The Rule of Building Fronts and Backs

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” – Winston Churchill

How do we go about designing a nurturing built environment - one that makes us feel safe, interested, and connected?

One of the golden rules of urban design – one that has unfortunately been disregarded to grave effect all too often over the last half century – is the rule of building fronts and backs.  

This rule is quite simple:

Buildings have front sides and they have back sides.  A building’s front side should face the public realm; its back side should not. 

Consider that virtually every contributive urban building in the history of city-making adheres to this rule.  (Stand-alone buildings, particularly those in rural settings such as Palladio’s Villa Rotunda, are exempted – we are talking about urban fabric buildings here).  

Where this rule is violated, we usually sense that something is wrong – the environment will often feel incomplete, unengaging, uncared-for, and frequently unsafe.

Jane Jacobs describes the rule of building fronts and backs famously in The Death and Life of Great American Cities: “…there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street.  The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street.  They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.”

  

Interestingly, groups of buildings in urban settings follow many of the same basic rules of sociability that humans follow when in groups.  Think of a group of people in lively communication – like the group gathered around the dinner table in Norman Rockwell’s famous painting “Freedom from Want”.  The group all faces inward toward one-another.  The space between them, above the dining table, fairly vibrates with conviviality.  Imagine the upset that would occur if one of this dinner party decided to sit with their back to the table.  This would immediately communicate a rude and disturbing detachment, perhaps even disgust with the proceedings.  This closely mimics the damage done to the civility of a public space if a building is designed to not face it properly.

The arrangement of figures in Rockwell's painting above bears a tremendous similarity to the arrangement of the buildings fronting the great public space of the Piazza San Marco in Venice as depicted in the 1720 painting by Canaletto below:

So - what do we mean by a building front, and by a building back?  This was self-evident in earlier times, and it is really quite simple:

1. A building front is the building’s presentation face.  It contains the front door and it has a high degree of window area to provide permeability.  Door and window openings allow the building to communicate with the space in front of it, much like the eyes and mouth on the front of a person’s head.  Expanses of blank wall must be avoided at all costs on a building’s front, as this is as off-putting as it would be to attempt to communicate with a person with no facial features or expressions.

2. A building back contains service functions which do not belong on the presentation face, such as loading docks, dumpster enclosures, and parking lots.  Permeability is much less critical on a building’s back side.  The back of the building is also the private side, and may feature enclosed private outdoor open space.  Exposing a building’s back elements to the public realm is a bit like turning the wrong way in public while wearing a hospital gown open in the back – rear exposure of private areas can be quite awkward! 

When building fronts and backs are confused:

All too often today, designers have unfortunately become accustomed to designing structures floating randomly on their sites.  The grammar of fronts and backs often becomes so confused that no side is a true presentation face.  For example, we have all seen buildings wrecked by ground floor loading docks abutting the sidewalk.

Another common error made all too often nowadays is backing buildings up to large streets.  This unfortunate configuration is commonly seen along arterial and collector roadways on the edges of suburban housing subdivisions.  When large streets are assumed to be poor addresses and are instead faced with the backs of buildings, a self-fulfilling prophesy is initiated – backing buildings up to a street guarantees a bleak and pedestrian-repellent public space.

Designing for an optimal fronts-backs arrangement:

The rule of building fronts and backs goes hand in hand with the discipline of proper block design.  When a pattern of blocks is set up with fronts and backs in mind, buildings can be oriented properly with very little effort.  Blocks should be configured so that the fronts of lots face outwards toward the street, and the backs of lots are grouped toward the middle of the block.  When multiple blocks designed this way are combined to form a neighborhood, building fronts and backs are much easier to organize, and will add up to form convivial, well-shaped, well-fronted public spaces.

    

Amazon: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (by Jane Jacobs)

Teaching Architecture to Newborns - by Jason King

[The following guest post is authored by Jason King, Project Director at Dover, Kohl & Partners town planning jking@doverkohl.com]

I came across a facial recognition test for newborns in the book Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads (2004). Sure enough, my boy, Owen, who is twelve weeks old fixated on the image in the test of the recognizable human face with its symmetry and natural order (see below). I was actually shocked. When I covered up the face on the right Owen really didn't seem to know what to look at. I repeated the test with my wife as witness. This second test was less conclusive but there was a moment when we think Owen actually smiled at the face on the right.

Do people naturally prefer the principles of composition present in the human body to be present in architecture? We commonly talk about buildings having "a face" but is there a human connotation to this?  Do we prefer contrast, proportion, scale, balance, rhythm, and unity over disorder, irregularity, proportional illogic, and dissimilarity? Perhaps the failure of architecture in our time to create congenial environments is a failure to appreciate the psychological search images we have as children. Or maybe the reverse is true and our sense of beauty can be actively shaped. Perhaps culture tells us what to assign value to and what to like. The answer is probably a little of both.   

Do you see what I see? If so, does it effect your appreciation of the building? Which do you prefer?

I wrote a novel called New Town St. Jerome which features a character, an architect, who has a definite opinion on the topic. According to Leo Dana, "Buildings are people. The facade is a face and the proportions should be the same as a face – broadly considered. Sometimes it is many faces but you cannot confuse them. Sometimes a building is many people with every part reflective of the proportions of the human body. And when there are many people there must be a leader. A hierarchy."

"Architectural debate," says Leo, "is often framed as traditional-versus-modernist but the debate is really humanist architecture versus technological architecture." Leo recognizes that modern architecture can be humanist but is prepared to fire his avante-garde client before inflicting what Leo calls, "that buildings are machines crap" on people. In this time in history it's no wonder that Leo's peers give him the nickname "Loco."

I don't actually advise trying to teach architecture to newborns but I do hope Owen gets to think enough about architecture one day to be able to articulate his own opinion. But I can't help but wonder if when Owen is older he will still have the same opinion that I think I may be seeing now.

Jason King is the author of New Town St. Jerome which is available at Amazon: New Town St Jerome

Balboa Park - San Diego, CA

I was just in San Diego, speaking at the 2013 Crittenden National Real Estate Conference on a panel about "Adaptive Reuse of Distressed Urban Properties into Hotels & Revitalizing Downtowns & Historic Places".

I planned a bit of extra time into my trip to see the City.  The first evening I drove up to beautiful Balboa Park, located on a series of high ridges overlooking San Diego.  The Park boasts a spectacular, formally-arranged collection of museums, theaters and gardens in the Spanish Colonial Revival style with intricately-sculpted Plateresque elements:

Balboa Park's buildings are inhabited by 16 or so museums and cultural institutions.  The grounds and multiple gardens are open 24 hours a day. I drove up to stroll them in the moonlight each night before returning to my hotel.  I lunched at The Prado restaurant which boasts some of the best food in San Diego. I attended a marvelous Piranesi exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art.  I attended a live figure drawing session one evening, hosted by the San Diego Art Institute in the Museum of the Living Artist.  (Luckily I had been sketching buildings in the Park and had my sketchbook with me!).  For me, Balboa Park is heaven on earth and I could easily spend a week there going to museums, sketching and painting!  

Balboa Park's bold, strongly massed classical forms in adobe are punctuated with moments of spectacularly florid sculptural detail, particularly around the entrances to buildings, and on focal towers:

  

The Park was the site of the 1915–16 Panama–California Exposition designed by Bertram Goodhue and the 1935–36 California Pacific International Exposition, designed by Richard Requa.  San Diego was the smallest City ever to host a World's Fair, so the designers were intent on making a strong impression with their works, in order to promote the City as a place worthy of international attention (and investment).  Both expositions left architectural gems.  

Goodhue is responsible for the Park's primary formal arrangement of buildings along expertly-composed axes and cross axes, linked by continuous arcades:

The buildings and arcades shape a network of beautiful, shady gardens and public spaces:

The formal arrangement of buildings is punctuated frequently by whimsical, focal towers and cupolas:

The approach to the Park is on Laurel Avenue via a very tall, arched adobe bridge spanning the Cabrillo Canyon:  

The California Bell Tower rises into view to the left of the main axis as one crosses the Cabrillo Bridge and then passes through a narrow arched gateway into the small arcaded California Quadrangle at the feet of the highly sculptured entrance to the Museum of Man:

Passage through a second small arched gateway leads to El Prado, the grand axis of the Park lined on both sides with spacious arcades linking the entrances to the various museums, all slightly different in their miraculously-conceived details but harmonious in general form and dispositions along axis and cross axis:

I returned to Balboa Park perhaps 6 times in my three and a half days in San Diego.  I have seen photos of so many other classic expositions like the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, yet only small fragments of them remain - the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Museum of Science in Chicago and the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.  I have always imagined how these glorious expositions must have looked in their entirety and in Balboa Park I was able to experience it!  

Like other expositions, the future of Balboa Park's buildings was once uncertain. The City and numerous civic organizations have, with great foresight over the decades, coordinated the conversion of the Park's buildings from their original temporary materials into permanent structures to preserve them for future generations.  What a spectacular gift and legacy!

Curbside Parking Footways in Downtown Naples, FL

During a recent trip to Naples, Florida I stopped at the main street, 5th Avenue South, for a bite to eat.  I parallel-parked on a side street a half block from the main street.  The quiet side street was lined with apartments and had a beautiful row of trees planted in a tree lawn.  The side street's main sidewalk was located between the tree lawn and the fronts of the apartments, as one would expect.

Then I noticed a wonderful detail.  A second smaller sidewalk was placed on the outboard side of the tree lawn, right next to the on-street parking spaces.  (5th Avenue South, the main street being served by the parallel parking, can be seen in the background of the photo):

This second sidewalk, or "curbside parking footway", makes it possible to get out of the passenger side of a parallel-parked car without stepping right into the damp grass of the tree lawn.  The curbside parking footway also makes it easy to stand while setting up a stroller, or loading parcels into the car.  These functions are very useful if the on-street parking on the side street in question is serving the adjacent main street and is therefore likely to see a high rate of turnover and foot traffic.  (A curbside parking footway is not usually neccesary on typical quiet neighborhood streets further away from the main street.)

The dimensions of the curbside parking footway are important.  It should be wide enough to fulfill its function, while not so wide that it appears to be the primary sidewalk.  This curbside parking footway example in Naples is three feet wide.  The tree lawn is twelve feet wide and the main sidewalk is five and a half feet wide:

Naples also employs curbside parking footways in places along the 5th Avenue South main street itself.  These are located where substantial planting occurs.  The curbside parking footway along the main street is cross-connected to the street's wide primary sidewalk quite frequently:

The Most Beautiful Home Depot in the World

My wife, son and I were on a short weekend vacation in Manhattan recently, and were taking an afternoon stroll through Chelsea.  We had just finished visiting the playground in Madison Square Park and were making our way over to the High Line park when we happened on this remarkable site on West 23rd Street, near Fifth Avenue:

We were blown away by this Home Depot!  We, like most, are accustomed to seeing the hardware chain's ubiquitous long, low suburban box stores set behind vast parking lots.  This Home Depot in Chelsea however, which opened in 2004, inhabits a side-by-side pair of gorgeous street-oriented buildings formerly occupied by the Hasbro Toy Company.

The superbly kept historic building facades are stunning, but the innovation doesn't stop there.  The hardware store's 105,000 square feet are distributed on three floors arranged around a grand day-lighted atrium.  At checkout, a same-day home delivery option is available which caters to customers largely arriving by foot, bicycle or taxi.  What may seem most radical to those used to seeing Home Depot's typical suburban models is that this urban store has no dedicated parking.  The surrounding streets have parallel parking, and the closest vehicular parking facility is a small independently owned underground pay garage in the block across the street.

It is wonderful to see a Home Depot contributing so much vitality to a walkable urban neighborhood.  For more information and pictures of this beautiful Chelsea Home Depot, see a New York Times review of the store here.

Summary Part 4: Hierarchy and Subordination - Architectural Composition by John Beverley Robinson

This week continues our series examining the classic book Architectural Composition, 1908 by John Beverley Robinson.  

Here, Robinson discusses the importance of thoughtful Hierarchy and Subordination of building forms in an architectural composition. 

He explains that a clear hierarchy of forms within a building is key to achieving architectural Unity. "When giving to each part of a building its relative importance, subordination should be accentuated to leave no doubt as to the leading motive."  

Robinson provides the following sketch to clarify his point.  In Figure a. the building is subordinated to the large portico.  In Figure b. simply by adjusting relative size of forms, the hierarchy is reversed and now the smaller portico is subordinated to the building.  The same basic building elements, juxtaposed with different relative sizes, result in two very different architectural expressions:

Robinson goes on to describe 3 primary methods of hierarchy and subordination:

1. Difference in height – "This is the most effective and striking dimension by which importance may be added, as a taller building or architectural element will affect that most important of compositional lines, the silhouette".  The central cupola of the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen, CO is clearly the building's dominant form and strikes a bold outline against the sky:

2. Relative width – "A wider element will increase in prominence.  Keep in mind that an increase in width must be accompanied by an increase in height of a given motive, or similarity of form will suffer and a conflict between subordination of height and width occurs".  The importance of the central portico of the Chatauqua Hall in DeFuniak Springs, FL is subtly reinforced by being slightly greater in width than the end porticos:

3. Projection of depth – "This typically has very little effect on subordination if elements are otherwise equal in height and width as this causes little or no modification of silhouette.  Projection becomes critical, however, when subordinating and rendering distinct parts of different sorts.  For example, when subordinating a continuous building element to an individual building element, it is useful to have the continuous part set slightly behind the individual part".  The central and end bays of this school building in Montgomery, AL receive prominence with their slight forward projection, even though they share a common cornice line with the main body of the building behind:

Amazon: Architectural Composition, 1908 (by John Beverley Robinson)

Drawing Composition - Spokewheeling

I'm co-teaching the 1st Year Drawing Course this semester at the University of Miami School of Architecture in Coral Gables, FL.  Today our class began exploring perspective drawing.  I always find it refreshing and energizing for my own work to think about how to articulate the fundamentals of drawing composition to others!

"Spokewheeling" is one such fundamental drawing composition principle.  The term was coined by James Gurney in his book Imaginative Realism, How to Paint What Doesn't Exist in 2009, though the principle has been used by artists for centuries.  Gurney explains that "lines that converge to a single point of a picture are like spokes around the hub of a wheel.  They pull the eye toward the center point."

Here's a watercolor drawing I completed in 2007 for a project called Hudson that I helped design with Dover, Kohl and Partners in Montgomery, Alabama.  The drawing makes use of Spokewheeling.  The eave lines of the houses on the right, the curb lines, and even the landscape forms on the left all form lines leading the viewer's eye to the little red chapel.  Spokewheeling of composition lines helps to give this modest little structure a feeling of increased stature and civic importance in the neighborhood.

I was honored to receive an Award of Excellence for this image from the American Society of Architectural Illustrators in their 24th annual juried Architecture in Perspective exhibition.  The entire exhibition catalog can be viewed online here.

Amazon: Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (James Gurney Art)