. . . SEAT SPOTS (241), acting within several larger patterns, creates an atmosphere around the edge of the building which invites lingering - ARCADES (119), BUILDING EDGE (160), SUNNY PLACE (161), CONNECTION TO THE EARTH (168); it is most marked and most important near the entrance -ENTRANCE ROOM (130). This pattern defines a special SEAT SPOT (241): a bench which helps to form the entrance room and the building edge around the entrance. It is always important; but perhaps most important of all, at the door of an OLD AGE COTTAGE (155).
People like to watch the street.
Therefore:
Build a special bench outside the front door where people from inside can sit comfortably for hours on end and watch the world go by. Place the bench to define a half-private domain in front of the house. A low wall, planting, a tree, can help to create the same domain.
But they do not always want a great deal of involvement with the street. The process of hanging out requires a continuum of degrees of involvement with the street, ranging all the way from the most private kind to the most public kind. A young girl watching the street may want to be able to withdraw the moment anyone looks at her too intently. At other times people may want to be watching the street, near enough to it to talk to someone who comes past, yet still protected enough so that they can withdraw into their own domain at a moment's notice.
Front door benches in Peru.
The most public kind of involvement with the street is sitting out. Many people, especially older people, pull chairs out to the front door or lean against the front of their houses, either while they are working at something or just for the pleasure of watching street life. But since there is some reluctance to be too public, this activity requires a bench or seat which is clearly private, even though in the public world. It is best of all when the bench is placed so that people are sitting on the edge of their world on private land - yet so placed that the personal space it creates overlaps with land that is legally public.