127. Intimacy Gradient Problem Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests, clients, family, will always be a little awkward. Solution Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and finally to the most private domains. Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein & Sara Ishikawa, A Pattern Language intimacy
Levels of Scale Scale refers to how we perceive the size of an element or space relative to other forms around it. All things – a tea cup, a building, language, entire eco-systems – consist of smaller components. It is the relationship of the smaller elements which determines the character and degree of life of the whole. Objects which contain a high degree of life tend to contain a beautiful range of scales within, which exist at a series of well-marked intervals and have clearly recognizable jumps between them. To have good levels of scale, it is extremely important that the jumps between different scales of centers not be too great or too small. Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order The scale of resolution determines what is seen