An Approach to Wholeness

Original text of the same title article published in “The Architectural Review” Journal on Feb-1986.

The second building completed on the Martinez site, was a 2,000 square feet house. A gunite all-concrete building as well, it was the first sizable and fully functional project in which C.E.S. used gunite, while applying all permit and specification ...

The first building completed on the Martinez site, was an experimental gunite all-concrete building, with 200 square feet of floor area, concrete vaulted ceiling and concrete pitched roof. It was used as the tile glazing workshop, equipped with a kiln ...

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 ...

A long rectangular table with two benches, made out of wood, for the C.E.S. office in Martinez. All colored in gouache on top of a layer of gesso over the wood, and then coated with varnish.

100 light green and dark green repeating tiles for a floor, made in the Martinez workshop; ceramic paint on white porcelain tile.

Tile panel with green, red, yellow and blue star pattern tiles, hand-painted and hand-glazed in the Martinez office workshop; ceramic paint on white porcelain tile.

Timber frame out of 6"x6" douglas fir columns and beams for vertical loads only, which require pin connections only with 1/2'' rebars; wood corbels cut from six-by-six stock also enable beam to post connections with 1" bolts. The framework exposes ...

Shaping building elements by shooting gunite into lightweigh open formwork; styrofoam fillers on a plywood form were used for details and ornaments.

The painting of the children's room with two bed alcoves, involved both Christopher Alexander and Andre Sala; it started with discussions about color between the two and continued with testing bits of cardboard painted and pinned up in the walls. ...