Etna Street Cottage: Hollow wooden structure filled with lightweigth concrete – Photographs

01/01/1974

Construction Process

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 filled with light-weight concrete, with the 1st floor vaulting still visible, and the stair hollow structure ready to receive concrete.

Photographer:

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

Source:

Print, Negative

Characteristics:

8"x10", 4"x5", B&W

Content of

Construction Innovation

Etna Street Cottage: Hollow wooden structure filled with lightweigth concrete 1974

Construction System, Timber Framework

Created by:

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

Flexible and low-cost construction techniques consisted of a hollow wooden structure of columns and beams, filled with lightweigth concrete, and a simple foundation made of concrete blocks, with rebars embeddedand ready to receive slab mesh.

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 ...