Book Chapter

Chapter 10. Always Making Centers, 10 / Emergence of Strong Centers at Fine Scale in the Julian Street Inn

Book title:

The Nature of Order – An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Two – The Process of Creating Life

Pages:

293-295

Content of

Book

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

Authors:

Christopher Alexander

Publisher:

The Center for Environmental Structure Publishing, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

No of pages:

636 pp

“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 ...

References

Scientific Research

Strong Centers in all Levels of Scale

Areas of focus:

Design and Building Process

Guiding idea:

Structure Preserving Transformations

A building can only amount to something as a living thing when the various physical elements which appear in it are profound centers. The dominant feature of the process that is working correctly is that new centers are formed, and ...

Projects

Julian Street Inn - Shelter for the Homeless 1986 to 1990

Julian St. & Montgomery St., San Jose, CA, U.S.A.

Civic, Realized , Construction completed in 1989; final interior painting in 1990

Client:

Housing for Independent People - Al DiLudovico, Executive Director

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander, Gary Black, Artemis Anninou, Carl Lindberg, James Maguire, Eleni Coromvli, Kleoniki Tsotropoulou

Contractor:

Oliver and Company, with Center for Environmetal Structure as major specialty subcontractor

Project cost:

$1,700,000

Project stages:

Pattern language for project by clients and C.E.S. Layout by clients and C.E.S. Use of full scale mock-ups Design Development and Building Permit drawings Direct Construction management and on-site design decisions Budget and subcontractors under C.E

Design and construction of a shelter for homeless people, to serve 50 to 100 people, on a site of 13,000 sf. The building of 15,000 square feet includes offices, living areas with a dining hall, sleeping rooms, courtyards and gardens. ...

Construction Innovations

Julian Street Inn - Shelter for the Homeless: Exterior wall cladding with hand-painted and hand-glazed tilework 1988

Work of Art for Project, Hand-glazed Tilework

Created by:

Christopher Alexander, Kleoniki Tsotropoulou

4.500 hand-glazed grey tiles with hand-drawn geometric pattern, on reddish Mexican body tiles, for cladding the second floor exterior walls of the Julian Street Inn.