Etna Street cottage: The students built a small house, while developing an experimental building system in which the construction patterns would be incorporated and tested

Spring 1974

The assignment of the class was to test the first construction patterns, before they were incorporated in “A Pattern Language” published in 1977. It was a building experiment, at the end of which the Etna Street cottage was built, experimenting with new construction techniques, like box columns made with green 1x planks, lightweight concrete, vaulted roofs with weaved lattice as formwork.

University Program:

Master of Architecture

Course type:

Graduate Design Studio

Course number:

Arch. 209

Instructors:

Christopher Alexander

Enrolled students:

Donald Corner, Walter V. Wendler, Antonio Risianti, Langston Trigg, Donna Lucky, Gabriella ..., Bill …, Joan …

Contents

Course Material

Arch 209, Spring 1974 - On construction: Student paper on the Etna Street building project 01/01/1973

Student Work, Paper

Authors:

Walter V. Wendler, University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Department of Architecture, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

10-page student paper reflecting on the process of building the Etna Street Cottage following a construction pattern language. An attempt to formulate the aspects of the followed process which were successful and those that failed the objectives of the experiment.

References

Scientific Research

Projects

Etna Street Cottage 1974

Etna Street, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Residential, Realized , Construction completed in 1974

Client:

Center for Environmetal Structure

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander with his students in the 1974 Spring studio class Arch. 209, including Walter V. Wendler and Donald Corner

Contractor:

Center for Environmetal Structure

Project cost:

$3.000

Project stages:

Pattern language for the project by C.E.S. Layout on the site No drawings were produced Users involved in the construction Innovative construction methods

Experimental building project, two-story 400 sq. ft. cottage, with a hollow wooden structure filled with concrete and featherweight concrete vaults. Completed in ten weeks, without a building permit at the back of the C.E.S. office on Etna Street, and was ...

Photographs