City Living

Growing up, we would know when someone came to visit. The dogs would bark, and the geese launch a running v down the drive. Strangers would park at the front and knock on the front door. Friends would park wherever, wander around the back, shout ‘hello’ and put it on the kettle if it was not already on. That was the way of things on a country farm. When I moved to the big smoke, I was fortunate always to find homes, not flats or units. Before you reached the front door, there was always a set of stairs and a veranda or garden space. It was enough space to decompress from the outside world and not take my daily grind inside with me. It would destroy me if I wound up in an industrial-era terrace or workers’ cottage where the front door opens directly onto the street, with no space to reset between my inner and outer worlds of existence. These houses confront my sense of security and well-being, and I can’t help but wonder if the architecture of such a design shapes the inhabitant’s relationship to the world. Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities) and Christopher Alexander (A Pattern Language) argue for an ‘entrance transition’ between the street and the inside that provides a ‘clear demarcation between public and private space’ as a requirement of a liveable city. I thought it was just me, but it turns out a friend lives in such a house and ‘they were lucky enough to have a back door they all use’ rather than come through the front, thanks to an old du