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 1974The 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.
References
-
Innovative Construction Systems, Techniques and Materials
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, ...
-
Development of first Patterns and Pattern Languages
The first patterns were developed in 1967 by a group of people working together with Christopher Alexander in the Center for Environmental Structure. Between 1968 and 1976 the first pattern languages were developed and tested for particular projects undertaken by ...
-
Etna Street Cottage: Basket vault with layers of ultra-lightweight concrete laid over burlap - Photographs
01/01/1974
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.
-
Etna Street Cottage: Hollow wooden structure filled with lightweigth concrete - Photographs
01/01/1974
Two images depicting the second floor structure in a more advanced stage of construction: 1) Box column corner connection to the first floor’s perimeter beam, before light-weight concrete is poured; 2) Top view showing the column and beam structure already ...