Refuge, Prospect, and Intimacy Gradients

As I began writing this today I am sitting in Reagan National Airport. I have found the perfect spot, I am waiting for 09 points in 35 minutes flight. I am alone in a row only three seats, and the bulkhead behind me, the power supply is only my right, and great Windows in the front of me, let me look at this over the runway, even in the Potomac River outside the airport. I found that what anthropologists, psychologists, and the requirements of local designers, "refuge and prospect." "asylum" from the fact that my comfort and safety, in a sample from my relative protection of my blind side from predators Given the terrain and broad in front of me. "Looking ahead" to from the fact that, I can see from a broad terrain has a potential good and / or interesting The things I can think of and plans.

I am more comfortable here, on the edge of the shelters and prospects than I will if I deeper and defecation in the airport, or sitting Out in the on the apron.

refuge and prospect is a human may be the earliest of sitting mouth of a cave ignored fruitful valley. Many scientists natural that a positive response to this situation may be in our hearts As millions of years of evolution. A hundred years ago, the United States ancestors may have the same feeling from the summing up and around porches their homes along the Maine coast or in the The western plains. When I was a child along the Ohio River basin, and the prospects for asylum have been found in wooden porches in front of family disputes homes. At the same time, asylum and prospects in New York City in front of the brownstone steps to house.

campus designers in Europe to establish a medieval castle mentality, self-enclosed quads and within the open space, the lack of large opening to the outside world.

change in the United States, the most notable of Thomas Jeffersons design for the University of Virginia, plans and a large number of asylum and prospects - local Housing from which students can be seen on a wide range of prospects, and that is beautiful Many of the plans for the campus since the United States. (The plan began spreading return to the integration into Europe via Spain, in the early part of last century, it seems become a major trend, The rest of the world now).

When it comes to interior space, if you wanted to know why everyone is inclined to sitting near the edge of a traditional classroom and the front And the Middle East fill the last year » In a sense, "outlook" This is the front-line classroom - from the knowledge, but it also as "predators" ( Tutors) position. Evacuation is near the door, so you can get Heke left the scene.

You can call the prospect of leading the field, in a wide range of open space - if I now want to sit out on the apron. The field is the leading asylum may include the very heart of the new airport lobbies, away from windows.

(in the one-year-old - Western film, then in a bar, and a mirror, wall so you can pay attention to your back).

a related concept is "close gradient." The first development for the architects of the physical space, it also apply to the virtual space. Laying various courses on the screen management system, it may be the best arrangement gradually more or less the closest place with a clear marker change between them.