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Job:02-30056 Title: RP-Interior Design Reference and Specification
#175 Dtp:216 Page:88
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THE INTERIOR DESIGN REFERENCE + SPECIFICATION BOOK
COMPOSING A HOUSE IN SECTION
If a house is conceived as a series of independent oor levels, then every room on each oor
will share the same ceiling height. Ideally, however, a house should have rooms whose ceil-
ing heights differ in proportion to the overall size of each space. The height of the living room
should be greater than that of the powder room or a coat closet, for example. Opportunities for
such a house of interlocking rooms with different ceiling heights are best explored in section.
The simplest way to organize a mixture of ceiling heights is to make one or several rooms
double-height spaces, with the potential that rooms on the second level can look onto these
taller spaces. Le Corbusier organized houses around double-height living rooms at every stage
of his long career: The Villa Schwab of 1916 and the units in the Unité d’Habitation of 1949
are but two such housing designs.
Another strategy for varying spatial heights in a house is to connect one-and-a-half-story
rooms to adjacent one-story rooms via short stairs. Separating sections of the house by par-
tial-level stairs rather than the full-oor stairs of conventional house designs offers numerous
psychological and functional advantages.
As a variation on this strategy, in the 1920s Adolf Loos designed a series of houses that
organize the rooms of the main living level with a common ceiling plane, but allow the oor
levels to shift, creating rooms with a mix of ceiling heights. As a result, the interiors of Loos’s
houses resemble a terraced landscape. In houses with these complex sectional relationships,
the interconnecting stair needs to be carefully designed to take full advantage of views into
taller spaces and beyond to the exterior.
Le Corbusier, Villa Baizeau
COMPOSING AN OFFICE SPACE IN PLAN
Since the modern ofce is designed for a preexisting at-oor-plate ofce building, there are
very few opportunities for creativity in the section. Rather,
generates design possibilities
(1.5
the exterior window wall. This module works with the dimensional module of the American
systems furniture industry, including manufacturers such as Steelcase and Herman Miller.
This
occasionally wider for senior executives. It also governs other rooms located along the perim-
eter walls, such as conference rooms and reception areas.
A series of intimate, terraced spaces along
the sides of a triple-height space, exempli-
ed in the section of the Müller House, is
another strategy for varying spatial heights.
The section of the Villa Baizeau has interlocking
double-height spaces that become single-height
spaces when joined.
Job:02-30056 Title: RP-Interior Design Reference and Specification
#175 Dtp:216 Page:88
(RAY)
084-091_30056.indd 88 3/4/13 7:32 PM