FARMHOUSE KITCHEN ( I 39) j COMMUNAL EATING ( I 47) , and
the fire (181). For the shape of the common area in fine detail, see light on two sides of every room (159) and the shape of indoor space (191). Make sure that there are plenty of different sitting places, different in character for different kinds of moments—sequence of sitting spaces (142). Include an outdoor room (163). And make the paths properly tangent to the common areas—arcades (119), the flow through ROOMS ( I 3 I ), SHORT PASSAGES ( I 32) . . . .
62 1
| 130 ENTRANCE ROOM** |
|---|
 |
| 622 |
. . . the position and overall shape of entrances is given by
FAMILY OF ENTRANCES (l02), MAIN ENTRANCE (iIO) and
entrance transition (112). This pattern gives the entrances their detailed shape, their shape and body and three dimensions, and helps complete the form begun by car connection ( i i 3), and the private terrace on the street (140).
Arriving in a building, or leaving it, you need a room to pass through, both inside the building and outside it. This is the entrance room.
The most impressionistic and intuitive way to describe the need for the entrance room is to say that the time of arriving, or leaving, seems to swell with respect to the minutes which precede and follow it, and that in order to be congruent with the importance of the moment, the space too must follow suit and swell with respect to the immediate inside and the immediate outside of the building.
We shall see now that there are a tremendous number of miniscule forces which all come together to support this general intuition. All these forces, tendencies, and solutions were originally describe by Alexander and Poyner, in the Atoms of Environmental Structure, Ministry of Public Works, Research and Development, SFB Ba4, London, 1966. At that time it seemed important to emphasize the separate and individual patterns defined by these forces. However, at the present writing it seems clear that these original patterns are, in fact, all faces of the one larger and more comprehensive entity, which we call the entrance room (130).
1. The relationshif of windows to the entrance
(a) A person answering the door often tries to see who is at the door before they open it.
(b) People do not want to go out of their way to peer at people on the doorstep.
623
BUILDINGS
(c) If the people meeting are old friends, they seek a chance to shout out and wave in anticipation.
The entrance room therefore needs a window—or windows— on the path from the family room or kitchen to the door, facing the area outside the door from the side.
2. The need for shelter outside the door
(a) People try to get shelter from the rain, wind, and cold while they are waiting.
(b) People stand near the door while they arc waiting for it to open.
On the outside, therefore, give the entrance room walls enclosing three sides of a covered space.
j. The subtleties of saying goodbye
When hosts and guests are saying goodbye, the lack of a clearly marked “goodbye” point can easily lead to endless “Well, we really must be going now,” and then further conversations lingering on, over and over again.
(a) Once they have finally decided to go, people try to leave without hesitation.
(b) People try to make their goodbye as nonabrupt as possible and seek a comfortable break.
Give the entrance room, therefore, a clearly defined area, at least 20 square feet, outside the front door, raised with a natural threshold—perhaps a railing, or a low wall, or a step—between it and the visitors’ cars.
4. Shelf near the entrance
When a person is going into the house with a package:
(a) He tries to hold onto the package; he tries to keep it upright, and off the ground.
(b) At the same time he tries to get both hands free to hunt through pockets or handbag for a key.
And leaving the house with a package:
(c) At the moment of leaving people tend to be preoccupied with other things, and this makes them forget the package which they meant to take.
624
You can avoid these conflicts if there are shelves both inside and outside the door, at about waist height; a place to leave packages in readiness; a place to put them down while opening the door.
5. Interior of the entrance room
(a) Politeness demands that when someone comes to the door, the door is opened wide.
(b) People seek privacy for the inside of their houses.
(c) The family, sitting, talking, or at table, do not want to feel disturbed or intruded upon when someone comes to the door.
Make the inside of the entrance room zigzag, or obstructed, so that a person standing on the doorstep of the open door can see no rooms inside, except the entrance room itself, nor through the doors of any rooms.
6. Coats} shoes, children’s bikes . . .
(a) Muddy boots have got to come off.
(b) People need a five foot diameter of clear space to take off their coats.
(c) People take prams, bicycles, and so on indoors to protect them from theft and weather; and children will tend to leave all kinds of clutter—bikes, wagons, roller skates, trikes, shovels, balls—around the door they use most often.
Therefore, give the entrance room a dead corner for storage, put coat pegs in a position which can be seen from the front door, and make an area five feet in diameter next to the pegs.
Therefore:
At the main entrance to a building, make a light-filled room which marks the entrance and straddles the boundary between indoors and outdoors, covering some space outdoors and some space indoors. The outside part may be like an old-fashioned porch; the inside like a hall or sitting room.
3 CITY COUNTRY FINGERS
the countryside. Only 100 years ago 85 percent of the Americans lived on rural land; today 70 percent live in cities. Apparently we cannot live entirely within cities—at least the kinds of cities we have built so far—our need for contact with the countryside runs too deep, it is a biological necessity:
Unique as we may think we are, we are nevertheless as likely to be genetically programmed to a natural habitat of clean air and a varied green landscape as any other mammal. To be relaxed and feel healthy usually means simply allowing our bodies to react in the way for which one hundred millions of years of evolution has equipped us. Physically and genetically, we appear best adapted to a tropical savanna, but as a cultural animal we utilize learned adaptations to cities and towns. For thousands of years we have tried in our houses to imitate not only the climate, but the setting of our evolutionary past: warm, humid air, green plants, and even animal companions. Today, if we can afford it, we may even build a greenhouse or swimming pool next to our living room, buy a place in the country, or at least take our children vacationing on the seashore. The specific physiological reactions to natural beauty and diversity, to the shapes and colors of nature (especially to green), to the motions and sounds of other animals, such as birds, we as yet do not comprehend. But it is evident that nature in our daily life should be thought of as a part of the biological need. It cannot be neglected in the discussions of resource policy for man. (H. H. litis, P. Andres, and O. L. Loucks, in Population Resources Environment: Issues in Human Ecology, P. R. Ehrlich and A. H. Ehrlich, San Francisco: Freeman and Co., 1970, p. 204.)