A Pattern Language for Houses at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Ostia

A survey of a number of urban Roman houses in Italy provides the basis for an analysis of the underlying environmental structure of each living unit. Whereas the single-family domus and multi-family insula have often been compared, comparison of the living units in each type of building reveals many more similarities than differences. Twenty-one houses serve as case studies, including examples of the domus and irregular houses at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and apartments in insulae at Ostia. The focus is on interior architecture, including space and the articulation of surfaces and boundaries. Floor mosaics and wall and ceiling paintings are considered in their architectural context, as important components in the experience of a house is interior. The method of analysis is based on the concept of a pattern language. Pattern language, a design method defined by Christopher Alexander, is a set of rules that generate the built environment. Patterns of organization of form and space, repeatedly occurring in the houses under consideration, are identified as the underlying environmental structure of such houses. Recurrent patterns are defined at four levels of scale: the house as a whole, groups of spaces, single spaces, and the planes which create a space (walls, floors and ceilings). These patterns are concerned both with basic ordering principles underlying design at each scale and their relationship to one another. The patterns are used to define the basic types of spaces which occur in the domus and the extent to which similar spaces can be identified in irregular houses and apartments. These domestic building types themselves are defined in terms of the patterns. This analysis reveals that most patterns found in the traditional single-family house continued with little or no change in the design and decoration of higher density housing, in spite of major changes in building form and construction and in style and techniques of decoration. Basic underlying principles of design of interior domestic spaces and their decoration remained remarkably constant.