Concerning small dimensions that modern urban planning decided to abolish, the facade of this store at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in Provence demonstrates how much can happen in the half-a-meter space between the vertical wall and the horizontal street. 

This relatively small territory is appropriated and personalized through color, plants, signs, merchandise, a small carpet.
​Is the in-between half-a-meter space private or public?  Both? Neither? A mediator?
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The ambiguous borders between private and public seem to have been delightfully blurred. 

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After we mentioned the meaning of a meter-and-a-half in urban planning, and the impact of half-a-meter in urban environments, this facade makes clear the impact that even smaller dimensions can make on the urban space.
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I think I took this picture in Aix-les-Bains or in Paris, 

The rilievo doesn't stick more than five to ten centimetres out of the wall, and yet it is capable of telling a meaningful story and link to the otherwise flat wall to tradition and history. Outlawed in modern architecture, ornament and splendor are in fact basic human needs.
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Vernacular architectural languages and dialects  were created by millions of people over thousands of years. 
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Just like the verbal languages, architectural languages combine everyday insights of thousands and millions of individuals and the wisdom built up in a few architectural patterns that evolved through time.
Can we a posteriori rationalize the patterns we find?
The colors, vertical openings, juxtaposition of buildings, textures, immediacy to water, are they the reason for the richness of experience? 
Or the reason is in a sort of architectural Tao that can not be named, explained or expressed in words? Apparently it has to be lived unintentionally.