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.

The quality of multi-family housing around the world isn't what it could be. All of it could be improved, especially with regards to what is available to low and moderate income people.

• 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.

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.