For fiirther particulars, with regard to the exterior of a building, we must refer the reader to the term BREAK.
With regard to situation, a building should be placed in a salubrious and mild atmosphere, free from noxious exha lations, within the reach of the rays of the sun, so as to make it cheerful, and to have a plentiful supply of water and coal, as likewise of all other necessaries of life : it should be surrounded with an agreeable variety of woods and walks, and ought to have an easy access to the highway. The situ ation should be commanding, but not so high as to expose the building to the fury of heavy winds.
With regard to the plan of a building, the disposition of the apartments must be agreeable to the intention of the design, and in general the rooms ought to be all entered by one common passage ; for farther particulars on this head, see APARTMENT, CHIMNEY, PASSAGE, ROOF, Room, and STAIRCASE.
The modern method of placing a bedchamber and dress ing-room together, each with its separate door to the com mon passage, and likewise with a door common to each other, is very convenient. The mode of uniting, when necessary, two or more rooms by means of folding-doors, is a very :r,reat improvement, particularly in small houses. The hall, or entrance, should at least have one chimney, and if con nected with the staircase or a lofty saloon, the heat will be essential service in warming the whole house. Double deers are wend in preservit.g a uniform temperature.
Besides double external doors, fin. the exclusion of cold inds. double N% indows should be used fin. winter apartments.
The proper distribution of rooms must be regulated by the course a the sun, in order to avoid the extremes of the sum mer's heat and winter's cold. Bedchambers are properly situated towards the east, in order to regulate the time of rising. Every house ought to have two sitting-rooms, to liceemmodate the extreme seasons of the year ; that fin. the summer ought to be disposed in the north, and that for the winter in the south. Drawing-rooms and dining-parlours are best situated in the west, as they are generally used in the afternoon, that the declining sun may throw no agree able shade upon objects; these matters, however, frequently depend upon other circumstances of convenience.
Tin drawing-rooms should be so disposed, as to be easily converted into one room, by throwing open the folding doors. In country mansions, the kitchen should be as near the dining-room as convenient. but so disposed with regard to tlw passage of communication, as to prevent the ellluvia from escaping to other principal parts of the house. The
offices converted with the kitchen should be generally placed towards the north ; but in town houses this cannot always be done, and therefore regard must be had to circumstances. The larder, however. must always be placed beyond the influence of the heat of the kitchen. Galleries for paintings, and museums, that require a steady light, should have a northern aspect.
Windows ought to be made vertically one above the other, and not too near the angles of the building; and in large edifices, where the walls are thick, their jambs ought to he splayed or beveled, fir a more full distribution of light. Lofty windows, descending to the floor, or nearly so, with a projecting balcony in front ef the building, defended by a railing of east-iron, are both healthy and agreeable. Sky lights, in cold climates like ours, are productive of many inconveniences, as they admit of cold air. damps, rain, and snow, and thereby waste the heat generated in the house. They ought therefore never to be admitted, except for stairs and halls ; but when this admission is necessary, their aper tures should be of sufficient dimensions, not to hinder the passage of the sun's rays.
The 1 dans of buildings may be of various forms ; the circle is the most capacious of all figures, under the same perimeter, and a building erected upon a circular plan, is also the most strong, durable, and beautiful of all others; but its compart ments are not convenient in dwelling-houses, on of a waste of room occasioned by the disposition el' angular furni ture; so that the loss in this respect more than counter balances the quantity of area gained by the property of its figure. Circular buildings arc also the most expensive, and, on account of the impossibility of dividing them into compart ments without distortion, they are unfit for the purpose of private edifices : on this account they were employed by the ancients only in their temples and amphitheatres, which had no need of eompartition. in modern mansions, entire cylin dric or polygonal buildings are seldom or never used, except in parts which form single apartments upon a floor, as in towers or bows. Though very beautiful forms of edifices may be reared upon rectilineal plans, a judicious arrange ment of apartments formed both of plane and curved sur faces will make a most agreeable variety.