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House for Chris Upham and Stephanie Upham
1989 to 1994Two-story family house, with 2,400 square feet floor area, designed with the participation of the clients. The construction of a massive 15 high foot high retaining wall and sewer reconstruction caused by unusual hill condition added $96,000 to the house construction cost of $342,000. Constructed with poured exposed concrete, marble terrazzo floors, hand cast plaster, cast friezes, hand-made lily tiles, it involved extensive on-site construction mockups and experiments.
Contents
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Upham House: Concrete wall shape and detailing
1990
The main structural wall of the house, details of the technique, shape and figure were developed from the mockups for the wall construction elements. A detailed, full-size cardboard mockup of a complete bay of the wall was built on site, ...
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Upham House: Interior plasterwork early experiments
1990
Early experiments for exploring possibilities of making flowers and other simple reliefs in plaster and trying casting techniques. Refiefs were made by gluing cardboard and balsa wood surfaces. These early experiments were the basis for the development of the plaster ...
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Upham House: Hand-made, painted and glazed lily tiles
1991
Low relief clay tiles produced from the plaster mold of the first successful original tile; four different variations of color combinations were tested on the site. The ones embedded in the stem wall of the foundation were the yellow lily ...
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Upham House: Photographs of sketches
01/01/1988
Photographs of eleven sketches indicating the steps of the design process of the house, from the intial sketch of Christopher Alexander to its layout on the ground and finally to the drawings of the house as it was onstructed.
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Upham House: Photographs of the project site
01/01/1988
Two photographs of the project site, before construction started.
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Upham House: Photographs of models
01/01/1988
Photographs of three rough models indicating the way the volumetric design developed in parallel with the layout on the ground.
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References
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The Unfolding of Public Space and Gardens as Positive Space
Outdoor space is positive when it is shaped just as a room is shaped. It has a contained character, it is bounded by walls, fences, natural vegetation, enclosure of some kind. It looks into other positive spaces, some larger, some ...
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Design and Construction is one Integrated Making Process
The design process of a project and its construction process are united into one continuous and intertwined making process, unfolding in a step-by-step sequence. Design ends together with the completion of the construction process. "Making" is a conception of the ...
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The Layout Process of Buildings on the Land - Visualization at Full Scale on Site
Each act of building needs to have a positive effect on its surroundings; to complete them, preserve their structure, make them better, by creating strong centers in them and next to them. Each new building is more alive when it ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Two - The Process of Creating Life
2002
“The Process of Creating Life”, the second volume of “The Nature of Order” series presents a dynamic theory of living structure. It begins with an analysis of transformations, which occur in nature, and the distinction between structure-preserving transformations, responsible for ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Three - A Vision of a Living World
2005
“A Vision of a Living World”, the third volume of “The Nature of Order” series, presents, for the first time, a full spectrum of Alexander’s and CES built and unbuilt works. The book describes hundreds of buildings, plans, neighborhoods, drawings, ...
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Chapter 5. Examples of Living Process in The Modern Era, 2 / A Wide Range of Structure-Preserving Processes and Living Processes / The Upham House, Berkeley, California
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Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 1 / A Radical New Process
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 2 / Finding a Site
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 3 / First Analysis of Site with Rough Twisted Paper and Balsa Models New Process
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 4 / Full-Size Tests of Volume and Position on Site
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 5 / A First Sketch
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 6 / Checking the Neighbors' Views
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 7 / First Emergence of an Interior Plan
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 8 / Extension of the Lot: The Little Plum Tree
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 9 / Deeper Questions about the Feeling of the Plan
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 10 / A Deeper Conception of the Living Room
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 11 / Laying the House out on the Land
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 12 / Starting to Get a General idea of Construction
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 13 / Establishing Rooms
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 14 / Upstairs Rooms
Appendix A Small Example of a Living Process, 15 / Analysis of Costs
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Appendix. A Small Example of a Living Process, 18 / Start of Construction
Appendix. A Small Example of a Living Process, 19 / The Retaining Wall
Appendix. A Small Example of a Living Process, 20 / Management Agreement that Feeling Must Guide Even the Most Technical Aspects of Construction
Appendix. A Small Example of a Living Process, 21 / Setting the Main-Floor Level
Appendix. A Small Example of a Living Process, 22 / Excavation
Appendix. A Small Example of a Living Process, 23 / Fine-Tuning the Plan as we Fix Forms for the Foundation Walls
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The Upham House: Hand-made, painted and glazed lily tiles; plaster mold
01/01/1991
A plaster mold of a lily flower pattern, made for casting low relief ceramic tiles to be embedded in the stem wall of the house foundation.
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The Upham House: Concrete Frieze; wooden stamp
01/01/1992
Wooden stamp, with a low-relief star octagon pattern, used on the concrete wall frieze.
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Lecture on "The Nature of Order", given during Fall 1991
17/10/1991
Cassette tape of the fourteenth Fall semester lecture by Christopher Alexander on “Structure Preserving Transformations”, part of a series of lectures on “The Nature of Order”; the duration of the lecture is one hour and fifteen minutes.
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Lecture on "The Nature of Order", given during Fall 1991
24/10/1991
Cassette tape of the sixteenth Fall semester lecture by Christopher Alexander on “First Example of Building Process”, explaining the importance of a dynamic step by step process used in a specific building from its initial conception and through continuous corrections, ...
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The Upham House: Hand-made, painted and glazed lily tiles - Photographs of mock-up
01/01/1991
Photographs of the four differently colored lily tiles for external use, to be tested on site before final decision was to be made.
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The Upham House: Hand-made, painted and glazed lily tiles - Photographs
01/01/1991
Photographs of one of the tiles embedded in the stem wall of the foundation.
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The Upham House: Hand-made, painted and glazed lily tiles - Photographs of drawings
01/01/1991
Photograph of the watercolor sketch for the lily tiles, made by Christopher Alexander, used for shaping the tiles, together with an earlier sketch.
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