edge-LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF EVERY ROOM ( I 59), ALCOVES
(179), WINDOW PLACE (l8o), THICK WALLS (197), CLOSETS BETWEEN rooms (198) ; open up the long side into the garden or out onto balconies—outdoor room (163), gallery surround (166), low sill (222). Make interior windows between the passage and the rooms which open off it—-interior windows (194), solid doors with glass (237). And finally, for the shape of the passages, in detail, start with the shape of indoor space (191). . . .
| 133 STAIRCASE AS A STAGE |
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. , . if the entrances are in position—main entrance (iio); and the pattern of movement through the building is established
-THE FLOW THROUGH ROOMS (131), SHORT PASSAGES (132),
the main stairs must be put in and given an appropriate social character.
A staircase is not just a way of getting from one floor to another. The stair is itself a space, a volume, a part of the building; and unless this space is made to live, it will be a dead spot, and work to disconnect the building and to tear its processes apart.
Our feelings for the general shape of the stair are based on this conjecture: changes of level play a crucial role at many moments during social gatherings; they provide special places to sit, a place where someone can make a graceful or dramatic entrance, a place from which to speak, a place from which to look at other people while also being seen, a place which increases face to face contact when many people are together.
If this is so, then the stair is one of the few places in a building which is capable of providing for this requirement, since it is almost the only place in a building where a transition between levels occurs naturally.
This suggests that the stair always be made rather open to the room below it, embracing the room, coming down around the outer perimeter of the room, so that the stairs together with the room form a socially connected space. Stairs that are enclosed in stairwells or stairs that are free standing and chop up the space
| \ f 1 | -—U l-U-L-- | & |
| --- | n | j—-----, |
| Exatnfles of stair rooms. | ||
133 STAIRCASE AS A STAGE
below, do not have this character at all. But straight stairs, stairs that follow the contour of the walls below, or stairs that double back can all be made to work this way.
Furthermore, the first four or five steps are the places where people are most likely to sit if the stair is working well. To support this fact, make the bottom of the staircase flare out, widen the steps, and make them comfortable to sit on.
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| Stair seats. |
Finally, we must decide where to place the stair. On the one hand, of course, the stair is the key to movement in a building. It must therefore be visible from the front door; and, in a building with many different rooms upstairs, it must be in a position which commands as many of these rooms as possible, so that it forms a kind of axis people can keep clearly in their minds.
However, if the stair is too near the door, it will be so public that its position will undermine the vital social character we have described. Instead, we suggest that the stair be clear, and central, yes—but in the common area of the building, a little further back from the front door than usual. Not usually in the
ENTRANCE ROOM (130), but in the COMMON AREA AT THE
heart (129). Then it will be clear and visible, and also keep its necessary social character.
Therefore:
Place the main stair in a key position, central and vis-
BUILDINGS
ible. Treat the whole staircase as a room (or if it is outside, as a courtyard). Arrange it so that the stair and the room are one, with the stair coming down around one or two walls of the room. Flare out the bottom of the stair with open windows or balustrades and with wide steps so that the people coming down the stair become part of the action in the room while they are on the stair, and so that people below will naturally use the stair for seats.
Treat the bottom steps as stair seats (125); provide a window or a view half-way up the stair, both to light the stair and to create a natural focus of attention—zen view (134), tapestry of light and dark (I 3 5) ; remember to calculate the length and shape of the stair while you are working out its position— staircase volume (195). Get the final shape of the staircase room and the beginnings of its construction from the shape of indoor space (191). . . .
I 34 ZEN VIEW*
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. . . how should we make the most of a view? It turns out that the pattern which answers this question helps to govern not the rooms and windows in a building, but the places of transition. It helps to place and detail entrance transition (112), entrance ROOM (130), SHORT PASSAGES (I 3 2.), THE STAIRCASE AS A stage (133) —and outside, paths and goals (I 20).
.% q.
The archetypal zen view occurs in a famous Japanese house, which gives this pattern its name.
A Buddhist monk lived high in the mountains, in a small stone house. Far, far in the distance was the ocean, visible and beautiful from the mountains. But it was not visible from the monk’s house itself, nor from the approach road to the house. However, in front of the house there stood a courtyard surrounded by a thick stone wall. As one came to the house, one passed through a gate into this court, and then diagonally across the court to the front door of the house. On the far side of the courtyard there was a slit in the wall, narrow and diagonal, cut through the thickness of the wall. As a person walked across the court, at one spot, where his position lined up with the slit in the wall, for an instant, he could see the ocean. And then he was past it once again, and went into the house.
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What is it that happens in this courtyard? The view of the distant sea is so restrained that it stays alive forever. Who, that
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134 ZEN view
has ever seen that view, can ever forget it? Its power will never fade. Even for the man who lives there, coming past that view day after day for fifty years, it will still be alive.
This is the essence of the problem with any view. It is a beautiful thing. One wants to enjoy it and drink it in every day. But the more open it is, the more obvious, the more it shouts, the sooner it will fade. Gradually it will become part of the building, like the wallpaper; and the intensity of its beauty will no longer be accessible to the people who live there.
Therefore:
If there is a beautiful view, don’t spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which look onto the view at places of transition— along paths, in hallways, in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms.
If the view window is correctly placed, people will see a glimpse of the distant view as they come up to the window or pass it: but the view is never visible from the places where people stay.
Put in the windows to complete the indirectness of the view —natural doors and windows (22i); place them to help the tapestry of light and dark (135) ; and build a seat from which a person can enjoy the view—window place ( i 8o). If the view must be visible from inside a room, make a special corner of the room which looks onto the view, so that the enjoyment of the view becomes a definite act in its own right. . . .