Domus Revisited

View from above

I got the idea of my new house design while listening to a podcast, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Houses and Villas at Pompeii, also available as a video, which is part of a course on Roman Architecture by Diana Kleiner from Yale University on iTune U.  In it she describes in detail the ruins of houses and villas in Pompeii which survived the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.  I was attracted to the simplicity of the ideal Roman House Plan (Domus Italica) which she attributed to the writing of a Roman architect, Vitruvius, who flourished in the 1st century BC.  I thought that the typical Domus house plan, which is essentially a house with an open courtyard (atrium), could easily be transplanted to an urban or suburban environment in today's world in a suitable climate.  Courtyard style houses were by no means invented by the Romans but can be found in many ancient cultures, including Islamic, Hindu, and Chinese civilizations. 

I have always been partial to this particular dwelling type, as you can tell from the several houses I designed and published on my blog, ever since my mother took me to visit my aunt's house in the countryside of southern Taiwan when I was little.  The house left a strong impression on me to this day.  It was a three-sided courtyard house consisting of a series of rooms wrapped around a large courtyard with openings connecting them to one another on the courtyard side of the rooms.  It housed three generations of two families, one on each wing, with the connecting side shared between them; the children and women of the two families, who were related, shared play and work in the open courtyard.  It seemed to me to be a very efficient arrangement of dwelling space, specially suited for the agricultural society where it existed. 

My design closely follows the arrangement of room-functions in the simple Domus Italica plan with a tripartite division of space facing the street -- two large public spaces, which were shop fronts in ancient Roman time, now a garage and an office or studio, flanking a narrow entryway in the middle.  After passing through the vestibule, one enters the main courtyard of the house, open to the sky, with a fountain in the middle, surrounded by a colonnaded porch.  A series of bedrooms and baths line the east side of the courtyard, with the utility room, a half bath, and the kitchen on the west.  The living/dinning room and the master bedroom are located on the south end of the courtyard which look into the garden in the back through another colonnaded porch.  The design as it is, a compact 2,340 S.F. house for two persons, can be implemented on a narrow urban lot -- a private oasis hidden behind tall walls.  It can easily be enlarged, if one so desires, by stretching it in the north-south or east-west direction, or both.  

Here are some renderings of the computer model I made of the design:   

North Elevation

South Elevation

East Elevation

West Elevation

Transverse Section looking North

Transverse Section looking South

Longitudinal Section looking East

Longitudinal Section looking West

Courtyard looking South

Courtyard looking East

Living-Dining Room

Kitchen

As usual, I made a walk-through animation of the exterior and interior of the house.  I still haven't perfected the techniques of making smooth animations, but you can at least get a sense of what it's like walking around the house inside and out.

Exterior Walk-through

Interior Walk-through

The Clever Calvin

We have quasi-adopted a cat named Calvin who lives two-door down from us on our street. The reason we know these facts about him is because he wears a collar with a tag and tiny bell on his neck.  He is very affectionate, a sucker for belly rubs, and very persistent in seeking attention.  He walks around the neighborhood, visits all the houses, and is, for all we know, greeted affectionately by all.  He often pays us a morning call while we're having breakfast in the Sunroom and then comes back for an evening visit at supper time, with a little tinkling of the bell announcing his arrival.  It isn't because he wants to be fed that he comes around at those hours but because he can usually find us then.  I've come to miss hearing his tinkering bell if he doesn't show up during meal time. 

Calvin started visiting us several months ago; whenever we were out in the yard he would appear, seemingly from nowhere.  As he seemed friendly, we would pat him and play with him a bit.  I was often startled by his tail brushing against my legs when I was doing something in the yard; I even had the uncomfortable feeling of being stalked.  Once we got to know him better, whenever he saw us outside he would follow us closely whichever direction we moved with the intention, which soon became clear, of nudging his way inside our house.  One of his signature maneuvers toward that goal was to dart, of a sudden, in front of us and plump himself down at our feet at every opportunity, intercepting our walk, and eventually, landing his body right at our doorstep, preventing us from opening the door, or more precisely, getting into the house without him.  We were resolute about not letting him into the house at first; so to get rid of him, Kirk and I had to work as a tag team, with one of us occupying his attention while the other sneaking into the house from another door.  Another tactic he used was to sit in front of the Sunroom door and meow pitifully.  

I don't remember when we tacitly decided to let him in, to the Sunroom only, mind you, not inside the house.  Before long, he was on our laps or sitting next to us on the chair and being patted and rubbed to his heart's content.  

One morning last week, I noticed traces of blood on his face when I picked him up, and upon closer examination, I found that his nose was badly cut up.  It was so pitiful that while he looked at me with his doleful eyes, I couldn't bear to look him in the face.  I got the phone number of his owner from his tag and called.  His owner happened to be out of town but luckily his stepson, who was house-sitting, was able to pick him up and take him to the vet.  His stepson told Kirk that Calvin was fine when he let him out that morning.  We don't know what kind of scrape he got himself into to get the tip of his nose cut in half!  We were very relieved to see Calvin again a few days later; he was back to his usual playful self but I'm afraid his face is permanently disfigured.  I wonder if I would be able to let my cat out, if I had one, risking all kinds of danger.  But if you don't, what miserable life it is for them to be always cooped up in the house.  Unlike the domestic canine, strict domesticity and security don't seem to sit well with these independent-minded, freedom-loving creatures, or so I imagine.  As philosophers say in this case, it's not possible for us to know what it is like to be a bat (or, cat). 

Clever Calvin

No-nose Calvin, poor baby