Each pattern prescribes some feature of a multi-service center building. It describes a relationship which is required to solve a problem which will occur in that building. The summary does not describe this problem; it describes only the pattern. [...] [p. 5]
1. Small Target Areas (1968): The multi-service center servces a target area with population of 34,000 ± 20%.
2. Location (1968): Service centers are located within two blocks of a major intersection.
3. Size Based on Population (1968): The total size of an MSC which services a target area of population N, is .9N square feet.
4. Community Territory (1968): The service center is divided into two zones, services and community territory; community territory includes space for community projects and a public area.
5. Small Services without Red Tape (1968): No one service has a staff size greater than 12; each service is physically cohesive and autonomous; the services are loosely organized with respect to each other.
6. Expansion (1968): The number of services can grow and the size of any one service can grow; but the relationship of all services to community territory does not change.
7. Entrance Locations (1968): The building's main entrances are immediately visible to a person approaching, by foot or by car, from any direction.
8. Parking (1968): Either parking is provided for everyone [this will require .5N square feet for a target population of N], or there is emergency parking only; staff-only parking is never provided.
9. Arena Thoroughfare (1968): There is a natural pedestrian shortcut through the MSC's community territory.
10. Open to Street (1968): Major community projects, services and arena activities are plainly visible to passers-by, in the street.
11. Arena Enclosure (1968): The public area is as open as possible to the world around it, while still maintaining the required Effective Temperature inside.
12. Locked and Unlocked Zones (1968): The building is zoned according to three different time schedules: with one door closing each zone off from the next: 9am-5pm, 9am-11pm, and “always open”.
13. All Services Off Arena (1968): All services open off the public arena; their frontages are roughly equal.
14. Free Waiting (1968): All services share a common waiting area, which contains a variety of activities; this waiting area is part of the public area.
15. Overview of Services (1968): All of the services housed in the MSC are instantly visible to a person entering the center.
16. Necklace of Community Projects (1968): Small, store front type stall, organized and run by members of the community, ring the multi-service center.
17. Community Projects Two-Sided (1968): Like store fronts, each community project opens onto the street; whenever possible, it opens onto the public space as well.
18. Windows Overlooking Life (1968): Windows near places where people spend more than a minute or two, all look out on areas of “life”.
19. Core Service Adjacencies (1968): personnel in core services are place according to frequency of interaction; this will typically lead to formation of three cohesive units: administration, community organization, and program-evaluation.
20. Activity Pockets (1968): The entire edge of the arena is scallopped with pockets of activity, alternating with points of access.
21. Self-Service (1968): The waiting area contains a self-service facility, where job listings, welfare rights information and other do-it-yourself services are open, without restriction, to the public.
22. Pedestrian Density in Public Places (1968): If an estimated mean number of people in the arena at any given moment, is P, the size of the area should be 150P to 300P square feet.
23. Entrance Shape (1968): Major entrances are either deeply recessed or they stick out from the face of the building, for visibility.
24. Subcommittee Watchdogs (1968): Subcommittees of community residents have offices in the multi-service center; they are empowered to represent the communities interests in the center, and are set up to receive complaints and suggestions.
25. Building Stepped Back from Arena (1968): Buildings around public courts should be raked back at an angle less than 40 degrees.
26. Vertical Circulation in Services (1968): Services requiring space beyond that allocated to them round the arena, are directly connected to upper stories by interior stairs.
27. Self-Service Progression (1968): Self-service begins on the street, in front of the MSC, with a “menu”, which leads directly to the self-service facility.
28. The Intake Process (1968): Intake procedures are informally handled by field workers, in a lounge setting, near the major entrance.
29. Outdoor Seats (1968): Outdoor benches are arranged overlooking activity, in the sun, and protected from wind; and especially suited for old people.
30. Ceiling Heights (1968): Ceiling heights for all rooms and spaces are established according to the diameters of the “social bubbles” appropriate for those spaces.
31. Short Corridors (1968): Straight corridors are never longer than 40 or 50 feet.
32. Child Care Position (1968): The child care stations is visible along the path from the entrance to the services.
33. Service Layout (1968): Clients go directly from waiting areas to interview and other service spaces; they do not pass through the secretarial pools that back up the interview staff.
34. Street Niches (1968): There are niches along the face of the building and at the entrances, where people can linger and "window-shop".
35. Information-Conversation (1968): There is an information station in the service center, dispensing coffee and talk.
36. Dish-Shaped Arena (1968): The arena floor is dished at a slope of 7%.
37. Director's Overview (1968): The MSC director's office is situated so as to have an inconspicuous overview of the public life of the center.
38. Community Wall (1968): Associated with the MSC there is a section of wall that is given over to the commmunity; it may be used for registering complaints, posting petitions, painting murals, etc.
39. Arena Diameter (1968): To enhance social cohension the maximum diamenter of the arena is 70-80 feet.
40. Office Flexibility (1968): Office space in the service area is a continuous sheet of interconnecting rooms; the rooms are between 8' x 10' and 16' x 20'.
41. Town Meeting (1968): The MSC contains a tiered wrap around meeting room, which is to be a hub for local politcal meetings.
42. Sleeping Ok (1968): There is a section of the arena set aside, where people can rest and eventually doze off; if the demand exists, this section of the center may be left open all night.
43. Waiting Diversions (1968): A number of activities like TV, checkers, pool, are part of the arena life, and they are woven through the waiting areas.
44. Elevator-Ramp (1968): There is a ramp and/or elevator connecting every change of level between public areas in the MSC.
45. Blockworker Layout (1968): There is a handful of open, informal booths near the entrance of the MSC, where field workers meet their clients when they come to the center; behind these booths each field worker has a small private work station.
46. Radio/TV Station (1968): There is a local TV (or radio) station broadcasting out of a community project space just off the public arena; some part of each broadcasting day is spent transmitting "services" into people's homes (in-home job training, for example).
47. Meeting Rooms Clustered (1968): Meeting rooms and class rooms are clustered near a kitchen, in that part of the building which remains open evenings.
48. Barbershop Politics (1968): There is at least one place where people naturally collect to talk politics and gossip, like a barbershop of a lunch-counter or a small grocery story or a laundromat, immediately adjacent to the multi-service center.
49. Staff Lounge (1968): There is a lounge, near a kitchen, where staff members can take breaks and have their lunch; the lounge is wide open to a heavily traveled staff circulation route.
50. Interview Booths (1968): Each interviewer has a private booth, much like the ones found in certain restaurants; the interviewer meets his clients in this booth on a less formal basis than the typical office permits.
51. Stair Seats (1968): Wherever stairs spill into the arena, they are wide enough for people to use them as seats.
52. Window Signs (1968): Provision is made for posting signs and leaflets along the window that front on the street, so that people who stop to read them can look in, beyond the sign, and get a glimpse of MSC life.
53. Form-Filling Tables (1968): There are tables and chairs in the waiting areas where people can sit down to fill out agency forms.
54. Accessible Bathrooms (1968): There is at least one set of bathrooms off the arena and accessible to the public.
55. Secretary's Workspace (1968): Each secretary has her own work station, surrounded on three sides by low partitions.
56. Informal Reception (1968): The receptionist for each service sits on a dais at a combination counter-desk; she meets the client, approaching the reception counter, at eye level.
57. Child-Care Contents (1968): The MSC child-care station emphasizes those kinds of play experiences that are most missing from the surrounding community; e.g. plants, sand and water, climbing, "caves".
58. Seats Outside Meeting Rooms (1968): There are small sitting alcoves outside the center's meeting room, so that people can linger after a meeting and turn over their thoughts.
59. Square Seminar Rooms (1968): This is the best shape for seminars, where full and mutual participation is desired.
60. Self-Service Contents (1968): The self-service contains a library, job listings, welfare rights information, research findings on the illoegal practices of local landlords, language labs, teaching machines, etc.
61. Arena Storage (1960): There are storage spaces off the arena, where arena furniture and equipment can be locked away; the storage area is 7% of the arena size.
62. Window Heights in Meeting Rooms (1968): Are 40" or higher; this means that people's faces are never silnoutted against windows.
63. Pools of Light (1968): Lighting is not uniform throughout the multi-service center; rather, it is in pools, each pool covering a special and delimited "social bubble".
64. Warm Colors (1968): The primary source of illumination throughout the service center, in combination with the colors of floors, walls, ceilings and furnishings, should be chosen to give warm light.
This page is part of A Pattern Language Which Generates Multi-Service Centers (1968)