### Problem
>The process of waiting has inherent conflicts in it.

### Solution
>In places where people end up waiting (for a bus, for an appointment, for a plane), create a situation which makes the waiting positive. Fuse the waiting with some other activity—newspaper, coffee, pool tables, horseshoes; something which draws people in who are not simply waiting. And also the opposite: make a place which can draw a person waiting into a reverie; quiet; a positive silence.

### Related Patterns
... in any office, or workshop, or public service, or station, or clinic, where people have to wait - [[Interchange (34)]], [[Health Center (47)]], [[Small Services Without Red Tape (81)]], [[Office Connections (82)]], it is essential to provide a special place for waiting, and doubly essential that this place not have the sordid, enclosed, time-slowed character of ordinary waiting rooms.

The active part might have a window on the street - [[Street Windows (164)]], [[Window Place (180)]], a cafe - [[Street Cafe (88)]], games, positive engagements with the people passing by - [[Opening to the Street (165)]]. The quiet part might have a quiet garden seat - [[Garden Seat (176)]], a place for people to doze [[Sleeping in Public (94)]], perhaps a pond with fish in it - [[Still Water (71)]]. To the extent that this waiting space is a room, or a group of rooms, it gets its detailed shape from [[Light on Two Sides of Every Room (159)]] and [[The Shape of Indoor Space (191)]].

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> [!cite]- Alexander, Christopher. _A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction_. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 707.
> #APL/confidence/medium
>
> #APL/Building-Patterns/Public-Rooms