There are a collection of physical and environmental elements that surround a building that help to make it a great to be in, and especially if it is a residence, a great to live in. To visualize, think of these surrounding and enveloping things as a collection of attributes that makes something like a cosseting, comforting blanket, providing the 'comfort' of the feeling of well-being and beauty.

"The rest of the country looks to California. Not for what is conventional, but for what is necessary—necessary to keep faith with our courageous forebears.What we have done together and what we must do in the coming years is big, but it pales in comparison to the indomitable courage of those who discovered and each decade thereafter built a more abundant California. As Legislators, It is your duty and privilege to pass laws. But what we need to do for our future will require more than producing hundreds of new laws each year.

My architect world-view changed with the realization that one of the things I appreciated most about cities is the spatial progression down the streets and public places, the ever changing volume between buildings and level of activity that revealed itself as I walked or rode. The change in my perception came from the realization over time that this continually changing outdoor space was of the public city was considerably more important in its totality then any of the given buildings along the way-no mater how significant and finely executed. The dynamic tension between the great and small spaces created between structures, the 'leaky' interstitial, the collective details and textures compelled me as something that made for a greater whole. It's now a key part of what makes me understand a city, and it's a realization that greatly affects how I practice as an architect.

The architect gathers information to program and make a parti for the design of a building, new or substantially reworked. She arrives at a form based on function and an overriding set of architectural design principals. Some heed is paid to the characteristics of the site, and the practicalities of the design and the construction ensue.

Cities that are more than a generation old take on the characteristics of layering, exhibiting the slices of life and its physical trappings of their years. New buildings are constructed next to old, renovations are made on top of existing structures needing repair, and there is the introduction of new uses in structures to take the place of the obsolete…

• The Public 

• The Semi-Public

• The Semi-Private 

• The Private

You don't have good urban design, you don't have architecture without all four. Don't cast away the project because it dimly resembles some government building, or that it relays on exhausted planning models. Simply recognize that it's missing two of the four things that would make it great.

We know that these places exist around the world. We glimpse them. The narrow passageway into the sunlit courtyard in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The pocket park in the middle of Manhattan. The rooftop garden above the 40th floor in Chicago or Shanghai.

Putting visitors in the right state of mind to enjoy this place cannot be overestimated in its importance. The forecourt experience, a welcoming semi-public space, which immediately disarms the visitor, and quietly asks for them to leave their 'busy city people' persona behind at the portal, is also exactly the thing that is needed to prepare people for the experience inside.

I'm speaking of something else though, and that is the quality of 'movement' through and inherent life in these kinds of places. A dynamic character that can only be fully described by being in such a space. Characteristics of a well designed courtyards are permeability, good natural lighting (the right amount, and enough to filter into the right places). There should be plenty of places for views in and out, and for human beings to pass through. If this is done right, the layers of light, then shadow, and back to light, delight the eye, drawing attention through the foreground to something in the distance, and always pull and compel a visitor to move through the space.

Going home. Two very evocative words. We usually think of this phrase as applying to a return to a lost place we left long ago in a place far away. The words have a longing attached to them, evoking a deep desire to return to the nurturing fundamentals of life.

So there is a division, an invisible demarcation between the most public of private places, and the public itself. This invisible demarcation separates places where passers-by are free to roam, and where people are 'invited in'. I'll call these 'invited in' spaces ‘The Semi-Public’.

It helps me to understand relationships if I do a diagram. Here is one I did to explain the relationship between the Public place and the Private place.

It seems to be an accepted fact that where many inhabitants live in great cities, are also deeply compromised as places to live. The so-called price of living in that great place. The wealthy, and the fortunate few who with live the quirky exceptions are the only ones who defy the compromise.

An architect is trained to think of each building as a discrete whole, bounded by its sides and top. An object understood on its own; more simply put, four walls and a roof. A program is understood, the needs of the inhabitants are thought through, and a shape is made to wrap what goes on inside. If the program is lavish, if the architect is a sculptor and makes a statement with each work, the shape is fully considered from all sides. This isn’t about the rugged self-reliance of the architect. Those who commission the building, and those who build it see it as a very singular act, governed by vague notions about ‘fitting in’.