ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that designing in terms of both community and privacy is based on sound sociological theory. It discusses numerous examples from the research literature to indicate that when privacy disappears the maintenance of harmonious social relations among peers is threatened, and that it is also essential for the preservation of authority and efficiency in social structures that are organized on hierarchical principles. The chapter describes the different kinds of environmental barriers that are developed in social situations, the functions of particular types of doors and windows as screening or transmission devices. The concern for the impact of architecture on group cohesion, community development, and worker morale first emerged in the late nineteenth century in response to growing public anxiety over the violence and disorder of urbanized society. It is well known that privacy both reflects and helps to maintain the status divisions of a group.
