114 Hierarchy of Open Space*

. . . the main outdoor spaces are given their character by Site Repair (104), South Facing Outdoors (105) and Positive Outdoor Space (106). But you can refine them, and complete their character by making certain that every space always has a view out into some other larger one, and that all the spaces work together to form hierarchies.

Outdoors, people always try to find a spot where they can have their backs protected, looking out toward some larger opening, beyond the space immediately in front of them.

In short, people do not sit facing brick walls - they place themselves toward the view or toward whatever there is in the distance that comes nearest to a view.

Simple as this observation is, there is almost no more basic statement to make about the way people place themselves in space. And this observation has enormous implications for the spaces in which people can feel comfortable. Essentially, it means that any place where people can feel comfortable has

1. A back.

2. A view into a larger space.

In order to understand the implications of this pattern, let us look at the three major cases where it applies.

In the very smallest of outdoor spaces, in private gardens, this pattern tells you to make a corner of the space as a "back" with a seat, looking out on the garden. If it is rightly made, this corner will be snug, but not at all claustrophobic.

Seat and garden.

Slightly larger in scale, there is the connection between a terrace or an outdoor room of some kind and a larger open space, the street or a square. The most common form of the pattern at this scale is the front stoop, which forms a definite enclosure and a back, off the public street.

Terrace and street or square.

At the largest scale, this pattern tells you to open up public squares and greens, at one end, to great vistas. At this scale, the square itself acts as a kind of back which a person can occupy, and from which he can look out upon an even larger expanse.

Square and vista.

Therefore:

Whatever space you are shaping - whether it is a garden, terrace, street, park, public outdoor room, or courtyard, make sure of two things. First, make at least one smaller space, which looks into it and forms a natural back for it. Second, place it, and its openings, so that it looks into at least one larger space.

When you have done this, every outdoor space will have a natural "back"; and every person who takes up the natural position, with his back to this "back," will be looking out toward some larger distant view.

For example: garden seats open to gardens - Garden Seat (176), Half-Hidden Garden (106); activity pockets open to public squares - Activity Pockets (124), SMALL PublicSQUARE (61); gardens open to local roads - Private Terrace on the Street (140), LOOPED LOCAL ROAD (49), roads open to fields - Green Streets (51), Accessible GreenS (60); fields open to the countryside, on a great vista - Common Land (67), The Countryside (7). Make certain that each piece of the hierarchy is arranged so that people can be comfortably settled within it, oriented out toward the next larger space. . . .

A Pattern Language is published by Oxford University Press, Copyright Christopher Alexander, 1977.