Furniture and use are key to any room, but bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens have obvious furniture and well-understood uses. Living spaces, not so much.
Traditionally, a Living Room was more formal, off the front door, and a Family Room connected with the kitchen. "We continue to live informally in houses designed for more formality."--Susanka, The Not So Big House. With open concept layouts, even the formal living room has visibility into the kitchen and dining areas. Some homes have a Great Room, but what is the purpose?
Activities. The living space needs to accommodate conversation--couch and chairs around a coffee table. Friends drop by, a salesman visits, a cocktail party. But living involves a flat screen, too--every seat aimed at the screen, TV, DVD, game, computer. It's quaint, but living also involves sitting quietly and reading, or taking a nap on the couch. A guest computer might be a nice addition.
The multipurpose living space often plays a traffic role. The living space is the crossroads--front door to dining, kitchen to powder bath.
A Pattern Language. Common Areas at the Heart (129), Sequence of Sitting Spaces (142), Sitting Circle (185). The traffic role is confirmed: The Flow Through Rooms (131). And storage--board games, books, DVDs, games. Bulk Storage (145). The patterns are online.
Common areas provide constant informal contact. The screen must not interfere with through traffic, but it may be the excuse for someone to linger. (A basement Media Room does not provide this feature.) The common area needs Indoor Sunlight (128), but the area around the screen is darkened--Tapestry of Light and Dark (135).
If the living area is at the end of a corridor, it doesn't work. However, "if the circulation path cuts too deeply through the common area, the space will be too exposed, it will not be comfortable to linger there and settle down." That's the problem I'm having with the current layout. But...the living space must be "on the way" from the entrance to private rooms. And "make sure that there are plenty of different sitting places, different in character for different kinds of moments."
Components include "a kitchen and eating space, since eating is one of the most communal of activities, and a sitting space--at lease some comfortable chairs, so people will feel like staying. It should also include an outdoor area--on nice days there is always the longing to be outside--to step out for a smoke, to sit down on the grass, to carry on a discussion." Related patterns are: The Fire (181) and The Shape of Indoor Space (191).
"You may want to build a special sitting room--...a parlor or a library...--as one of the sitting spaces in your house."
The Flow Through Rooms talks about "generous" movement, so the circulation is enlivened by sunlight, garden views, and the smells and sounds of activity in adjacent rooms. "...avoid the use of corridors and passages. Instead, use...common rooms as rooms for movement and for gathering..."
"In a building with uniform light level, there are few 'places' which function as effective settings for human events. This happens because, to a large extent, the places which make effective settings are defined by light." Tapestry of Light and Dark.
"A well-defined area, with paths running past it, not cutting through it, and placed so that people naturally pass by it, stop and talk, lean on the backs of chairs, gradually sit down, move position, get up again." Sitting Circle.
By the way, "A building in which the ceiling heights are all the same is virtually incapable of making people comfortable." Ceiling Height Variety (190)
No comments:
Post a Comment