This is my first time working with this book. I did not know the book before so I am completely open to it. What immediately strikes me is that the book is very focused on the search for a spatial solution. Problems that are not necessarily spatial are translated into a spatial solution. As a designer I find it important that the end user is involved in the design process, designing for someone else. This book responds to people's actions in certain environments, it told why people live that way. I like that the problem is explained in detail. This way, as a designer, I can respond to points that make the problem a problem.
At the same time, it is very practical. It is really focused on problem and solution. I hope it doesn't stop me from creative thinking and coming up with completely different solutions.
A PATTERN LANGUAGE
''Using the book''
A PATTERN LANGUAGE
01 Chosen patterns
33 Night life
73 Adventure playground
62 high places
69 public outdoor room
120 Path and goals
106 positive oudoor space
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33 NIGHT LIFE
Many people do not go out at night because they feel they have nowhere to go. They do not feel like going out to a specific establishment, but they do feel like going out. An evening center, particularly when it is full of light, functions as a focus for such people.
The city has a number of places that are open at night. These are mainly entertainment venues, evening shops and fast food restaurants. These are mostly only open at night on weekends. A place to go just like that, without going out, are often parks or squares, these don't feel like a safe place at night.
NIGHT SHOPS
FAST FOOD
GOING OUT
Is it busy in the city at night?
Is there enough lighting at night?
73 ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND
Play has many functions: it gives children a change to be together, a change to use their bodies, to build muscles, and to test new skills. But above all, play is a function of the imagination. It reflects directly the problems and joys of his social reality. children comes to term with the world, wrestle with their pictures of it, and reform this pictures constantly, through those adventures of imagination we call play.
In my view, this is not only important for children. Adults also have the need to meet {new} people, use their bodies, build muscle and be away from reality. Playing helps to clear the mind and fill it with positive energy.
PLAYING IN THE SNOW
Ages no longer apply. Everyone has fun from young to old. A snowball fight, skating on the best ice and sledding down the highest hills. The snow made everyone forget about all troubles.
LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION IN MY OWN ENVIRONMENT
These natural elements are very simple and people see this as something playful. Balance on a tree trunk, or jump from stone to stone. Everyone can decide for himself what to do with it, so he can also sit on it.
62 HIGH PLACES
The instinct to climb up some high places, from which you can look down and survey your world, seems to be a fundamental human instinct.
These high places have two separate and complementary functions. They give people a place to climb up to, from with they can look down upon the world. And they give people a place which they can see from far away an orient themselves toward when they are on the ground.
These visits to the high places and will have no freshness or exhilaration if there is a ride to the top in a care or elevator. To get a full sense of the magnificence of the view, it seems necessary to work for it, to leave the car or elevator an, climb to it. The act of climbing, even if only for a few steps, clears the mind an prepares the body.
A quiet place above the city, where you can look down on the hustle and bustle of the city and experience the tranquility yourself. I want to reflect this contrast in my design.
A fairly large public space, with different heights, also accessible for people in wheelchairs. Next to the water with fountain, in a further built-up area.
69 PUBLIC OUTDOOR ROOM
There are very few spots along the streets of modern town and neighborhood where people can hang out, comfortably, for hours at time.
I took to the street to see what kind of puclic outdoor rooms there are in the place where Iive.
I really like this one myself. It is a fairly simple construction. The wheels underneath make it possible to turn the room. This allows the user to choose what the view will be and whether he wants to sit in the sun or in the shade. This makes the space interactive.
This may not really be a public outdoor room, but it feels that way because the nature around it closes off the space. The step-like stand makes it feel like a theater and the water is the stage. it is a pleasant space to be because of the openness and tranquility that you experience there.
120 PATH AND GOALS
The road we walk is formed by the built environment. The goal we have determines how we walk. We always lean towards the shortest route because it leads us the fastest to our goal. But when you go for a walk for relaxation, there is no actual goal to walk to. The only goal is relaxation.
Rotterdam is efficiently structured. The buildings are close together and have rectangular shapes. This is a lot more efficient than round buildings that are far apart. The construction of the city shapes our routes, these are straight and take us quickly to our goal.
The structure is different in parks, the paths have organic and winding shapes. In parks you are often for relaxation, straight roads that take you quickly from A to B are not necessary. It is nice if the path allows you to move with nature and gives you time to relax.
106 POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE
Outdoor spaces which are merely ''leftover'' between buildings will, in general, not be used.
there are two fundamentally different kinds of outdoor space; negative space and positive space. outdoor space is negative when it is shapeless, the residue left behind when buildings - which are generally viewed as positive - are placed on the land. an outdoor space is positive when it has a distinct ans definite shape, as definite as the shape of a room, and when the shape is as important as the shapes of the building which surround it. these two kind of space have entirely different plan geometries, which may be most eadily istinguished by their fugure-ground reversal.
In principle, the city has been built efficiently and has little negative space on the ground. But all this new high-rise creates a lot of negative spaces on the roof.
Flat Rotterdam roofs that are suitable for various plans, but that are still empty.
Examples of what we can do with all these flat roofs.
- Landscaping
- Schoolyard
- Outdoor shop
- Events
- Sports
and so on
In this way we can turn the negative places in the city into 'positive' spaces. There is a suitable solution for every roof.