“Strange man, I am not proud, or contemptuous, or offended, but I know what manner of man you were when you sailed away from Ithaca. Come Eurycleia, make the bed outside the room which he built himself; put the fine bedstead outside, and lay out the rugs and blankets and fleeces.”
This was a little trap for her husband. He burst into a rage: “Wife, that has cut me to the heart! Who has moved my bedi That would be a difficult job for the best workman, unless God himself should come down and move it. It would be easy for God, but no man could easily prize it up, not the strongest man living! There is a great secret in that bed. I made it myself, and no one else touched it. There was a strong young olive tree in full leaf growing in an enclosure, the trunk as thick as a pillar. Round this I built our bridal chamber; I did the whole thing myself, laid the stones and built a good roof over it, jointed the doors and fitted them in their places. After that I cut off the branches and trimmed the trunk from the root up, smoothed it carefully with the adze and made it straight to the line. This tree I made the bedpost. That was the beginning of my bed; I bored holes through it, and fitted the other posts about it, and inlaid the framework with gold and silver and ivory, and I ran through it leather straps coloured purple. Now I have told you my secret. And I don’t know if it is still there, wife, or if some one has cut the olive at the root and moved my bed!”
She was conquered, she could hold out no longer when Odysseus told the secret she knew so well. She burst into tears and ran straight to him, throwing her arms about his neck. She kissed his head, and cried:
“Don’t be cross with me, my husband, you were always a most understanding man! The gods brought affliction upon us because they grudged us the joy of being young and growing old together! Don’t be angry, don’t be hurt because I did not take you in my arms as soon as I saw you! My heart has been frozen all this time with a fear that some one would come and deceive me with a false tale; there were so many imposters! But now you have told me the secret of our bed, that settles it.” (From The Odyssey, translated by W. H. D. Rouse. Reprinted by arrangement with The New American Library, Inc., New York, New York.)
The translator footnotes this incident as follows: “This is the first time in all the eventful tale when Odysseus speaks on impulse; he has been prepared for everything, but this unexpected trifle unlocks his heart.”
Quite honestly, we are not certain whether or not this pattern makes sense. On the one hand, it does: it is a beautiful idea; idyllic almost. Yet, face to face with cold hard fact and with the
dissolution and struggles in the marriages around us, it seems hard to hope that it could ever be quite real. We have decided to leave it in, just because it is a beautiful idea. But we ask you to treat it like Oblomov’s dream, a picture more real than reality, an impossible dream of perfect and idyllic circumstances, which may help perhaps, to make a little more sense of our muddled everyday reality—but only if we take it with a pinch of salt.
Therefore:
enclosure
At the right moment in a couple’s life, it is important that they make for themselves a special bed—an intimate anchor point for their lives; slightly enclosed, with a low ceiling or a canopy, with the room shaped to it; perhaps a tiny room built around the bed with many windows. Give the bed some shape of its own, perhaps as a four-poster with head board that can be hand carved or painted over the years.
| decoration |  |
window
Make two separate dressing rooms or alcoves near tire bed— dressing rooms (189) ; for more details on the space around the bed, see bed alcove ( i 88) ; lower the ceiling over the bed— ceiling height variety (190), and provide some way of creating special ornament all around it—ornament (249). For the detailed shape of the space around the bed, see the shape op-indoor space (191). . . .
| I 88 BED ALCOVE** |
|---|
 |
868
. . . bed alcoves help to generate the form of bed clusters (143), COMMUNAL SLEEPING ( I 86) and MARRIAGE BED (187). For children, each alcove also functions as a room of one’s own (141), so that even in the smallest house, not only the adults, but every child can have at least a small place to call his own.
v ♦!- -b
Bedrooms make no sense.
The valuable space around the bed is good for nothing except access to the bed. And all the other functions—dressing, working, and storage of personal belongings which people stuff uncomfortably into the corners of their bedrooms—in fact, need their own space, and are not at all well met by the left over areas around a bed.
In bed clusters (143), we have already argued that each child in a family should have a bed alcove of his own, opening off a common play-space. This is based purely on the balance between community and privacy. We shall now try to establish the fact that, for everyone in the house, isolated beds, not only those in clusters, are better off in alcoves than in bedrooms. There are two reasons.
First, the bed in a bedroom creates awkward spaces around it: dressing, working, watching television, sitting, are all rather foreign to the side spaces left over around a bed. We have found that people have a hard time adapting the space around the bed to their needs for bedroom space.
Second, the bed itself seems more comfortable in a space that is adjusted to it. In our design experiments, where lay people have used these patterns to design their own houses, we have noticed a rather strong urge to give the bed a nook of its own, some kind of enclosure. Apparently this particular pattern strikes a chord in people.
Once the bed has been built into a space that is right for it, then the rest of the bedrorn space is free to shape itself around the needs for sitting space, play areas, dressing, and storage.
BUILDINGS
What are the issues at stake in making a good bed alcove!1
Spaciousness. Don’t make it too tight. It must be comfortable to get in and out and to make the bed. If the alcove is going to function as a room of one’s own (141) for a child, then it needs to be almost a tiny room, with one wall missing.
 |
| Six bed alcoves in one of our houses in Peru. |
Ventilation. Bed alcoves need fresh air; at least a vent of some kind that is adjustable, and better still a window.
Privacy. People will want to draw into the alcove and be private. The opening of the alcove needs a curtain or some other kind of enclosure.
Ceiling. According to tire arguments developed with the pattern CELLING height variety (190), the bed, as an intimate social space for one or two, needs a ceiling height somewhat lower than the room beside it.
 |
| Bed alcoves off a family room. |
Therefore:
Don’t put single beds in empty rooms called bedrooms, but instead put individual bed alcoves off rooms with other nonsleeping functions, so the bed itself becomes a tiny private haven.
If you are building a very small house no more than 300 or 400 square feet—perhaps with the idea of adding to it gradually—this pattern plays an essential role. It will probably be best then to put the alcoves off the family room.