#37 House Clusters – A Pattern Language

As you’ve probably realized by now, I think Christopher Alexander is the ultimate environmental (architectural) psychologist.  The deep and practical thought he put into each of the patterns of building in his Pattern Language represent the way architects and planners need to start thinking about the built environment.  Today I’m sharing another pattern I particularly like – this one relevant to my specific interests in social patterns in residential settings.

#37 – House Cluster

“People will not feel comfortable in their houses unless a group of houses forms a cluster, with the public land between them jointly owned by all the householders…

“Hebert Gans in The Levittowners has collected some powerful evidence for this tendency.  Gans surveyed visiting habits on a typical block tract development.  Of the 149 people he surveyed, all of them were engaged in some pattern of regular visiting with their neighbors.  The interesting finding is the morphology of this visiting pattern.

“Consider the following diagram… There is a house on either side, one or two across the street, and one directly behind, across a garden fence.  Ninety-three percent of all the neighborhood visiting engaged in by the subjects is confined to this spatial cluster.

“The beauty of this finding is in its indication of the strength of the spatial cluster to draw people together into neighborly contact…

“We conclude that people continue to act according to the laws of a spatial cluster, even when the block layout and the neighborhood plan do their best to destroy this unit and make it anonymous.

“Gans’ data underscore our intuitions:  people want to be part of a neighborly spatial cluster; contact between people sharing such a cluster is a vital function.  And this need stands, even when people are able to drive and see friends all over the city.”

Alexander continues to talk about size of the cluster (he believes 8-12 is most ideal, with 12 representing the upper limit as that is the limit of number of people who could meet over a kitchen table and keep in touch with the whole group without too much special effort.  He asserts again that the common land is the essential ingredient which “acts as a focus and physically knits the group together.”

Lastly in this pattern, he believes the clusters should not be to constricting or tight – that they should not have absolute boundaries or exclude the cluster from the larger community around it.  “Arrange the clusters so that anyone can walk through them, without feeling like a trespasser.”

This pattern is extremely interesting in light of cohousing developments – which are pretty much more deliberate versions of what he is suggesting here.  His recommendation of 12 households makes me wonder about the size of cohousing communities – are most of them too large to achieve this natural community that Alexander believes will develop out of house clusters?  Is it too many people to keep track of, to maintain good relations with, to not have smaller factions form within the group?

Also, the very nature of cohousing tends to be exclusive.  Very, very few communities are so well integrated into their surrounding that someone would not feel like a trespasser upon entering.  This creates a feeling of great ownership, safety, and comfort within the community – but does it come with sacrifices that are too great?  Is it too suffocating, too cold to the outside world, is it sustainable in the broader sense of being a way everyone in every city or neighborhood could live?

Just some thoughts to ponder, raised by an architect who has enormous insight to the way we actually move, interact, and live.

Branding Your Community

Today I went to a roundtable seminar given by the NYC Department of Small Business Services.  It was on creating Brand, Identity and Sense of Place and targeted at New York’s Business Improvement Districts.

The speakers represented emerging BIDs (Laurel Brown – Nostrand Park), Pro Bono Design Groups (Michelle Mullineaux – DesigNYC), the official NYC marketing and tourist company (Willy Wong – NYC + Co.), and a recently re-branded BID (Kevin Foley & Marie Torniali – Steinway Astoria Partnership).

The two hour session was among the most useful I have gone to recently, with the session on branding being of particular interest.  I will share the elements of branding WireMedia used in their branding services for Nostrand Park, which are broken up into a surprisingly simple and common sense set of criteria, and further explain each as it could pertain to the creation of a community – neighborhood, cohousing, BID, or otherwise.

• Mission – What are the goals of your community?
• Identity Attributes – What terms/thoughts/groups/ideas/values are associated with your group?  What one term is most central?
• Value Proposition – What are your core advantages?  Why are you better than a competitor?  What are your weaknesses?
• Tagline – Come up with one!
• Brand Story – How and why did you come to exist?
• Logo – Come up with a logo.  It should reflect all of the above, and…
• Color Palette – Stick to the same color palette for everything visual related to your community (brochure, website, business cards, mailings, letter head, etc.)
• Typography – Standardize your fonts, as well, to increase recognizability.

That’s all…  I found the session really interesting and that was one of the most directly useful pieces.

I Think I’ve Been Pushed to the Other [Brighter] Side

What does sustainable mean to you?  I have had this word shoved down my throat for the past half decade.  As a liberal, a resident of co-operative housing, a researcher of cohousing & community design, a resident of New York City, and a student of environmental psychology – I have really had no choice but to nod my head in support of everything sustainable.  But it was a passive nod; it was never truly in my heart.

“Buy Local”, “Eat Organic”, “Bike to Work”  ” – for years these words have gone in one ear and out the other.  “yadda yadda yadda”, I’ve thought, “This is a fad, it’ll pass”.  I was not certain global warming was due to human action nor that human action would be sufficient to stop any climate change patterns.  I appreciated the sustainability commandments insofar as they promote community and relationships, but generally stopped there.  I fought hard (I struggle to admit)  to keep our New Zealand Jazz apples in supply when I lived in a co-operative house.  I have been, to sum it up nicely, a happy, satisfied, and ignorant American.

The more my peers, housemates, co-workers, and boyfriend have pushed these mantras at me, the more I repelled them, becoming stubborn and cooly detached.  I am a practical person who wants research before action and action in place of protests.  At my most lenient, I stepped out of the path hindering “sustainable progress”, merely following those around me in their composting, car-pooling, and local-buying.

But today, something in my heart changed.  As I was cutting up vegetables for a dinner salad, I smiled at how good it felt to see something go from its whole form into what we will later eat.  A friend of mine told me several months ago he tries to only eat “whole foods”, for health reasons.  He is a typical political democrat, as skeptical and aloof as they come.   So, I could take his praise of whole foods without the normal grain of salt that comes with such buzz words.

Standing at the kitchen island, I wondered from how far the cucumber, green pepper, and tomatoes had come and made a note to check the labels next time I’m in the grocery store.  Then I remembered a description of a farmers market in Ithaca, from the book I am reading (Choosing a Sustainable Future: Ideas and Inspiration from Ithaca, NY).  In the passage Liz Walker described the way residents diligently check labels for how local an item is, encouraging local agriculture and reduction of fossil fuel consumption.  I’m reading the book for work and honestly began it without much enthusiasm – I am surprised, now, to identify personally with her words.

This evening, as I cut up vegetables, I felt excited about the prospect of buying local.  I felt like it was right, and good, and healthy – not just for me, but for those I cook for, for my community, and for the environment as a whole.

The lesson here?  Change can happen and when it does, it needs to be at the personal level.  Sometimes lower-key, passive approaches (and education) are more effective than social pressure or a flood of information.  For me, the feeling of holding produce and turning it into a meal had special meaning tonight.  It had meaning that translated into a sudden understanding of the environmental concerns and a desire to leave as little of a mark on this Earth as possible.  With the words from my book on sustainability in the back of my mind, those feelings were encouraged and given a direction to grow and to develop meaning.

We all have a responsibility to ourselves and our community to reign in our lifestyles.  We need to support the agriculture that is nearby and seasonal, eat more locally, eat more healthfully, and think about how our actions affect those around us – near and far.

(I sound like the far-left, quasi-hippies I rolled my eyes at for the past half decade.)

Design For Perception :: Design Toward Persuasion

Here’s one heck of a question, posed by MARIA LORENA LEHMAN on her site, Sensing Architecture.

At what point does design for perception become design toward persuasion?

This question was posed in relation to the topic of their article, which is that the amount of time a person spends looking at a choice impacts whether they choose it.  For instance, an elaborate staircase beside a dull escalator could “encourage” people to take the stairs.

Now, replace “encourage” with “persuade” … still ok, right?  What about replacing it with “manipulate”?  When does it cross each of these thresholds?  Does the fact that we are now becoming scientifically aware of our environments mean that we cannot or are morally obligated to (or to not) use this information to elicit certain behaviors?  When does this start sounding like environmental determinism?

These questions came up during my cohousing research – for example, knowledge that residents who can see the common house from their living spaces are more likely to use the common house – this knowledge should be used to better the site plans of cohousing communities, right?  Is it a breach of people’s rights to change their environment in a way that will (scientifically speaking) likely result in more friendships, more civic engagement, and more neighborly contact?

My opinion is absolutely not.  Some people inherently, subconsciously, understand psychology.  And they use this to their advantage, be it in sales, dating, or architectural design.  To study this in depth, to know the actual how and why’s of psychology, is an asset to human beings.  Psychology, “persuasion”, and “manipulation” have been used for thousands of years.  We are just now able to get better at it, and… ideally… to use it for altruistic purposes.

These are some of the questions I find most intriguing in this field.  I will read her article in full, and bring back a summary here shortly.  Great website to have discovered.

Broken Windows in My Kitchen.

I’ve read about the “Broken Windows Theory”–  in urban planning and environmental psychology courses.  I’ve witnessed broken windows–  as a resident of and volunteer in Detroit.  And I’ve been lectured about it– as an employee of a major business improvement district & Park in New York.

But, today, I witnessed this theory firsthand.  I realized I have the great pleasure of living amongst “broken windows” of sorts, in my greatly over-stuffed frat house of an apartment.

The Broken Windows Theory is an urban planning / sociology ideology which asserts that the first “broken windows”, or signs of disrepair in an area, will lead to further and further destruction and disregard.  The theory was advanced by James Wilson and George Kelling and the title comes from the following example:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.  -Book

These “broken windows” – or any other symbol of disrepair – have a downward spiraling effect for a number of reasons.  For one, it suggests to potential criminals that this location lacks monitoring and could be an easy target.  Second, it tells occupants that no one cares for them or their space;  further that the property is not worth their care.  Third, it makes residents feel hopeless – like they are fighting an uphill battle and their contribution, be it in monitoring or repairing, will be a waste.  Lastly, people determine their behavior based on sets of social norms (cues taken on the appropriate ways to act in particular situations).  If people see trash all over the ground, they are much less likely to carry their trash until they find a garbage can.  The understood norm in such a place then would be “toss it on the street”.

So, if I’ve known about and seen this theory in action for a number of years, why am I bringing it up now?  Because my kitchen sink, at the moment, is piled with dishes.  (What?) Eight of my friends and I share this apartment, all of us having planned to have moved on and out but no one wanted to leave.  It makes for a warm, fun environment – but at the same time it makes for an environment where one cracked window can turn into a window-less house of sorts in a matter of hours.

In real terms, if one person leaves their breakfast bowl in the sink, by 10pm there will be a full dishwasher, food on the stove, and a clogged sink.  Yet if that first bowl isn’t left, it is very likely I will come home to a still pristine kitchen.  I’m guilty of it;  if the kitchen is tidy, I will wash my dishes… then empty the drying rack AND wipe down all the surfaces.  But if it is a disaster I will do the bare minimum and walk out.

I find the psychology of this fascinating, as simple as it may be.  For all the same reasons a housing project can quickly turn to slums, my kitchen can turn into a 9 person disaster in a day;  users are made angry by it and thus enter with a negative attitude, they get the feeling no one else cares so it is not worthy of their care, it seems like their effort would be lost or quickly undone…

So, as I  now sit in my bed room hiding from a messy kitchen, I appreciate that Bryant Park, through meticulous maintenance, has transformed itself from a drug den in the 1980’s to one of the world’s nicest, safest, and most appreciated parks.

(Lesson to take from this post:  go clean your dishes.  It will make whoever else shares your household do the same.)  😉

(And the better lesson:  stay on top of your environment… letting some aspect of disrepair sit unresolved will not just accumulate, it will accelerate the rate of decline.)

Hide Your House’s Best View

Christopher Alexander, renowned architect and design theorist, wrote one of the best known and loved books on architecture,  A Pattern Language.  This book, comprised of over 200 distinct “patterns” of building, ranged from very micro (construction basics) to macro (ideal society sizes).  I love many, many of the patterns in the book and will never design a building without carefully considering the bulk of this work.

Today, I would like to share one such pattern with you, this one he titles “Zen View” (Pattern 134 on Page 641).

Alexander asserts that the finest views should not be made the focal point of a building or a room but rather they should be generally hidden, so that they can surprise and delight for years to come.  He states that such views, when made open and constantly visible, becomes tired and usual, eventually ending up as striking as the wallpaper in the house.

Instead, Alexander says, put these views in points of transition within the house.  At the turn of a staircase, for example, or through a slit in a fence just before entering a house.  That way, both visitors and occupants will be delighted each time they walk this path, appreciating the view forever.

(Pretty interesting, huh?)

What is Cohousing? (And Attend the Conference!)

My last article, on cohousing common houses, had a good deal of activity in the past couple of days.  As such, I’m going to take a minute to explain what cohousing is, as well as to throw in a quick promotion for the 2011 Cohousing Conference, June 15-19th, in Washington DC.

 

Cohousing developed in Denmark in the 1970’s.  By 1993 there were more than 140 Cohousing communities in that country, with the number growing every year. It is part of the “intentional community movement, and began in the United States after two architects, Katheryn McCamant and Charles Durrett brought what they had learned abroad back to the states.  Katie and Chuck, who I had the pleasure of meeting personally, spent 13 months in Denmark, extending their stay from 6 months to continue studying these communities. From that initial spark, cohousing has grown in the US to currently over 100 built communities and almost the same number in various development stages. Cohousing can exist in a variety of forms – from being a part of a 200 acre ecovillage to a high density urban infill project.

There are six defining characteristics of Cohousing, which include:

1. A participatory design process
2. Neighborhood design
3. Common facilities
4. Resident management
5. Non-hierarchical government structure and decision making
6. Independent finances

Although they often get the rap of a modern-day commune, they are quite different, with independent units, jobs, and private lives. (So independent, many residents complain there is not enough use of their common house!)

Cohousing is a unique type of group. It is smaller than a town, but bigger than a family. It is an organization, but it has by definition no hierarchy of power or decision-making. Government is by consensus, yet members are self-selecting rather than pre-screened. It is communal in nature, but not a commune. It is a condo association by many legal definitions, but with a common house that exceeds any clubhouse I have ever seen. Most closely, it is a neighborhood – but an inter-dependent one that also serves many of the functions of an extended family.

Spaces Designed to be Communal, Yet Residents Report Underuse

This is an article submitted to Communities Magazine that represents a year of my research through the University of Michigan.   For the full study, contact Rebecca – rebecca.disbrow@gmail.com – for more information.

COMMON HOUSES:  WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?

A Study into Common House Vitality and Some Recommendations for Increasing its Use

By: Rebecca Disbrow

9/26/2010

This afternoon I was working a new job in a famous park in New York City (Bryant Park).  I am part of the event staff for a series of free outdoor performances – tonight was the New York City Ballet. At some point between three and two hours before the event’s start, the concern among my colleagues switched from “Will we have enough of a turn-out?” to “What measures should we take for crowd control?”

I reflected on my previous year of research in cohousing common houses – for which I spent countless hours trying to approximate and manipulate that formula of how many people will use a public space – and realized just how important that ability can be.

In my first few weeks, the staff at Bryant Park seemed to have a “magic wand” of sorts that controlled and increased the park’s use at their whim.  I have learned it’s more of a science than an art since those first days – a carefully perfected science with a lot of thought behind it.  This article looks at some of the elements that would go into a similar wand – one designed for cohousing communities…

Architects and Planners CAN Change Behavior

…And make people happier and healthier!  Check out this video that demonstrates how a little fun and creativity increased stair use by 60%.

Youtube Link

Visit My Cohousing Blog

In addition to this blog, I am the editor for a cohousing blog for a cohousing development company out of Washington DC.  Visit the site at: www.cohousingblog.com