Therefore:
Place every courtyard in such a way that there is a view out of it to some larger open space; place it so that at least two or three doors open from the building into it and so that the natural paths which connect these doors pass across the courtyard. And, at one edge, beside a door, make a roofed veranda or a porch, which is continuous with both the inside and the courtyard.
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Build the porch according to the patterns for arcade (119), gallery surround (166), and six-foot balcony (167); make sure that it is in the sun—sunny place (161); build tiic view out according to the hierarchy of open space (114) and zen view (134); make the courtyard like an outdoor room (163) and a garden wall (173) for more enclosure; make the height of the eaves around any courtyard of even height; if there arc gable ends, hip them to make the roof edge level—roof layout (2O9); put SOMETHING ROUGHLY IN THE MIDDLE (126). . . .
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. . . consider now the character of settlements within the region: what balance of villages, towns, and cities is in keeping with the independence of the region—independent regions (i)?
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If the population of a region is weighted too far toward small villages, modern civilization can never emerge; but if the population is weighted too far toward big cities, the earth will go to ruin because the population isn’t where it needs to be, to take care of it.
Two different necessities govern the distribution of population in a region. On the one hand, people are drawn to cities: they are drawn by the growth of civilization, jobs, education, economic growth, information. On the other hand, the region as a social and ecological whole will not be properly maintained unless the people of the region are fairly well spread out across it, living in many different kinds of settlements—farms, villages, towns, and cities—with each settlement taking care of the land around it. Industrial society has so far been following only the first of these necessities. People leave the farms and towns and villages and pack into the cities, leaving vast parts of the region depopulated and undermaintained.
In order to establish a reasonable distribution of population within a region, we must fix two separate features of the distribution: its statistical character and its spatial character. First, we must be sure that the statistical distribution of towns, by size, is appropriate: we must be sure that there are many small towns and few large ones. Second, we must then be sure that the spatial distribution of towns within the region is appropriate: we must be sure that the towns in any given size category are evenly spread out across the region, not highly concentrated.
In practice, the statistical distribution will take care of itself. A large number of studies has shown that the natural demographic and political and economic processes at work in city growth and population movement will create a distribution of
. . . this pattern helps complete the building complex (95),
NUMBER OF STORIES (96), MAIN BUILDING (99), and WINGS OF light (107), and it can also be used to help create these patterns. If you are designing a building from scratch, these larger patterns have already helped you to decide how high your buildings are; and they have given you a rough layout, in wings, with an idea of what spaces there are going to be in each floor of the wings. Now we come to the stage where it is necessary to visualize the building as a volume and, therefore, above all else, as a system of roofs.
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Few buildings will be structurally and socially intact, unless the floors step down toward the ends of wings, and unless the roof, accordingly, forms a cascade.
This is a strange pattern. Several problems, from entirely different spheres, point in the same direction; but there is no obvious common bond which binds these different problems to one another—we have not succeeded in seizing the single kernel which forms the pivot of the pattern.
Let us observe, first, that many beautiful buildings have the form of a cascade: a tumbling arrangement of wings and lower wings and smaller rooms and sheds, often with a single highest center. Hagia Sophia, the Norwegian stave churches, and Palladio’s villas are imposing and magnificent examples. Simple houses, small
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| Hagia Sof/iia |
II6 CASCADE OF ROOFS
informal building complexes, and even clusters of mud huts are more modest ones.
What is it that makes the cascading character of these buildings so sound and so appropriate?
First of all, there is a social meaning in this form. The largest gathering places with the highest ceilings are in the middle because they are the social centers of activities; smaller groups of people, individual rooms, and alcoves fall naturally around the edges.
Second, there is a structural meaning in the form. Buildings tend to be of materials that are strong in compression; compressive strength is cheaper then tensile strength or strength in bending. Any building which stands in pure compression will tend toward the overall outline of an inverted catenary—roof layout (209). When a building does take this form, each outlying space acts to buttress the higher spaces. The building is stable in just the same way that a pile of earth, which has assumed the line of least resistance, is also stable.
And third, there is a practical consideration. We shall explain that roof gardens (118), wherever they occur, should not be over the top floor, but always on the same level as the rooms they serve. This means, naturally, that the building tends to get lower toward the edges since the roof gardens step down from the top toward the outer edge of the ground floor.
Why do these three apparently different problems lead to the same pattern? We don’t know. But we suspect that there is some deeper essence behind the apparent coincidence. We leave the pattern intact in the hope that someone else will understand its meaning.
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| A sketch of Frank Lloyd. Wright’s. |
567
Finally, a note on the application of the pattern. One must take care, in laying out large buildings, to make the cascade compatible with wings of light (107). If you conceive of the cascade as pyramidal and the building is large, the middle section of the building will be cut off from daylight. Instead, the proper synthesis of cascades and wings of light will generate a building that tumbles down along relatively narrow wings, the wings turning corners and becoming lower where they will.
Therefore:
Visualize the whole building, or building complex, as a system of roofs.
Place the largest, highest, and widest roofs over those parts of the building which are most significant: when you come to lay the roofs out in detail, you will be able to make all lesser roofs cascade off these large roofs and form a stable self-buttressing system, which is congruent with the hierarchy of social spaces underneath the roofs.
Make the roofs a combination of steeply pitched or domed, and flat shapes—sheltering roof (117), roof garden (118). Prepare to place small rooms at the outside and ends of wings, and large rooms in the middle—ceiling height variety (190). Later, once the plan of the building is more exactly defined, you can lay out the roofs exactly to fit the cascade to individual rooms; and at that stage the cascade will begin to have a structural effect of great importance—structure follows social spaces (205), Roof layout (209). . . .