Home Truths

I have spent the last few days visiting friends in coastal Maine, where there are wonderful summer “cottages” and antique houses, often cheek by jowl with newer homes both beautiful and not so beautiful. The trip has led me to ponder again the aesthetics of housing. What are the qualities which make one space welcoming and appealing while another leaves us uneasy and on edge? Here are some ideas about the confluence of factors which inform our perception of interior space:

1. LAYOUT – Perhaps the most influential of our perceptions of the space around us pertains to its organization. Human beings are drawn to symmetry. We like it in architecture no less than in the faces of those we perceive as beautiful. So the way rooms are organized around the central axis of the space is critical to our enjoyment of them. That said, absolute symmetry can lack originality or any element of surprise. Thus the layouts, be they in apartments or houses, to which people are most often drawn are those with a sense of balance and symmetry in the enfilade of rooms-but nonetheless enlivened by asymmetrical touches.

2. PROPORTION – Proportion enhances the sense of comfort and pleasure introduced by a good layout. The golden mean, which mathematicians have defined as a ratio of 1/1.6, is most easily rounded off in architectural terms to a 2/3 ratio. In other words, the eye and the senses are pleased by a room of 20′ by 30′. If you increase the smaller proportion, the room becomes more and more square, which continues to please the senses. If on the other hand the larger proportion is extended, the room becomes a longer thinner rectangle, increasingly losing its sense of balance with each additional foot.

3. VOLUME – Ceiling height must scale to both the overall size of the property and each of its rooms. On the one hand, large rooms with low ceilings can create a claustrophobic experience for the user. But it is equally true that small or narrow rooms with excessively high ceilings can generate a spatially disorienting “wind tunnel” effect. While most people prefer a high ceiling to a lower one, more is not always better. In a welcoming space the volume is generous but balanced with the other architectural elements.

4. OUTLOOK – Even the best proportioned spaces can be compromised by a poor outlook. For most people the critical component in outlook is light. Natural light creates resonance in an interior, adding its luminous glow to all the architectural elements. And the quality of the light in New York seems to change around the tenth floor, becoming whiter and more penetrating. View also enhances any outlook. For those who can afford it, nothing extends interior space outwards like a view. The majority of people with whom I have dealt over the years prefer a mid floor, to preserve the human scale, gazing at water and natural elements such as trees or flowers.

5. DETAIL – Every space is enhanced by detail, from the most elaborate cornice to the simplest baseboard. To the modern eye, less is usually more when it comes to detail. Many of us find the deep elaborate moldings of the late Victorian era overwhelming; we tend to be more comfortable with the simpler Classical sensibility evident in the New York apartment buildings of the mid to late 1920s. Details influence the eye; when well done they can visually raise a ceiling or square a room. The best architects always use (and used) detail to enhance a space’s best qualities while minimizing its drawbacks.

The great architects are magicians. They brilliantly deploy the tools in their toolbox to create living environments which subtly draw us in and make us feel at home. The world over, the spaces which please us have elements in common; the deployment of layout, proportion, volume, outlook, and detail chief among them.

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