Neighborhoods and Cities
How
would you like to live in the desert without protection
from the sun or live outdoors in the winter? People everywhere need
protection from the weather to survive, and we call protective structures
"shelters."
Before
people knew how to heat or cool a building mechanically,
every climate required a different shelter. In northern countries
with heavy snows people built houses with steeply pitched roofs to
allow the snow to slide off.
Before
people used glass in windows, window openings were small
to keep out the wind in the north and the sun in the south. On tropical
islands, shelters have always had great umbrella-like roofs to shed
heavy rains and almost no walls so cooling breezes can pass through.
We
need shelter
Over
the centuries people have found that they cannot live without
protection from wind, sun, rain, snow, and extreme heat and cold.
Primitive people first found shelter in the natural environment, caves.
People later built their environment for protection, and although
thousands of years have passed, we still build our homes for this
reason. Even outside we look for the shade of trees when it is hot.
Climate
extremes affect the form of the environment. Although not
always apparent, every shelter, even in a moderate climate, responds
to people's basic needs for light, air, and protection from the elements.
We
build buildings and rooms for privacy and for places for
our different activities. If we had to, we could eat, sleep, cook,
read, play, and bathe in the same room. An Eskimo igloo is such a
place and so is an Indian teepee, but when people have a choice they
prefer not to live in one room. Just as we don't use a single room
for many purposes, we don't build a single building to be a church,
food market, and factory.
Most
buildings serve a number of uses. A school includes a gym,
an auditorium, offices, classrooms, a library and usually a lunchroom,
and we might use each room in several ways. In the classroom, for
example, we read, see films, hear music, write, and talk. This
ability to use a building or room for several purposes is called "versatile."
We need versatility, as well as variety, in our rooms and buildings
for the many acivities that are part of our way of life.
Adapted
from Our Man-Made Environment - Book 7
by: Levy, Chapman & Wurman
