95

Building Complex

Opening context:
Number of Stories

Conflict

A building cannot be a human building unless it is a complex of still smaller buildings or smaller parts which manifest its own internal social facts.

Resolution

Never build large monolithic buildings. Whenever possible translate your building program into a building complex, whose parts manifest the actual social facts of the situation. At low densities, a building complex may take the form of a collection of small buildings connected by arcades, paths, bridges, shared gardens, and walls.

At higher densities, a single building can be treated as a building complex, if its important parts are picked out and made identifiable while still part of one three-dimensional fabric.

Even a small building, a house for example, can be conceived as a building complex — perhaps part of it is higher than the rest with wings and an adjoining cottage.

Closing context:
Long Thin House, Building Fronts, Circulation Realms, Structure Follows Social Spaces, South Facing Outdoors