the character of the local environment ac cording to the following fundamental frincifles:
| 21. | FOUR-STORY LIMIT |
| 22. | NINE PER CENT PARKING |
| 23- | PARALLEL ROADS |
| 24. | SACRED SITES |
| 25- | ACCESS TO WATER |
| 26. | LIFE CYCLE |
| 27. | MEN AND WOMEN |
| I 13 |
| 21 FOUR-STORY LIMIT** |
|---|
 |
114
. . . within an urban area, the density of building fluctuates. It will, in general, be rather higher toward the center and lower toward the edges—city country fingers (3), lace of country streets (5), magic of the city (io). However, throughout the city, even at its densest points, there are strong human reasons to subject all buildings to height restrictions.
•i* •b •b
There is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy.
High buildings have no genuine advantages, except in speculative gains for banks and land owners. They are not cheaper, they do not help create open space, they destroy the townscape, they destroy social life, they promote crime, they make life difficult for children, they are expensive to maintain, they wreck the open spaces near them, and they damage light and air and view. But quite apart from all of this, which shows that they aren’t very sensible, empirical evidence shows that they can actually damage people’s minds and feelings.
 |
| “The Ministry of Truth—Mini true, in Newsfeak—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous -pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up terrace after terrace 300 metres in the air.” (George Orwell, 1984) |
115
A PATTERN LANGUAGE
we have called it aA Pattern Language” with the emphasis on the word “A,” and how we imagine this pattern language might be related to the countless thousands of other languages we hope that people will make for themselves, in the future.
The Timeless Way of Building says that every society which is alive and whole, will have its own unique and distinct pattern language j and further, that every individual in such a society will have a unique language, shared in part, but which as a totality is unique to the mind of the person who has it. In this sense, in a healthy society there will be as many pattern languages as there are people—even though these languages are shared and similar.
The question then arises: What exactly is the status of this published language? In what frame of mind, and with what intention, are we publishing this language here? The fact that it is published as a book means that many thousands of people can use it. Is it not true that there is a danger that people might come to rely on this one printed language, instead of developing their own languages, in their own minds?
The fact is, that we have written this book as a first step in the society-wide process by which people will gradually become conscious of their own pattern languages, and work to improve them. We believe, and have explained in The Timeless Way of Building, that the languages which people have today are so brutal, and so fragmented, that most people no longer have any language to speak of at all—and what they do have is not based on human, or natural considerations.
XV]
TOWNS
There are two separate bodies of evidence for this. One shows the effect of high-rise housing on the mental and social well being of families. The other shows the effect of large buildings, and high buildings, on the human relations in offices and workplaces. We present the first of these two bodies of evidence in the text which follows. The second, concerning offices and workplaces, we have placed in building complex (95), since it has implications not just for the height of buildings but also for their total volume.
We wish to stress, however, that the seemingly one-sided concern with housing in the paragraphs which follow, is only apparent. The underlying phenomenon—namely, mental disorder and social alienation created by the height of buildings—occurs equally in housing and in workplaces.
The strongest evidence comes from D. M. Fanning (“Families in Flats,” British Medical Journal, November 18, 1967, pp. 382— 86). Fanning shows a direct correlation between incidence of mental disorder and the height of people’s apartments. The higher people live off the ground, the more likely are they to suffer mental illness. And it is not simply a case of people prone to mental illness choosing high-rise apartments. Fanning shows that the correlation is strongest for the people who spend the most time in their apartments. Among the families he studied, the correlation was strongest for women, who spend the most time in their apartments; it was less strong for children, who spend less time in the apartments; and it was weakest for men, who spend the least amount of time in their apartments. This strongly suggests that sheer time spent in the high-rise is itself what causes the effect.
A simple mechanism may explain this: high-rise living takes people away from the ground, and away from the casual, everyday society that occurs on the sidewalks and streets and on the gardens and porches. It leaves them alone in their apartments. The decision to go out for some public life becomes formal and awkward; and unless there is some specific task which brings people out in the world, the tendency is to stay home, alone. The forced isolation then causes individual breakdowns.
Fanning’s findings are reinforced by Dr. D. Cappon’s clinical experiences reported in “Mental Health and the High Rise,” Canadian Public Health Association, April 1971:
There is every reason to believe that high-rise apartment dwelling has adverse effects on mental and social health. And there is sufficient clinical, anecdotal and intuitive observations to back this up. Herewith, in no particular order ranking, a host of factors:
In my experience as Mental Health Director in a child guidance clinic in York Township, Toronto, for 5 years, I saw numerous children who had been kinetically deprived . . . and kinetic deprivation is the worst of the perceptual, exploratory kinds, for a young child, leaving legacies of lethargy, or restlessness, antisocial acting out or withdrawal, depersonalization or psychopathy.
Young children in a high-rise are much more socially deprived of neighborhood peers and activities than their S.F.D. (Single Family Dwelling) counterparts, hence they are poorly socialized and at too close quarters to adults, who are tense and irritable as a consequence.
Adolescents in a high-rise suffer more from the “nothing-to-do” ennui than those of a S.F.D., with enhanced social needs for “drop in centres” and a greater tendency to escapism. . . .