Plan the principal hall as a long rectangle entered on its short side through a porch with two columns between the side walls and a vestibule, and put a great round hearth in the centre of the hall, ringed by four columns carrying a raised roof.
Face the house south
Put the court on the south side of the house and the principal rooms, fronted by a porch, on its north side facing south, so that the winter sun enters the porch and the summer sun passes over the roof; build the north side high and the south low.
Socrates, in Xenophon’s report, says that a house is beautiful when it is pleasant in every season: in a house facing south the low winter sun shines into the porticoes, while the high summer sun passes over the roof and leaves them in shade. The houses of Priene obey him. Each is entered from the street into a court on its south side; across the court a porch with two columns between its side walls, the prostas, opens south in front of the main room, the oikos, and the north range rises to a second storey.
Related rules
Let one simple ratio govern the whole: at the Parthenon the lower diameter is to the axial spacing, the width of the stylobate to its length, and the height of the order to the width of the front, all very nearly as 4 is to 9.
D : axial spacing ≈ 1.905 : 4.296 ≈ 4 : 9; stylobate 30.88 : 69.50 ≈ 4 : 9
Plan a Greek theatre by inscribing three squares in the orchestra circle; the side nearest the scene fixes the front of the stage (proscaenium), and the scene is set back to a line tangent to the circle.
proscaenium at r cos 45° ≈ 0.71 r from the centre; logeion 10–12 ft high
In a peripteral temple the flanks have twice as many intercolumniations as the front: six columns in front means eleven along each side, counting the corner columns twice.
side columns = 2n − 1 (Vitruvius) · 2n + 1 (Greek practice)
Divide the city into equal rectangular blocks by straight streets crossing at right angles, and assign whole blocks to the public buildings; but let walls follow the ground, not the grid.
Keep a free agora for public life, clear of merchandise and near the magistrates, the temples and the gymnasium; put buying and selling in a separate market place convenient for goods.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Face the house south”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/house-faces-south. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.