It’s funny the things you hang on to after you have traveled. I just cleaned out my jewelry box and in the process pinned a tiny evil eye bead on my shirt. It has been floating around my wardrobe for months now since I got back from Turkey. My program roommate gave me the thing- she got it from someone else wanting to welcome her to the country, and she thought it was cheesy. It is. Beside the bead hangs a bunch of fake plastic grapes. It really is spectacularly cheesy pin. And yet I still have it.

I have been thinking about Turkey a lot today since reading about the 6.0 earthquake that occurred this morning in part of the area through which I traveled last October. I can just remember staring out my bus window as I passed dozens of similar villages similar to those now pictures in the aftermath, thinking only at the time how opposing our lives were. Unlike me, these people lived in remote places, on family farms that had been there for millennia. I remember farm wives in peasant dress leading cows into barns beneath their dwellings. Skinny chickens darting back and forth along the road, trying to avoid the lumbering vehicle- one of very few that probably ever come along some of those roads. The locals tend to travel by hanging on to the side of a tractor, or in the back of a truck- I often saw some such farmer giving people a lift to and from destinations. These people lost everything as their traditional mud brick dwellings bit the dust this morning, some even lost their lives.

As my supervisor in Istanbul informed me over lunch at the top of one of the buildings in concern, there are rarely standards in countries that aren’t first world, even in countries like Turkey that are earthquake-prone. Even if standards do exist, they are rarely enforced, and therefore never followed. As population centers boom and mid-rises pop up by the thousands, the problem escalates- not even evil eyes can ward them off then. Case in point: Haiti. It’s scary to think of how many more Haiti-like disasters will occur in this coming century. Today’s earthquake was “lucky”- it hit in a remote area where many of the dwellings are still traditionally built, and therefore by tradition built to withstand the elements of their environments, including earthquakes. The new population centers will not be so lucky in the future. Standards, though expensive to sometimes implement, really are worth our time. Today, I am thankful for the bureaucracy of enforcement, and keeping those in places without such luxury in my heart.

Sanli Urfa, a city in Southeastern Turkey

My cohousing complex composes the northwest side of my new plaza.  It is to be a truly urban cohousing- an apartment complex with shared community spaces that could be open to the greater public.  By extending the use of certain spaces beyond the housing community, you at once engage the larger urban context as well as give the community a means by which to support itself, therefore keeping the community affordable.

Cohousing is a European concept, but it has existed in the US since the late 1970’s.  Almost all cohousing in America is suburban in its character, mimicking the popular cul-de-sac neighborhoods in its layout and service offerings. In the past few years, many more urban initiatives have gotten underway in the USA, but for now all examples of this style of cohousing exist only in northern Europe.  Typically those complexes consist of a ground floor of community spaces with apartments above, and look no different than any other apartment complex in their neighborhood.

I decided early that I wanted my complex to be more of a beacon for the neighborhood; therefore the community spaces needed to reveal themselves rather than bury underneath I created a glass tower separate from the apartments directly upon the public square. This tower at once announces the difference between this type of housing and typical apartment living.  All community activities have a direct visual conversation with the public plaza with only a layer of glass as separation.  The private apartments then cluster themselves around a courtyard behind this tower, thus creating a gradient of privacy and separation back from the plaza. The courtyard and all other community spaces align themselves to a shifted grid that engages the center of the plaza more, and consist of similar light materials such as glass.  The type of glass and its’ translucency will vary depending upon the amount of publicity each community space’s program specifies.

The original, regular grid remains to comprise the more privatized spaces of the program, in particular the apartment themselves.  These spaces are characterized by much more solid materials such as concrete.

The play between the two grids and the way they intersect and interlock has been of utmost importance in the articulation of the spaces.  For the most part, the public grid has taken precedence over the private, thus carving away at its spaces, a philosophical gesture to the basic function of cohousing- the reversal of the helplessness and loneliness of isolation.  I am currently working on refining this play both within the plan and elevations (the exteriors of the building), and eventually I will speak more upon these.  In the meantime, here is the basic floor plan diagram for my building (north is up, as in the site diagram I placed above):

Midthesis.

That is the major qualification to my life right now.  I have spent one term in school designing thus far, and now I will spend another refining.  To spend 20 weeks on a project that culminates your learning for the past 5.5 years of school is a very daunting task.  I constantly feel as though my design decisions should be faster, simpler, better- and perhaps they are compared to even two years ago, but they are still simply slow in my mind.  As a result I have definitely been losing myself in this project in an attempt to end my school years on a high note.

The project is one I would have not expected myself to choose, but at the same time it fits the slant of my scholastic career thus far.  My studio professor was concerned with the redevelopment plans for an extension to his neighborhood here in Portland, and led my studio for the first four weeks to develop a lower density alternative (sort of a Brooklyn versus Manhattan scenario).  After working for eight months in an urban design firm, I was looking forward to this part of the project, and I felt the design I created was fairly well done.  I wanted to be far-reaching  in my focus, and as a result I concentrated heavily on reorganizing the transportation hierarchy in order to grow this small neighborhood into a cohesive piece of northwest Portland.  I was fairly heavy-handed with the street grid, restoring it whenever possible, moving freeway off-ramps to better connect with arterial routes that had transformed since the freeway’s construction in the 1960’s, and giving over much more space to the pedestrian and bike.  I believe it is these elements that encourage neighborhoods over any other-the neighborhood will automatically thrive if it is walkable and bikable.  This element is particularly important in Portland, where many such neighborhoods already exist and must compete with one another for residents in order to continue to thrive.  Afer establishing my vision for the tranportation grid of the neighborhood, my designation of services and block development was much less forceful.  Here I favored allowing the neighborhood to grow itself organically over time rather than in a rigid, prescribed fashion.  I did designate some streets as retail (an extension of what has already developed in this area), and these streets are also treated differently within the transportation hierarchy compared to nieghborhood streets. I also created a central plaza along this retail extension that interrupts the restored street grid and establishes a center to the neighborhood between two major parks and aerterial routes with some major retail and community activities to occur around it.

Other than these strong moves, I only suggested small pocket activities that could be scattered throughout the neighborhood and therefore  easily accessible to all.  These pockets of activities included small parks, community gardens, and community services such as libraries, schools and rec centers.  One of my reviewers called this strategy shockingly “laissez faire,” but I think it would be an interesting plan to implement, particularly for a neighborhood that has a history of good organic growth.  In fact, it is potentially more unwise to try to overdirect growth in such circumstances, a move that could interrupt the good growth patterns the neighborhood has already established.

After spending four to five weeks on this element, we switched into designing buildings for the rest of the studio.  We are all architecture majors in the studio, after all.  For this portion of the project, we are each developing a building scheme of our choosing that is appropriate to our urban design visions for the neighborhood extension.  Here is where I surprised myself- rather than choosing a commercial or community building to round out my portfolio (which had been my goal upon entering my final project), I chose a housing complex.  It is still a larger scale than most of the single family to small multi-family development projects that currently dominate my portfolio, but it is still housing.  Apparently I love the subject, which, of course, I already know I do. I find places we live, our homes, to be of the utmost importance in our emotional states, and therefore some of the most important and meaningful architectural spaces that we can design.  Which translates to difficult, which translates to fun.  So after a short debate with myself, I decided why not go with something you would love to design and have some pre-existing experience with?  It worked for my undergraduate final project (a surf “shack” at a time when I was throughly in love with surf culture and had lived with a surfing romate for two years), so it could work for my thesis.

I chose to design a cohousing apartment complex right on my new plaza, sort of a beacon of community to this newly established extension.  For those of you who are not familiar with the term, cohousing is “community housing.”  It is not a commune, although it does have a strong community association and shared community spaces that the members are encouraged, and sometimes required to use.  Each resident still gets their own private apartment, although its size is somewhat reduced because of the plethora of community spaces available.  My professor compares it to European apartment living.  The ideals behind every cohousing community include a strong sense of community with each member providing support and friendship to eachother (much like an extended family) and the encouragement of diversity in all its forms. These ideals line up with my vision for the neighborhood, so I thought it an appropriate “catalyst” project for the neighborhood center.  It is not a living situation for everyone, but I think the neighborhood I have envisioned would benefit greatly from such a beacon in their community.

Over the past few years it seems that carbon emissions and the push for a zero carbon world has dominated environmental news.  Part of this is due to its high-profile advocates such as Al Gore for global warming, of which carbon emissions are a major factor, and impressive projects such as Masdar City in the U.A.E., the world’s first zero carbon city, by Sir Norman Foster.   The other part of its news domination is the cold hard fact that it is a major contributer to global warming.  Since the industrial era, the amount of carbon in the air has increased 35%.  As we “modernize” (i.e. cut down trees and use our natural resources), we reduce our planet’s natural carbon sinks (places that either store or exchange CO2 into other gases), and its percentage builds up.  The bad part is, that as this gas builds up, it warms our planet, thus reducing its ability to handle the carbon even further.  For example, our oceans are the largest carbon sink on our planet, handling up to 30% of all emissions ever. However, as the temperature of the ocean rises, even a fraction of a degree, its ability to dissolve the gas reduces, thus releasing more into the atmosphere which causes more warming . . . . it is a vicious cycle.  And one that is already in motion, which is why scientists are so concerned about reducing carbon emissions so drastically so quickly.

I am currently involved in an independent study that is looking to see if the layout of the urban grid in a city has any factor on carbon emissions.  If it does, then we may be able to lay out the cities of the future in a way that naturally promotes a zero carbon lifestyle.  I thought I would share the introduction to the study, with perhaps more to come later.  Enjoy!:

Introduction

In a world of dwindling natural resources, it is more important than ever to create places that are inherently less taxing to our natural environment.  For years people have understood that there are techniques to building in a way that demands less from our planet.  By existing more in harmony with the natural world, we call these built places sustainable.

The extent to which a building can be made to harmoniously exist in its environment certainly depends upon the locality in which it is placed.  In the past, we have understood this term “environment” to encompass climate and natural resources. However, with over 50% of the world’s population now living in cities, we are residing more and more in an environment of our own making.  City forms have a large factor in forming the location in which we are creating sustainable buildings.  Unlike the natural environment, we have a say in the shape of this form.  As such, is there a certain basic form we should be encouraging in our cities in order to allow our built environment to demand less from our dwindling natural resources?

Cities are incredibly severe on the natural world.  Such a concentration of people demands large-scale buildings and transit systems, which in turn intensify the modern problems created by our built world.  For example, buildings alone cause more than a third of the emissions for carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas mainly responsible for global warming. Transportation emissions comprise another third.  Cities incorporate both these sectors.  Being dense in their layout, there is little natural world to mitigate their problem at the site, which in turn is detrimental to both the city’s long-term health and the landscape that eventually receives the high concentrations of its emissions.  Many cities have recognized this major problem, and have vowed to become “zero-carbon” in the near future.  Most of the current efforts for a zero-carbon future focus upon mitigating the effect current levels, a massive undertaking in and of itself.  However, it may be possible to use the form of the city itself, the basic city grid, to self-regulate its emissions by encouraging less vehicular traffic and providing maximum opportunities for zero carbon building.  Such a possibility could drastically reduce carbon emissions from cities effortlessly.  Thus it becomes a worthwhile endeavor to ask:

Can the layout of the city grid effectively reduce carbon dioxide emissions?  What key factors of the grid influence its effectiveness in mitigating its own carbon dioxide emissions?

As a first step to answering these questions, we propose to compare and contrast different existing block forms within one city in order to learn if there is indeed a singular grid form that is more sustainable. For our purposes we have chosen Portland, Oregon- one of the cities seeking to become zero-carbon and the location of our university.  After choosing neighborhoods of similar density but varying block size, we will collect data such as traffic counts, size of streets, current CO₂ “sinks” (sites that absorb CO₂), average distance to amenities, street to lot ratios, and current carbon levels. From this analysis we hope to identify one particular grid system that provides the most potential for self-reliance, and thereby develop and ideal city grid form. 

I have a new painting. Like most of my paintings, it deals with opposites- this time, dreams versus reality. Also like most of my paintings, its theme was not planned but rather developed over time as my thoughts slowly seeped themselves onto the canvas. In other words, I have been working over this relatively small canvas for about a month for little tiny spurts at a time, every time I felt sure of where to take it next. I like working this way because it does allow me to develop a theme over time, and the results are typically solid.

I am intrigued by the theme I have hit upon in this painting. I understand its development at this time in my life because I am of an age where I have developed a memory bank of major past dreams and thoughts to compare to my present reality and wide-open future. However, I find it especially intriguing because dreams have recently taken a center stage nationally with Barack Obama’s election. Here is a prime example where we will see how the dreams of a campaign, dreams a whole nation rallied around, take shape in reality.

Perhaps most intriguing of all, though, is the coincidence of my painting and consequent intellectual dwelling upon the difference of dreams and reality with the death of Jorn Utzon, the visionary behind the Sydney Opera House. Here is a man who won the Pritzker Prize, the nobel prize of architecture, for a body of impressive work, but will have his legacy shaped by the creation of one building- or rather, the legendary fiasco surrounding its construction.

Utzon won the competition for the Sydney Opera House with what can best be described as a “napkin sketch”- a simple vision set forth in a quick sketch. His vision was bold and beautiful enough to win the unknown architect an international-level competition, beating out 800 other entries, but not calculated to the level needed to rescue itself from the onslaught of very real engineering and construction limitations.

Utzon’s project spent years in development as he and his engineers tried to figure out a way to build the flying concrete shells of the vision, spectacularly burning through money and time in the pursuit of fusing reality and Utzon’s dream without compromise. In the end, Utzon completed only the concrete shells of the exterior before he and the Australian government that hired him parted ways. The interiors were finished by another architect, and were never to the vision of the original sketches. Utzon himself never set foot on Australian soil again, never reconciling the fiasco. In the 50 years since Utzon won the architectural competition, the world has not stopped talking about the project; but mostly, it is a constant discussion of the Opera House as a dream deferred.

No matter how much praise Utzon received for his spectacular concrete shells, the shadow of the project’s shortcomings and tumultuous construction has constistently haunted this once golden vision. Utzon sought the ultimate- a dream that was reality, but in his quest he failed to work within reality. His legacy will always include this lesson to the rest of us.

Perhaps we are better for it. Dreams are not an easy reality, and are not always meant to be. But that is not to say they should not be sought nonetheless- to dream and achieve is perhaps the best part of being human. The key to achieving their fusion not in constant defiance of one for the other, but rather seems to lie in simply understanding the differences in dreams and reality. My painting poses this question- I leave it to each viewer to figure out the answers for themselves, hopefully in a better fashion than Utzon did.

Back in 2003, a group of suburban experts got together and created a little documentary called The End of Suburbia. Like any movie with the word “End” in the title, it’s your typical doomsday call, suggesting the forthcoming oil peak will cause the end of the American way of life. Normally I avoid these types of movies due to their depressing subject lines and the lack of solutions they set forth. This movie does not break the doomsday mold at all, but the information it does give, from historians and authors that take up a significant portion of my bookshelf, makes it worth seeing. And besides, I do believe that discussing the cause can lead to better solutions.

The movie is basically a history lesson. It follows the rise of the suburbs as a movement to get away from industrialized factory cities, and its heavy subsidization by an energy industry looking to increase its product demand. The film then skips to the future, and the looming problem of what happens when the cheapest and most plentiful energy source- oil- runs out. This is an issue made all the more pressing, as their experts point out, by the expected world peak around 2010. There is no known source of alternative energy that can be produced cheaply on the scale that our lifestyles require in such a short amount of time, and most still rely upon oil in some way for their production. In other words, as we are already maxing out on our oil, we have no choice to curb our energy usage with the forthcoming drop in supply. And, as the experts in the documentary so blatantly pointed out, few people know or understand the chaos this will cause, and even less have prepared for it.

In the five years since this documentary appeared, more people may be aware of the oil peak, but very little preparation has been occurring. And now, the issue is compounded with a mismanaged financial sector, potentially leaving no excess in which to build our way out of the looming energy crisis. The doomsday sentimentality of the documentary may not be far off, as our lifestyles are already showing the toll of rising energy costs, and the dark future the movie predicts is looming ever closer.

It would have been nice for the documentary to offer some hope for the future as far as some sort of solution. The experts do touch lightly but unenthusiastically upon the ideas of New Urbanism and its emphasis of small, self-supporting clustered development- sort of like the old main street style of life as a solution. However, in general the film concentrates too much upon the movement’s dismissal as being “too historical” for modern life. Instead the last few minutes of the film focus upon a portrayal of the complete abandonment of the suburbs. If this were to happen, if people literally left the suburbs to rot in the countryside and all moved back to the city, we would have complete and utter chaos. Like the rise of the industrial city, the surge of the masses to the post-oil city would cause massive infrastructure and humanitarian problems. Slums and crime would skyrocket. There also becomes an issue of food production- cities have very, very large footprints, and cost profound amounts of energy in order to sustain them. Abandoning the suburbs entirely is a very catastrophic idea, one that would cost us more than it is worth.

The best solution is that of the walkable neighborhoods promoted by New Urbanism. Perhaps it is a historical model, but historically our energy use was much lower and these sorts of local clusters proved successful networks within those times. It would be quite easy to retrofit many existing suburban neighborhoods with such a center, and then use mass transit to connect the centers together.

Successful cities already work in this way. Cities are essentially many clusters within close proximity of each other- a downtown district, employment hubs, university districts, bordering housing districts- each with the ability to function independently but through cohabitation, these clusters increase their potential. Granted, the distances covered by suburbs are much greater, but if we simply convert our suburbs to independent infrastructures centered around mass transit hubs that allow for easy travel inbetween, we can somewhat “save” our way of life by simply weaving them into a more successful version of the metropolises that they already strive to be. We may not be able to convert each and every suburb, but we can strategically choose places that will be beneficial for everyone in the long run, and allow for an easier transition into the America of the future.

The End of Suburbia is a fantastic movie in the respect that it acts as a wake-up call to the pending problem of the oil peak and the effect it will have on our American lifestyles. However, it could have done itself some good by proposing some more concrete solutions for its convertees to use in working towards a better future. I have hope that some of the thoughts upon solutions that I offered here are covered in the documentary’s sequel- “Escape from Suburbia,” which was released last year. I’ll have to watch and find out. In the meantime, I do encourage people to sit and watch this 52 minute documentary- just remember to take it with a grain of salt.

I took this picture near my house. The neighborhood is so old that there are horse tie rings embedded into the curbs. Although no real horses are now tied to these rings, many of my neighbors have replaced them with small plastic replicas such as the ones pictured above. What a creative and fun use for something now obsolete.

Personal space.  A term that we all understand, yet constantly misinterpret.  Perhaps it is because we all define our own personal space differently, changing those definitions with place and time and, well, general whims of fancy.

I walked past a small apartment complex earlier today and noticed something unusual- its residents were actually using their communal courtyard.   At first, I wrote them off as a bunch of communal hippies.  But then, in a second, more fruitful thought, I wondered what about the space encouraged such extensive sharing.  Even hippies are still affected psychologically by imposed physical boundaries and can be territorial- yet here, there were no boundaries- rather the space itself specifically encouraged community.

Americans typically don’t share space very well.  Our quintessential family homes attest to that- very rarely now do you find even siblings sharing rooms.   Our homes, while private, are really a series of boundaries- from the public walk area, to a threshold, to guest areas and private beds and baths.  Much of the fun in home design is about navigating these boundaries, pushing them backwards and forwards according to both the designer and the client’s whims.  The same holds true in multi-household residences such as this apartment complex.  I have found that residents rarely occupy the landscaped gardens and public hallways so typical of apartment complexes throughout our nation; rather these semi-private spaces act not only as a boundary to the public-at-large but also amongst the residents themselves.  There is no feeling of ownership to be had in these semi-private areas except by that of the nameless landlord.  It is private space, but not for real use.  Each apartment is abruptly cut off from these places by doors, and lack of visual and physical access.  Even hippies that live in these sorts of places rarely occupy these them in a permanent manner such as what was happening at the particular complex that I passed.

The answer as to why this place as opposed to others is simply because this complex had a more successful, and less harsh, series of boundary markers.  Although the complex itself was L-shaped with its courtyard fronting the road, the yard was fairly well enclosed.  Physically separated from the street by a vine-covered brick wall, this courtyard had one access point- an arched opening containing a staircase.  Change in elevation has long been proved as another way of forming physical boundary, just as good as walls.  With both of these forms of boundary acting together, the courtyard acted more like an interior courtyard of a home in the Mediterranean style.

Its residences, numbering under 10 had a communal entry boundary that successfully yet subtlety transitioned them from the street, and once again from the courtyard to the residences, the boundary line, while present, was blurred. Each residence had been given a large porch area covered by a communal trellis with vines.  The trellis acted as a subtle separation of outdoor space versus courtyard for the residences; yet it was not so harsh as to not still encourage interaction.  Instead, it allowed the semi-public space of the courtyard to smoothly transition into a porch-like area for each residence, and then the residence itself.  The subtle separation of street from courtyard, then courtyard from residence is what makes this apartment successfully encourage community- something typical American apartment complexes lack.

Although boundary lines are subject to change, proper clarity and smooth transitioning along them can make spaces more successful.

If someone offered you a substantial reward for a good deed you preformed for them, would you take it? Would your value system stop you?p>

this story I recently read by Oscar Wilde, the main characters, an American family, turn down an expensive piece of jewelry on the premise that such extravagance does not fit their hard- working, Puritanism-based American values. Despite the fact that the scene was meant as a jest by the author upon these Americans who had taken up residence at a British country estate, it started me thinking. America’s values shifted profoundly in the late 19th century and early 20th century, from that of a sparse lifestyle fulfilled by hard work to that of the consumer-based society. By the 1950s, consumerism had become the American norm. And now that this lifestyle is coming to haunt us in the current crisis, will there be some sort of shifting in our core values again?

Most likely, there will be some changes. We have long known that consumption at the rate we have been achieving cannot be sustained. I do not see us transitioning back into some primitive form of life- globalization and modern technology have achieved too much good for that ever to happen- but I do foresee a balance occurring between the two outlooks, thus creating a brand new value system.

The shift is already becoming evident in many of the ways we approach our lives now.  “Green” and “sustainable” are certainly the catchphrases of the day. In an area a little closer to my own expertise, there is a definite shift in demand for the types of architectural spaces. For example, in imitation of the first shift where the family farm foreclosed to the suburban home; the urban condo is the current hottest commodity, and perhaps the only item selling. Although this residential space still supports the consumer lifestyle Americans know and love, it does so in a way that doesn’t require major expenditure in order to reach the places in which we love to consume, thus cutting out a good portion of our consumption. It is not a return, but rather a step towards the next shift in our value system.

Perhaps another shift we will see, or at least one I hope to see, is a desire for quality over quantity.  Rather than consuming everything in sight, Americans will simply have to get pickier about how they spend their money. I’m hoping they will learn to invest in quality spaces as well as goods. However, this may be simply a pipe dream on my part.

What sort of changes do you see occurring in the ways Americans live? What do you hope for?

I was walking down the street near my house one beautiful day, lost in thought.  At the time, I was marveling at the beauty of the brightly colored turn-of-the-century homes that fill my neighborhood when my attention was caught by the juxtaposition of some brand new infill.  This new house was just as nice as the older homes on the street, quite well done with obvious ties to some of the more prestigious local firms. I would safely categorize it into the “successful infill” category in my architectural file.  Yet, despite its overall success, I still have one slight complaint to make, a point I would like to call to attention as a plea to my fellow architects.

It is an absolute necessity to make a good front porch.

On all of the older houses surrounding the new piece of infill, large, comfortable, and obviously well-used front porches existed.  On the new home, a small, harsh platform had been tacked on to the front of the dwelling, and looked as though it had never been used.  Not even a deckchair had been placed upon it.  Upon noticing this fact the otherwise beautifully designed dwelling immediately went on my personal “uninhabitable” list.  Perhaps the home would not have made this list if it had not been so surrounded by successful front porches, but as it was, I could not help but compare. Plus I knew that if I ever actually lived there, I would daily be jealous of my neighbor’s porches.

It is not that contemporary architects do not know how to make good front porches.  The criteria for the development of outdoor spaces, like indoor spaces, is well-taught in the architectural curriculum.  Even so, it seems to be a modern trend to overlook the importance of the front porch.  Instead the porch is treated it as an afterthought, as it was in this particular new home.  It is added, and some of the design necessities met, but not all, and as a result, the porches fail. 

Good porches incorporate thoughtful location/orientation, sizing, separation, and sight lines.  It takes all of these criteria, not just some, to create a successful space that will be utilized by its inhabitants.  Older homes always have good porches, most likely due to the need of cool, well-lit spaces in times before electricity and its sibling, air-conditioning.   These spaces are large enough to comfortably sit multiple people, like a living room.  Successful porches, in fact, are literally outdoor living rooms.  Like other living spaces, they are oriented to provide the best light and views.  They are often sheltered from the elements by roofs, and elevated off the ground.  Both of these architectural moves separate the space from the street, thus providing its occupants with a sort of transparent shield.  Everyone, both porch and street dwellers, are still seen but fail to interact “on common ground,” thus providing privacy for both parties. Even without a roof or a raised platform, porches are provided with other means of separation, such as fences or vegetation.  Often, many of these moves are employed at once, in endless variety.  Yet sight lines, particularly with the street, are always maintained.  These sight lines enliven the room, providing it with ever-changing scenery, like a television.  Thus, with these criteria met, a successful porch arises.

With the rise of modern amenities, successful porches are less of a necessity than they have been historically.  Yet their necessity in the creation of a vital street has never disappeared.  Successful, occupied porches extend the warmth and vitality of the home onto the street, thus creating a warm and vital neighborhoods, places where people want to be.  Successful neighborhoods then create vibrant towns and cities, which contribute to successful states, and so on.  When you think about it, so much of the success of our space depends upon the public front we put on our private spaces, such as porches.  And somehow, afterthoughts just never cut it.