With a concrete frame, a house should stand on pilotis, have a free plan and a free façade, be lit by horizontal ribbon windows, and carry a garden on its flat roof.
pilotis · free plan · free façade · ribbon window · roof garden
Rules · Doors & windows · Light · Façades
The ribbon window
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.
Le Corbusier argued that a horizontal window of the same area lights a room better than a tall one, and frames the landscape as a panorama. The claim provoked a famous quarrel with his former teacher Auguste Perret, who defended the tall French window as the one that suits a standing person and shows sky, horizon and ground together. In the figure, a ribbon window in a load-bearing wall must be broken by piers; only the free façade lets it run unbroken.
Related rules
Set the columns back from the edge of the slab, so that the outer wall carries nothing and can be opened, closed or glazed at will.
cantilever of slab beyond column line ≈ ⅕–⅓ of the bay
Check the proportions of a façade with a few geometric lines (diagonals of similar rectangles, the golden section) so that its parts share one order and nothing is arbitrary.
Treat architecture as volume enclosed by thin planes rather than as solid mass; order it by the regular rhythm of the structure rather than by axial symmetry; and avoid applied decoration.
Hang the outer wall from the edges of the floor slabs as a continuous skin of glass and metal, independent of the frame behind it, and express its grid of mullions.
skin = vision glass + spandrel panel per floor, on a module of ≈ 1.5 m
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.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The ribbon window”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/ribbon-window. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.