Etna Street Cottage: Basket vault with layers of ultra-lightweight concrete laid over burlap – Photographs

01/01/1974

Work in Progress

Three interior views of the lightweight concrete vaults, two of the second floor barrel vault at construction stage, and one of the first floor domical roof and the arched alcove under the stair.

Photographer:

Christopher Alexander/C.E.S., Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Source:

Digital, Print

Characteristics:

8"x10", B&W

Content of

Construction Innovation

Etna Street Cottage: Basket vault with layers of ultra-lightweight concrete laid over burlap 1974

Construction System, Vaulted Roof & Ceiling

Created by:

Christopher Alexander with his students in the 1974 Spring studio class Arch. 209

Construction of an ultra-lightweight concrete vault, built over box columns and beams filled with concrete. Two different methods were used; lightweight concrete over woven basket, lath and burlap for solid vaulted roofs, and burlap impregnated with fiberglass resin, over woven ...

Contents

Photographs

References

Scientific Research

Innovative Construction Systems, Techniques and Materials

Areas of focus:

Design and Building Process

Guiding idea:

Construction Innovation

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, ...

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 ...

Academic Courses

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 1974

Academic,

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 …

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 ...