Spatial Rules

Main Rooms are placed at the corners to receive two sides of natural light. Sub-rooms are placed in between main rooms. Auxiliary Rooms are carved out for storage space and miscellaneous uses.

Natural Light

Space requires more natural light than circulation because it is used, whereas circulation is only passed through. A 3x3 building denies light to the interior room, so it cannot be a main room, but it could be a small hall. Main rooms should be along the perimeter to maximize natural light. We avoid 3x3 rooms by combining rooms to let in light. 

Rooms should avoid X-intersections, in favor of T-intersections, because the extra space can allow for a window or a door.

Circulation Efficiency

All space breaks down into space and circulation until space is an object that can’t be occupied. Circulation connects space at access points.

Levels of Community

A building has rooms, and a central hall to get to the rooms. The central hall is a room in itself, even though it's shared between the rooms. Each level of community has private spaces (from the level below it), plus the shared "commons", which includes the circulation space.

The different scales are nested within each other.

The nesting of space forms the building, the rooms, the activity spaces, and the furniture. The house has hallways to connect rooms, rooms have paths to connect activity spaces, and activity spaces have flows to connect furniture.

Circulation takes away from space so we try to minimize it. The most efficient way to minimize circulation is to place it at the center with spaces off of it.

We minimize circulation and maximize space by placing access points adjacent to each other instead of opposite each other. It shortens the distance between access points. 

The most efficient path is not necessarily the quickest path. The quickest path to every other node causes too much circulation.

Intersecting paths create a node at the intersection called a hub. Hubs combine paths to reduce circulation and to create rectilinear space.

Wall lips create enough space from the wall to place furniture, so people aren't walking up against a wall.

The circulation for activity spaces can be less than 3 ft., but for room circulation and hallways it should be at least 3 ft. Hallways that are 3 ft. should have a tear drop at the end for turning around. Enclosed hallways without a teardrop should be wide enough in themselves, at least 4 ft.

Privacy Requirements

The hall is a pass-through room because we can only get to other places through it. Some rooms prefer circulation, like family rooms. They work as a hub for circulation, so they become like a hall. We should minimize the number of pass-through rooms as a general rule to maximize privacy and give main rooms more potential uses.

Access maps show how space is connected. We can draw access maps at different scales depending on the level of analysis that is needed.

The Unit

The size of buildings is generally constrained by maximum natural light, minimum circulation, and maximum privacy. This suggests a unit of building that is about the same size and shape for all buildings. It is a central hall with several rooms off it. Buildings like single-room cabins can be smaller than the unit, but a room doesn’t need four sides of natural light. The unit is the upper limit for buildings, but units can be attached to form larger buildings with many wings. When we attach a unit to another unit, it is accessed through an existing room that no longer has two sides of natural light. It is sacrificed for the rooms of the additional unit.

The opposite of a central hall is a loop. We should try to maximize the loop distance, even though it creates pass-through rooms. 

It works well for public rooms like the living room, dining room, and kitchen. A loop takes advantage of the square footage, so it feels larger. It provides an interesting path through the house, so we don't have to retrace our steps. It has more options to get from room to room. A second stair can significantly increase loop distance.

Balanced Nodes

Nodes, or access points, have a draw strength depending on how important they are. A closet has less draw than a stair because a closet only has a few uses and it's rarely used, whereas a stair has access to everything on that floor.

Balancing nodes according to draw makes sense because we want to feel pulled along naturally instead of going out of our way to get somewhere. If there is too much draw in one direction, and not enough draw in the other direction, we can add access points (nodes of activity) to balance it out.

The amount of draw, or pull, depends on turn rotation. We can think of it like a flower, where each side of the stem must be balanced, and as the stem branches into leaves, it gets smaller.

The Shape of Buildings

Buildings are rectangular because rooms are rectangular. They are roughly square to allow for multiple furniture layouts. Some rooms can be round, but the space on either side is unusable unless the corners are used for storage.

Buildings are generally convex. If they are concave, they have an access point in the inner corner to activate the space. Otherwise, it is wasted space because there would be no reason to go into the concave space.