2013.03.22 01:00 - Long dark corridors

Wol Euler was guardian for this session.

Wol Euler: timezon-appropriate greetings, hana
Wol Euler: sorry I'm late, I had to write my daily IM to Pema
Hana Furlough: and time-zone appropriate greetings to you, too, wol
Hana Furlough: are you having a good day so far?
Wol Euler: I've only been up for a half hour, but it was enjoyable
Hana Furlough: lol sorry
Wol Euler: no need to be sorry :)
Hana Furlough: then i guess i should say good morning
Wol Euler: I should apologise for not rising earlier
Hana Furlough: no no sleep in when you can
Wol Euler: how is your day?
Hana Furlough: it's been good
Hana Furlough: just getting ready to head home soon
Wol Euler: oh, where are you now?
Hana Furlough: in the office
Wol Euler: SL at work :)
Wol Euler: I sometimes wish I could do that, but the reality is that if I could, I would do nothing else
Hana Furlough: shh don't tell anyone
Wol Euler grins.
Hana Furlough: really?

--BELL--

Wol Euler: yes, I'm easily distracted and led astray
Hana Furlough: same here : )
Wol Euler: just this morning I forgot what I was going to do, in the time it took me to walk the length of a hallway (at home, about eight metres)
Hana Furlough: wow eight meters, that must be a long hallway!
Hana Furlough: it happens though, the forgetting
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: "look, something shiny!"
Wol Euler: or "hunger....."
Hana Furlough: hehe yes
Hana Furlough: those two get me all the time
Wol Euler: I find also that if I am given two tasks at work, one interesting and the other not, I never forget the interesting one :)
Hana Furlough: haha yes
Wol Euler: re eight metres: the building is laid out side-by-side: my windows are all on the west side and my neighbour's are all on the east, so we have longish dark halls
Hana Furlough: sounds nice
Wol Euler: fairly typical, actually, I'd guess that at least 90% of housing stock in urban areas is like this
Wol Euler: two apartments per floor times N floors, perhaps with shops or services at ground level

--BELL--

Hana Furlough: interesting
Hana Furlough: i like the idea of just two apartments per floor
Hana Furlough: it sounds very cozy
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: it has several consequences. you do tend to know your neighbours :)
Wol Euler: and also it means short corridors with natural light
Wol Euler: at least outside of the apartments :) heheheh
Wol Euler: the public access is just a staircase with a wide landing
Wol Euler: the typical North American apartment layout where you have a corridor like a tunnel with doors on either side, is almost unknown here
Hana Furlough: interesting
Hana Furlough: i like the idea of natural light
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: you (society, client, architect) have to want to do it. Because that is one window fewer that belongs to somebody's apartment
Wol Euler: it means reducing the saleable / rentable space per floor by one room
Hana Furlough: interesting
Hana Furlough: i wonder what it would take for society to see natural light as essential
Hana Furlough: as a focal point
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: that only applies as far as I have seen in the case of private property, single-unit houses
Wol Euler: if it is "mine" then it needs light; if it is "ours" then who cares
Hana Furlough: what a shame
Wol Euler: agreed
Wol Euler: it could be easily enforced, if we had the political will for it
Wol Euler: in the same way we enforce plumbing standards
Hana Furlough: hehe
Hana Furlough: well it ought to be enforced like that
Wol Euler: agreed :)
Wol Euler: long enclosed hallways are awful places
Hana Furlough: yes they are
Wol Euler: one of the greatest disappointments in my architectural studies was to visit Le Corbusier's Habitation in Marseilles
Wol Euler: which is a famous and much admired building
Wol Euler: the apartments are all two-storey, with internal balconies to the living areas
Wol Euler: and windows on both sides of the building, so you get cross ventilation
Wol Euler: very important in a hot climate
Hana Furlough: sounds ideal
Wol Euler: http://www.centraliens.net/groupes-i...ier_appart.jpg
Hana Furlough: what was disappointing?
Wol Euler: the apartments are in pairs, interlocking vertically like L's
Wol Euler: or like 69 :)
Wol Euler: if you look at that drawing, the corridor is the box at the right of thelower level
Wol Euler: "Rue interieure"
Wol Euler: internal street
Wol Euler: nobody talks about that, except to say how wonderful it is that the 18th and 19th floors (I think) are a self-contained shopping precinct inside the building
Wol Euler: with a little cafe
Wol Euler: and a grocery
Hana Furlough: i see
Wol Euler: but on the other floors, it is dismal
Wol Euler: totally enclosed, very long, utterly unchanging.
Wol Euler: quite awful to be in
Hana Furlough: ugh that sounds bad
Wol Euler: I'd personally feel like closing my eyes and running through the hall to get to my apartment
Wol Euler: not at all an internal street, more like a pedestrian road-underpass

--BELL--

Hana Furlough: that sounds pretty terrible
Wol Euler: no worse than every other one :)
Wol Euler: in some ways better, they are colourful
Wol Euler: lovely rich dark tones, red and blue and ...
Wol Euler: but windowless, lightless, un-used
Hana Furlough: oh i see
Hana Furlough: at least there is some attempt to beautify the space
Hana Furlough: but it must still be dreary without any light
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: as in the vast majority of apartments
Wol Euler: commercial logic forbids "wasting" saleable space simply to make the corridor pleasant
Wol Euler: there's a vicious cycle there. Corridor doesn't need to be pleasant, because nobody ever stays in it
Wol Euler: you'd never see a pair of chairs in the corridor outside somebody's door!
Hana Furlough: lol i suppose not
Wol Euler: and because it isn't pleasant, nobody stays in it, so it doesn't need to be pleasant
Hana Furlough: right
Hana Furlough: a vicious circle indeed
Wol Euler: if it were nice, it could be nice :)
Wol Euler: but because it isn't, it can't be
Wol Euler: there are counter-examples. Herman Herzberger in Holland, whatsisname in Norway
Wol Euler: but these are interestingly all publicly-funded works
Hana Furlough: maybe that's what it takes
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: this is something of a hobby-horse of mine :)
Wol Euler: I was very pleased that we managed to get natural light and ventilation into the (very) long corridors of a hotel we built in the Canary Islands
Hana Furlough: oh really?
Hana Furlough: i'm glad you got some natural light in there
Wol Euler: the shape of the site helped us there, we had to bend the building a few times
Wol Euler: and used those breaks to put in windows
Hana Furlough: wow
Hana Furlough: sounds complicated
Wol Euler: I just had a look at our website, there aren't any good photos of the room tracts
Wol Euler: because despite the corridors with windows, they are just long rows of rooms
Hana Furlough: too bad
Hana Furlough: i'd like to see that
Hana Furlough: well, i hate to run but i need to catch the bus
Wol Euler: sure
Hana Furlough: it was great chatting with you
Wol Euler: enjoy the evening, hana
Hana Furlough: i hope you have a nice day
Hana Furlough: bye for now
Wol Euler: thank you!
Wol Euler: take care