211

Thickening the Outer Walls

Opening context:
Cascade of Roofs, Window Place, Thick Walls, Built-In Seats, Secret Places

Conflict

We have established in Thick Walls how important it is for the walls of a building to have “depth” and “volume”, so that character accumulates in them, with time. but when it comes to laying out a building and constructing it, this turns out to be quite hard to do.

Resolution

Mark all those places in the plan where seats and closets are to be. These places are given individually by alcoves, window places, thick walls, sunny counter, waist-high shelf, built-in seats, and so on. Lay out a wide swath on the plan to correspond to these positions. Make it two or three feet deep; recognize that it will be outside the main space of the room; your seats, niches, shelves, will feel attached to the main space of the rooms but not inside them. Then, when you lay out columns and minor columns, place the columns in such a way that they surround and define these thick volumes of wall, as if they were rooms or alcoves.

Closing context:
Roof Vaults, Floor-Ceiling Vaults, Columns at the Corners