On the Shape of Houses and Rooms

Abstract

The principle of minimizing boundary materials is applied to an analysis of the shapes of houses and rooms. It is shown that rooms are in general configured by several parts of circular arcs. The activity-based criterion to maximize freedom of movement in small activity area is introduced. This criterion can be basically reduced to the minimization of wall length, with the modification that rooms tend to be allocated farther apart. Several remarks are made as to why we tend to favor rectangular rooms.