Raise the main storey on slender columns so that the ground beneath flows under the building (for circulation, cars, gardens or public space) and the rooms are lifted into light, air and view.
Build high, and far apart
Where density is needed, build tall blocks widely spaced, so that every dwelling has sun, air and a view, and the ground freed between them becomes green space.
The Charter asks for a minimum ration of sunshine for every dwelling and condemns housing aligned along traffic streets. Its answer, high slabs set back from the roads in parkland, is the towers-and-slabs landscape of the post-war estate. Gropius had given the argument its numbers in 1930 (Rows spaced by the angle of light).
Related rules
Run the windows in a continuous horizontal band from one end of the façade to the other, lighting the room evenly across its whole depth.
Make the flat roof a garden and terrace, returning to the house the ground that the building has occupied.
House a whole community in one tall slab: stack duplex flats that run through the block with light on both sides, put shops and services on an interior street half-way up, and give the roof to everyone.
Concentrate the business centre in a few very tall towers set far apart on a regular grid, so that they cover only a small fraction of the ground and the rest can be park: density and open space at once.
twenty-four cruciform towers of about sixty storeys; a small fraction of the centre built on
Replace the street lined with buildings by roads for traffic alone, sorted by speed and on separate levels, crossing at a central interchange; give the ground between them to pedestrians and parkland.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Build high, and far apart”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/athens-high-and-spaced. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.