Problem
No social group—whether a family, a work group, or a school group—can survive without constant informal contact among its members.
Solution
Create a single common area for every social group. Locate it at the center of gravity of all the spaces the group occupied, and in such a way that the paths which go in and out of the building lie tangent to it.
Related Patterns
… along the Intimacy Gradient (127), in every building and in every social group within the building, it is necessary to place the common areas. Place them on the sunlit side to reinforce the pattern of Indoor Sunlight (128); and, when they are large, give them the higher roofs of the Cascade of Roofs (116).
Most basic of all to common areas are food and fire. Include Farmhouse Kitchen (139), Communal Eating (147), and The Fire (181). For the shape of the common area in fine detail, see Light on Two Sides of Every Room (159) and The Shape of Indoor Space (191). Make sure that there are plenty of different sitting places, different in character for different kinds of moments - Sequence of Sitting Spaces (142). Include an Outdoor Room (163). And make the paths properly tangent to the common areas - Arcades (119), The Flow Through Rooms (131), Short Passages (132) …
Reference for full-text of Pattern: p. 618high-confidence