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Sitting Circle

Opening context:
Sequence of Sitting Spaces, Intimacy Gradient

Conflict

A group of chairs, a sofa and a chair, a pile of cushions — these are the most obvious things in everybody’s life — and yet to make them work, so people become animated and alive in them, is a very subtle business. Most seating arrangements are sterile, people avoid them, nothing ever happens there. Others seem somehow to gather life around them, to concentrate and liberate energy. What is the difference between the two?

Resolution

Place each sitting space in a position which is protected not cut by paths or movement, roughly circular, made so that the room itself helps to suggest the circle — not too strongly — with paths and activities around it, so that people naturally gravitate toward the chairs and cushions loosely in the circle, and have a few too many.

Closing context:
The Fire, The Shape of Indoor Space, Half-Open Wall, Common Areas at the Heart, Different Chairs