This is a summary of the 113th pattern from the “A Patter Language” book by Christopher Alexander and his team.
The process of arriving in a house, and leaving it, is fundamental to our daily lives; and very often it involves a car. But the place where car connects to houses, far from being important and beautiful, is often off to one side and neglected.
This neglect can wreck havoc with the circulation in the house, especially in those houses with the traditional “front door and back door” relationship. Both family and visitors tend, more and more, to come and go by car. Since people always try to use the door nearest the car, the entrance nearest the parking spot always becomes the “main” entrance, even if it was not planned that way.
An ancient inn, built in the days of coach and horses, has a layout which treats the coach as a fundamental part of the environment and makes the connection between the two a significant part of the inn – so much so that it gives the inn its character. Airports, boathouses, stables, railway stations, all do the same. But for some reason, even though the car is so important to the way of life in a modern house, the place where car and house meet is almost never treated seriously as a beautiful and significant place in its own right.
Place the parking place for the car and the main entrance, in such a relation to each other, that the shortest route from the parked car into the house, both to the kitchen and to the living rooms, is always through the main entrance. Make the parking place for the car into an actual room which makes a positive and graceful place where the car stands, not just a gap in the terrain.
sadhana.farm 