West Dean College Gardens Visitor’s Center: Stone and tiles floor surface details

1995

Building Detail, Hardscape

The paving combined red color floor tiles in the shape of a fleur de lys against grey stone in different sizes; fitting them together, strong centers were formed. The gutter in the paths, at its edge with the grass, was formed by a mix of materials --gravel, brick, stone-- in the right proportions.

Created by:

Christopher Alexander, John Hewitt

Content of

Project

West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center 1994 to 1996

Near Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.

Civic, Realized , Construction completed in Nov. 1995

Client:

Edward James Foundation

C.E.S. staff:

Christopher Alexander, John Hewitt, students from "The Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture", students from Portsmouth University

Contractor:

Center for Environmetal Structure, as Management Contractor and General Contractor of record, with John Hewitt as Project Manager

Project stages:

Layout on the site by clients and C.E.S. Use of full scale mock-ups Design Development and Building Permit drawings done after layout Direct construction management and on-site design decisions Budget and subcontractors under C.E.S. control Innovativ

The West Dean Center is a simple one-story masonry building with a large red-tiled roof and intricate brickwork for its thick walls. The building is surrounded by gardens, and its south facing wall has large arched windows overlooking the garden ...

Contents

Photographs

West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Stone and tiles floor surface details: Photographs 01/01/1996

Interior View, Focus on Details

Photographer:

Christopher Alexander/C.E.S., Near Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.

Source:

Digital

Characteristics:

Color

Four images of flooring materail both for interior and exterior surfaces, including reddish ceramic tiles, grey paving stones and shaped ceramic edges for garden paths.

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 ...

Books

The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe. Book Three - A Vision of a Living World 2005

Authors:

Christopher Alexander

Publisher:

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

No of pages:

697 pp

“A Vision of a Living World”, the third volume of “The Nature of Order” series, presents, for the first time, a full spectrum of Alexander’s and CES built and unbuilt works. The book describes hundreds of buildings, plans, neighborhoods, drawings, ...

Book Chapters

Chapter 14. Construction Elements as Living Centers, 6/ Unfolding Building Details from the Fundamental Process

Publication,

Book title:

The Nature of Order – An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Three – A Vision of a Living World

Pages:

456-476