### Problem >Outdoors, people always try to find a spot where they can have their backs protected, looking out toward some larger opening, beyond the space immediately in front of them. ### Solution >Whatever space you are shaping—whether it is a garden, terrace, street, park, public outdoor room, or courtyard, make sure of two things. First, make at least one smaller space, which looks into it and forms a natural back for it. Second, place it, and its openings, so that it looks into at least one larger space. >When you have done this, every outdoor space will have a natural "back"; and every person who takes up the natural position, with their back to this "back", will be looking out toward some larger distant view. ### Related Patterns ... the main outdoor spaces are given their character by [[Site Repair (104)]], [[South Facing Outdoors (105)]] and [[Positive Outdoor Space (106)]]. But you can refine them, and complete their character by making certain that every space always has a view out into some other larger one, and that all the spaces work together to form hierarchies. For example: garden seats open to gardens - [[Garden Seat (176)]], [[Half-Hidden Garden (111)]]; activity pockets open to public squares - [[Activity Pockets (124)]], [[Small Public Squares (61)]]; gardens open to local roads - [[Private Terrace on the Street (140)]], [[Looped Local Roads (49)]], roads open to fields - [[Green Streets (51)]], [[Accessible Green (60)]]; fields open to the countryside, on a great vista - [[Common Land (67)]], [[The Countryside (7)]]. Make certain that each piece of the hierarchy is arranged so that people can be comfortably settled within it, oriented out toward the next larger space. --- > [!cite]- Alexander, Christopher. _A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction_. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 557. > #APL/confidence/medium > > #APL/Building-Patterns/Building-Layout