Pedestrian ways: The forecourt

New Urban News Technical Page by Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell

The varieties of semi-public  spaces must be differentiated from the family of wholly public spaces that includes the square (in its various sub-species), the plaza, and the green. Two of these semi-public  spaces, the quadrangle (formed by individual  buildings)  and the courtyard (formed by a continuous perimeter range) occur at all scales, but most commonly at the scale of the entire block.  A third type, the forecourt, also occurs at different scales, but usually associated only with a single building.

The forecourt is  a circulation space like the pedestrian passage — discussed  in the last Technical Page — but with wider proportions and greater functional possibilities. The passage begins and ends in public  spaces, while the forecourt begins in the public  space of the street and ends at the private interior space of an entrance or lobby. It thus has responsibilities  both to the public realm of the street and the private realm of its associated building.