Christopher Alexander and the Nature of Architecture – Christopher Alexander Ces Archive

Scientific Research

Designing with Patterns and Generic Rules for Making Centers

Areas of focus:

Design and Building Process

Guiding idea:

Structure Preserving Transformations

Pattern languages consist of a multitude of patterns which reflect and define a way of life, people's inner feelings and aspirations, they relate to culture, to climate and to the actual place, and they are rooted in observation. During the pattern ...

Published Books

A Pattern Language 01/01/1977

Publication, Original Book

Authors:

Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, Shlomo Angel

Publisher:

Oxford University Press, New York, NY, U.S.A.

“A Pattern Language” is the second volume of “The Center for Environmental Structure Series” on architecture published by Oxford University Press. You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to ...

Projects

Sala House 1981 to 1983

700 Hillside, 94706, Albany, CA, U.S.A.

Residential, Realized , Construction completed in Jun-1983

Client:

Mr. & Mrs. Andre and Anna Sala

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander, Gary Black, Bob Smith, David Turtle, Seth Wachtel, Andre Sala

Contractor:

Center for Environmetal Structure

Project cost:

$180.000

Design and construction process:

1) Personal vision: C.E.S. worked with the Sala family to gain an understanding of their needs and to derive from them a deep and personal vision of their house. 2) Layout on the site: several sessions on the site, laying out the exterior edges of the house volume along with outside courtyards, completed by C.E.S. staff working with the Salas. The interior rooms of the ground floor were also laid out on the site. 3) Preparation of drawings: At the end of the layout process it was possible for C.E.S. to prepare a set of drawings for the building permit from the City of Albany. 4) Construction commences and design continues; C.E.S. was the general contractor, and so the design process which had been begun in the first phase was carried through the construction phase, with many crucial on-site design decisions being made weekly, even daily, while the house was under construction. 5) Finishing touches: Hand-painted woodwork, color, details, furnishings, were done by C.E.S. staff and construction crews.

Project stages:

Pattern language for the project by clients and C.E.S. Layout on the site by clients and C.E.S. Design Development and Building Permit drawings done after layout Use of full scale mock-ups Direct Construction management along with on-site design decis

Three-story tower, 20 feet by 20 feet in plan on each floor, on a wooded, sloping site. The interior structure of the house is wood post and beam with pine panelling and hand-painted surfaces, and the exterior is a red ...

Articles

Homework in the Ozarks: Four Architecture Students Design and Build a Solar Farmhouse 01/02/1987

Publication, Article

Authors:

Steve Dowen, Stan Koehn, Doug Pierce, Daryl Rantis

Published in:

Fine Homebuilding, pp. 70-75

Publisher:

The Taunton Press, New Town, CT, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Discussing a number of items which should be of interest with reference to articles written about Christopher Alexander; attachments include two articles, namely "Resetting America: The Green Alternative" by Gary Coates, and a paper written by musician Brian Eno with comparisons drawn between music and architecture 07/04/1988

Personal Archive, Personal Correspondence, Exchange of Thoughts

Sender:

Gary Coates, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, U.S.A.

Recipient:

Christopher Alexander, Center for Environmental Structure , Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Letter