NEIGHBOURHOOD ARCHITECTURE - LIVEABLE CITIES

Understanding of Neighborhood and its Features through the book ‘Pattern Language’ by
Sir Christopher Alexander

Author: Prof. Devashree Roychowdhury, Architect - City Planner

“People need an identifiable spatial unit to belong to. They want to be able to identify the part of
the city where they live as distinct from all others.” This is how the concept of the neighbourhood
comes into the picture. Alexander states according to the available pieces of evidence, that three
points help people identify their neighbourhoods: first, it should have a small population; second,
it should be small in area and third, the traffic should be less. Interaction between the inhabitants
of the neighbourhood is a must because they have to look after their interests. They may have to
form associations to pressurize the local government for their demands. For this reason, it should
have less population so that all can reach an agreement on basic decisions about public services,
community land and so on. Also, people tend to know a particular area and its inhabitants well, if
its area is small. The above two features are not enough; the neighbourhood should be well
protected from heavy traffic as the heavier the traffic in an area, the fewer people think of it as
home territory; the street as well as the houses along it become less personal. In short, the area of
it should not be more than 300 yards with not more than 400 or 500 inhabitants. Neighbourhoods
formed by local groups in cities should be encouraged. They should be given some degree of
autonomy as far as taxes and land controls are concerned and major roads should pass from outside
their periphery.

To protect neighbourhoods, i.e. groups of individuals with a specific lifestyle need neighbourhood
boundaries so that they may be distinguished from other groups and can be identified separately.
This will help to maintain their identifiable character. Boundaries not only do the job of
neighbourhood protection but also do the job of unification in their larger processes. Some ways
of forming this boundary are by closing streets and limiting access, cutting the normal number of
streets at least in half, placing gateways at the points of restriction, and making the boundary zone
wide enough to contain meeting places for the common functions shared by several
neighbourhoods.

Fundamental principles to establish neighbourhood policy to control the character of the local
environment are four storey limit, nine per cent parking, parallel roads, sacred sites, access to
water, life cycle and men and women residing.

High-rise buildings have no genuine advantages, except in speculative gains for banks and land
owners. They make people crazy and keep them devoid of social life. Four storey limit is good for
residential buildings.

Parking space destroys land; a maximum of nine per cent of the total space available is advisable
for parking. Subdivision of land into parking zones is a must to prevent bunching of parking in
huge neglected areas.

The net-like pattern of streets is obsolete nowadays because it creates congestion. A system of
parallel and alternating one-way roads to carry traffic to the ring roads should be adopted with
parallel roads 100 yards apart and not more than 300 or 400 yards apart. In existing towns, streets
should be gradually made one way and cross streets should be closed.
To maintain spiritual roots and connection of people to their past, the physical world they live in
should sustain these roots. Sacred sites may be natural beauties or historic landmarks left by the
past ages. These places should be preserved, protected and maintained so that our roots in the
visible surroundings cannot be violated or misused.

Water is always precious. The source of water e.g. ocean beaches, lakes and river banks are
required to be maintained and the use of the same requires a specific pattern. Water resources
should be treated with great respect and more when they occur near human settlements. The
water edge must be preserved for common use and any kind of construction should be
prohibited. Much access to water should be restricted by people. Roads leading to the water edge
should be right-angled to it.

A person’s life traverses several stages from infancy to old age which is called the life cycle. A
community should represent and balance a full cycle of life i.e. each community should include
people of all age groups, from infants to the very old and include the full slate of settings needed
for all these stages of life.

“The world of a town in the 1970s is split along sexual lines. Suburbs are for women,
workplaces for men; kindergartens are for women, professional schools for men; supermarkets
are for women, hardware stores for men.” The whole environment and all its components - each
building, open space, work community and neighbourhood are made with a blend of both men’s
and women’s instincts. The Spirit of both men and women should be balanced.

Formation of local centers in the neighbourhoods and in between them, in the boundaries, should
be encouraged. These include the eccentric nucleus, density rings, activity nodes, promenade,
shopping street, nightlife, and interchange. Provision for the growth of housing in the form of
clusters, based on face-to-face human groups, should be made around these centres such as
household mix, degrees of publicness, house clusters, row houses, housing hills, and old people
everywhere.

Every stage in the life cycle of an individual is equally important and necessary. A mixture of
household types in every neighbourhood and every cluster should be promoted so that one-
person households, couples, families with children, and group households are together.
There are three ways in which houses can be categorized: most public; houses on busy streets,
most private; houses on quiet backwaters and those that are more or less in between. This could
be termed a degree of publicness. The location of these three kinds of houses should be such that
they should support their category; like private houses on twisting paths so that they remain
secluded, public houses on busy streets for more exposure to the passers-by and the in-between
houses should be located halfway between the other two i.e. semi-private or semi-public area.
Every neighbourhood should have a balance between these three kinds of houses.

A sense of comfort and protection is vital, in the houses where people live. Houses in a
neighbourhood should be arranged in identifiable clusters of 8-12 households with common land
and paths nearby.

Row houses are essential after every 15-30 houses per acre. Typical row houses are dark inside
unless planned well. They should be placed along pedestrian paths running at right angles to
local roads and parking lots. Each house should be provided with a long frontage and a shallow
depth.

Every town has places with a high density of people living in conditions with 30-50 households
per acre. To accommodate all, the construction of apartment houses takes place. Certain qualities
like community living and a sense of interaction should be kept in mind at the time of building.
Housing hills should be constructed to form terraces, sloping toward the south, with a staircase
running at the centre, also facing south and leading towards a common garden.

Old people should not be forgotten and left alone in society so it is necessary to formulate a
special pattern for the houses they live in. Old people need old people around them and also
young people. Dwellings for them should be created near each other forming a cluster, with
common spaces (core) provided for cooking and nursing nearby. Ordinary houses should be
located surrounding them at the periphery.

Formation of work communities should be encouraged between the house clusters, around the
centers, and especially in the boundaries between neighbourhoods, such as industrial ribbon,
university as a marketplace, local town hall, necklace of community projects, and market of
many shops, health center and housing in between. And further between the house clusters and
work communities, the growth of local road and path networks informally, and piecemeal should
be allowed.

Heavy traffic going through residential areas is not liked by the residents, so looped local roads
should be planned and laid. A loop makes it impossible for cars without destinations to use it as a
shortcut. Not more than 50 cars should be served by the loops and the road width should be
narrow.

Traffic accidents could be avoided by the implementation of T junctions. Planning of road

The network of cars and paths should be planned in such a way that people should feel safe, and
yet it promotes interaction between them. Pedestrian paths should be put at right angles to roads,
and not along them so that they form a second network, distinct from the road system, except
where traffic densities are very high or very low. They should always be put in the middle of the
block so that they run across the roads.
Marking the neighbourhoods or any boundary with important human meaning or a cluster, with
gateways would help its inhabitants to identify it as a precinct of some type, reinforcing it, and
making it distinct and more vivid. Road crossing, raised walks, bike paths and racks, and
children in the city are other kinds of network systems used in towns for safe and easy movement
of people.

Communities and neighbourhoods should be provided with public open land where people can
relax, rub shoulders and renew themselves like a carnival, quiet backs, accessible green, small
public squares, high places, dancing in the street, pools and streams, birthplaces and holy ground.
Likewise, smaller bits of common land should be made available in each house cluster and work
community, to provide for local versions of the same needs.

The existence of common land is essential for the survival of the social system. 25 per cent of
common land should be present in house clusters. Special care should be taken so that it does not
become a parking area.

“All work and no play makes jack a dull boy”, similarly if children don’t play enough with other
children during their childhood, it may hamper their mental growth or may have some kind of
mental illness later in their lives. Common lands of many households should be connected that
do not cross traffic such that children in these households get a safe connected play with many
people to join in.

There is a lack of places in modern towns and neighbourhoods where people can hang out for
hours. A portion of common land should be converted into a partly enclosed outdoor room for
playing games, chit-chatting, get-togethers and parties.

Those who are born would die. Death is a natural process and a fact so a proper site should be
allotted for the dead bodies. Allocation of small pieces of land throughout the community as
grave sites should be done. These sites could be corners of parks, sections of oaths, gardens,
beside gateways, where memorials to people who have died can be

ritually placed with inscriptions and mementoes which celebrate their life.

To be in touch with water is refreshing but for this scattered still-water bodies are needed
throughout the city. Every neighbourhood should have some sort of still water like a pond or a
pool for swimming open to the public at all times.

Conducting local sports in neighbourhoods should be encouraged. Places should be allotted for
carrying out team and individual sports like tennis, swimming, table tennis, badminton,
basketball, and billiards. It should be visible to passers-by so that they feel like joining in.

A place where children can create and re-create playgrounds of their own with raw materials like
nets, boxes, barrels, trees, ropes, simple tools, frames, grass and water is important for their
development. This concept of an adventure playground would make them creative and
innovative.

Interaction with animals plays a vital role in a person’s emotional development, especially in
children. Animals should be adopted and kept in their private lots. A piece of common land
should be granted to them.
Within the framework of the common land, the clusters and the work communities, encourage
the transformation of the smallest independent social institutions: the families, workgroups, and
gathering places; Forms of a family such as a house for a small family, a couple, one person, and
your own home, workgroups including all kinds of workshops, offices and even children’s
learning groups; self-governing workshops and offices, small services without red tape, office
connections, master and apprentices, teenage society, shop front schools, and children’s home.
The local shops and gathering places are described under:

Individually owned shops should be controlled and maintained such that it doesn’t become too
large or else they become plastic, bland and abstract. Their development should be encouraged.

Street café is a good way by which people are given a platform to have a view of the world going
by. Café should be divided into private spaces that could be inside a room and public spaces that
could be semi-covered spaces coming right onto the street.

Every neighbourhood should have a corner grocery after every 200-800 yards, serving about
1000 people, with the owner of the shop living there or nearby. This idea would serve the need of
many people living nearby, and not let them travel a long distance to get the basic necessities of
the house. Also, it would help develop interaction.

Alexander also talks about the concept of a beer hall where people can gather, with beer and
wine, music, and other activities; a place where they can sing, dance, shout and let go of their
sorrows.

Unlike most hotels and motels, a traveller’s inn is a place where travellers can take a room for
the night but stay there in a kind of community with other travellers. The scale would be small
with 30-40 guests to an inn; meals offered communally; and a large space ringed round with beds
in alcoves.

Bus stops should be built such that they form tiny centres of public life. They should be located
at the boundaries of the neighbourhood and near the gateways. Their location should be such,
that they could merge with other activities like a newsstand, shelter, seats, smoke shops, corner
grocery, coffee shops, public bathrooms, tree places, and squares.

“Many of our habits and institutions are bolstered by the fact that we can get simple, inexpensive
food on the street, on the way to shopping, work and friends.” The location of the temporary
food stands should be where cars and paths meet or are built into the fronts of the buildings, also
half open to the street.

Sleeping in public is a tough job because the environment should be filled with comfortable
places relatively sheltered and protected from circulation; with ample benches, and corners to sit
on the ground, or lie in comfort in the sand. “It is a mark of success in a park, public lobby or a
porch when people can come there and fall asleep.”
Points to be considered at the time of analysing a neighbourhood:

§ To understand the selected case study as a neighbourhood, and check whether it has got
all points to be considered as an identifiable neighbourhood,

§ To analyse the strength of the neighbourhood boundary,

§ To check the applicability of the fundamental principles to establish neighbourhood

§ To analyse the provisions for the growth of housing like a household mix, degrees of
publicness, house cluster, row houses, housing hill, and old people everywhere,

§ To analyse the network of local roads and paths between the house clusters and work
communities in the neighbourhood like looped local roads, T junctions, green streets, a
network of cars and paths, gateways,

§ To analyse the common land available to each house cluster and work community by the
kinds of use on it like connected play, outdoor room, gravesites, still water, local sports,
adventure playground, animals, and

§ To analyse the kind of local shops and gathering places like individually owned shops,
street café, corner grocery, beer halls, traveller’s inn, bus stops, food stands, and sleeping
in public.