233intensification, synoptic views, and power, while in a dusty
lower level, one remains tied to the earth, subordinated. The
social code according to which the distinction between upper
and lower levels expresses social hierarchy is not necessarily
true for architecture. Nonetheless, the superimposed zones of
residence in a city are divided into the ground level (parterre),
generally somewhat darker, whose mode of > ingress and exit
links it to the surroundings, and associated with provisioning
and trade, and a more withdrawn residential level – referred
to historically as the bel étage or piano dei nobili – which
is associated with refined living. The uppermost level, with
its proximity to sky and air, offers views and connections to
distant points, or serves as a roof terrace. Each level serves as
a basis for the adequate unfolding of activities.> body (architectural), facade, ground, light, roof, sensory
perception, surface
> field, ground, roamingThick, often irregular forms and wall masses through which
spaces appear wrapped up and cushioned, as though by an
upholstered bag (French: poché), are also referred to English
as poché. Such padding occurs in particular when the rooms
of a plan fail to ‘add up’ because individual interior spaces
differ from one another to such an extent that the divisions
between them cannot consist of simple wall slabs. Where the
rooms adjoin, the remaining, irregular areas are therefore
evened out by poché.
In French, the word poché originally referred to the
blackened or hatched areas of the sliced-through areas of a
plan or cross-section. Recognizable in a figure-ground plan
in particular (but only to a limited degree in concrete situa-
tions) in the figure/ground relationship between architectural
> body and space is the way in which poché assigns a figuralPlasticity
Playing field
Poché