A room for many

Whether it's two or three friends over for dinner or 20 for board games, we entertain frequently. We designed our home to support groups of many sizes. Much of what makes a room work for two also contributes to how well it functions for larger gatherings. In this post we want to focus on some of the things that are especially important in making a space work for entertaining.

Most spec homes have entries that are, at best, mediocre. The townhouse we rented while this house was under construction had a terribly entry. It was narrow, dark, and led you up stairs into the middle of the dining room. There was no coat closet. Even a moderate size group filled the entry with shoes and left coats scattered everywhere. People coming would collide with those going. It was a mess.

Entrance Room (130)

• Problem: Arriving in a building, or leaving it, you need a room to pass through, both inside the building and outside it. This is the entrance room.
• Therefore: At the main entrance to a building, make a light-filled room which marks the entrance and straddles the boundary between indoors and outdoors, covering some space outdoors and some space indoors. The outside part may be like an old-fashioned porch; the inside like a hall or sitting room.

The entrance room to our home is everything that was not. Outside we have a generous covered area where we will soon have a bench for setting parcels on. We don't have a window in the entry — this was one of the few times where we let style override substance — but we plan to install a video camera. The interior entrance room is large and has a bench, shoe cubbies, a full sized closet for hanging coats, and a storage console. Guests can hang their coat and take off their shoes while easing into the activities going on inside. There is room for those last bits of conversation that slow the departure of good friends.

Eating Atmosphere (182)

• Problem: When people eat together, they may actually be together in spirit — or they may be far apart. Some rooms invite people to eat leisurely and comfortably and feel together, while others force people to eat as quickly as possible so they can go somewhere else to relax.
• Therefore: Put a heavy table in the center of the eating space — large enough for the whole family or the group of people using it. Put a light over the table to create a pool of light over the group, and enclose the space with walls or with contrasting darkness. Make the space large enough so the chairs can be pulled back comfortably, and provide shelves and counters close at hand for things related to the meal.
• In our home: This pattern defines our dining room in all but one respect. We have a large, heavy table that can bring a group of people together. It has a pendant which defines the table as its own space. The counter is nearby for keeping things close at hand. Because we have an open floor plan with lots of windows, the space is not really enclosed by walls or darkness. Instead, we captured the essence of that contrast by making the table a comfortable, attractive place to continue conversation. (We have a mat for under the table on order; this should increase the contrast between the table and its surroundings and encourage more pulling back of the chairs.)

As mentioned in the previous post, the heart of our home is a single large space. The space is dominated by our dining table. To accommodate our varying needs, we commissioned a custom table that consists of two 5'x5' tables which we generally leave pushed together. We seat 12 comfortably (more when we don't mind getting a little cozy). When the tables are apart, we can fit 10 at each table. Apart, the tables are good for games, although a bit large to reach across. The 5'x10' default configuration of the table is surprisingly intimate. The table is wide enough to fit two people on each end, and the width allows greater visibility of those at the other end of the table. The distance is still large, but the wider table does help reduce fragmentation common to long, rectangular tables.

Sitting Circle (185)

• Problem: A group of chairs, a sofa and a chair, a pile of cushions -- these are the most obvious things in everybody's life -- and yet to make them work, so people become animated and alive in them, is a very subtle business. Most seating arrangements are sterile, people avoid them, nothing ever happens there. Others seem somehow to gather life around them, to concentrate and liberate energy. What is the difference between the two?
• Therefore: Place each sitting space in a position which is protected, not cut by paths or movement, roughly circular, made so that the room itself helps to suggest the circle -- not too strongly -- with paths and activities around it, so that people naturally gravitate toward the chairs when they get into the mood to sit. Place the chairs and cushions loosely in the circle, and have a few too many.

The table acts as a sitting circle when it's not being used for food or games, but the usual place for conversation is the living room. It opens to the main area on one side, but is enclosed by two outer walls and a staircase. Being ever-so-slightly separated allows the living room to act as a natural sitting circle. Couches, an arm chair, and the bench around the fireplace provide seating for about 8, and pulling in chairs from the dining room or utilizing the floor raises that number to 15. Even when the group is small, the space is compact enough to make conversation comfortable.

Large groups, like we have for our game days, naturally divide into smaller groups. We can support a couple groups at the two dining tables and another in the living room. Another crowd always gathers around the food on the kitchen island. Folks taking some time alone or talking in pairs can use the alcoves created by the fireplace bench. When the weather is nice, the deck increases the variety of spaces available for interacting with others.

Alcoves (179)

• Problem: No homogeneous room, of homogeneous height, can serve a group of people well. To give a group a chance to be together, as a group, a room must also give them the chance to be alone, in one's and two's in the same space.
• Therefore: Make small places at the edge of any common room, usually no more than 6 feet wide and 3 to 6 feet deep and possibly much smaller. These alcoves should be large enough for two people to sit, chat, or play and sometimes large enough to contain a desk or table.

Of course, not all is perfect. In a large, open space noise can be an issue. It can get painfully loud as voices gradually increase in volume to be heard over the general din. So far, the best solution we've found is occasionally reminding people to be more quiet (having some folks go to the up- or downstairs game space also helps). Most of the noise comes from people who are chatting between games, so from a volume perspective, having the spaces that attract conversation — the kitchen and living room — adjacent to the place where most of the games are played is less than ideal. To balance that, the adjacency allows people to easily drift in and out of games and allows more social mixing. Perhaps we'll find a better solution in time.

Overall, we've been quite happy with how the space performs. Despite its shortcomings, we can entertain here more easily, more comfortably, and on a larger scale than we could in any place we've lived before. All-in-all, success!