To unify a façade of two or more storeys, run a single order of pilasters or columns through all of them, from the base to the main cornice.
The public, not the owner, decides the street front
Do not leave the fronts of houses to the whim of each builder: let the authorities fix their line, height and design so that a street or square is composed as a whole, and vary the designs from one street to the next so that uniformity does not become tedium.
Laugier wanted public control of façades because a street is seen as one thing, and a single bad front spoils it. The idea had precedents in the royal squares of Paris, whose uniform fronts were designed before the houses behind them were sold.
In Edinburgh the council imposed height and building line on every plot, but only once did it impose a full design: for Charlotte Square it bought an elevation from Robert Adam in 1791 and made it a condition of sale, so that each side of the square (eleven separate houses) reads as a single palace with a pedimented centre and end pavilions.
Related rules
Take the plan, the orders and the details from the builders’ pattern books, simplified for timber and for the carpenter: a symmetrical front, a central hall and stair with rooms either side, a doorway under a pediment or fanlight, and mouldings drawn to be made with the plane.
When orders are placed one above another, put the stronger below and the more delicate above (Doric under Ionic under Corinthian), and make each upper column a quarter shorter than the one beneath.
upper column = ¾ lower column; order sequence: Tuscan → Doric → Ionic → Corinthian → Composite
Set arches on piers and frame each bay with an engaged column or pilaster carrying a continuous entablature, so that the arch does the work and the order gives the measure.
arch height ≈ 2 × arch width (Vignola); impost at ⅔ of the column
Give the front of a country house a portico with a pediment, as the ancients did, for it shows the entrance, gives grandeur, and makes a place to display the owner’s arms.
Combine a central arched opening with two narrower flat-headed openings on either side, the arch springing from the entablature of the side openings.
side lights ≈ ½ central span; arch springs from the lintel of the sides
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The public, not the owner, decides the street front”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/laugier-regulated-fronts. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.