A Room With a View

Wrote David Honigmann:

In his foundational 1977 book "A Pattern Language," Christopher Alexander tells of the house of a Buddhist monk that overlooked the ocean.

But this view could be seen only fleetingly through a diagonal slit in the wall, as a visitor walked through the courtyard.

"If there is a beautiful view," counseled Alexander to anyone designing a house, "don't spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which look on to the view at places of transition."