The Patterns, Construction, Continuous Floating Slab

The second of Alexander’s early works published by the Center for Environmental Structure, lays out the process of creating the pattern language for a group of houses designed for an experimental housing competition in Lima, Peru in 1969. It ...

One of the main topics of research, included in every building project, was to identify, early on in the design process, the material and techniques of construction. This would re-establish building as an art, and allow rapid shaping and adaptation, ...

The floors are 10 cm unreinforced concrete slabs, laid down in 5.20 meters strips, similar to the house width, by a road building machine. Exposed edges are turned down, filled block (20 cm x 20 cm). Structural pin connections for ...