Connected Rooms
This pattern is shaped by
Problem
When rooms are sealed boxes connected only by corridors, the dwelling feels institutional — a hotel, not a home. But when rooms are entirely open to each other, there is no privacy, no acoustic separation, no ability to close off one activity from another. The life of a home is in the *degree* of connection between rooms.
Evidence and Discussion
The best homes have a gradient of openness: wide openings between kitchen and living room, narrower passages to bedrooms, doors that can be open or closed between the children's realm and the adults'. The threshold between rooms — a wide doorway, a half-wall, a change in level, a sliding partition — is where the social life of the home is negotiated.
Therefore
connect rooms with openings that vary in width and closability. Use wide, uncloseable openings (archways, half-walls) between the most social spaces. Use doors between public and private zones. Use sliding partitions or pocket doors where flexibility is needed. The connection between any two rooms should match the social relationship between the activities they contain — open where shared life happens, closeable where privacy is needed.