Go BackThe Julian Street Inn – Shelter for the Homeless: Exterior wall cladding with hand-painted and hand-glazed tilework – Photographs of sketches depicting design process
01/01/1988Eighteen photographs of a sequence of sketches by Christopher Alexander together with colored mock-ups of the design either on tiles or cardboard, depicting the unfolding of the tile pattern from a simple flower design, to a geometric pattern with rhombs, and then to its final design with the continuous loop braid at its center; each step demonstrates the emergence of stronger centers.
A number of them were exhibited at the 2014 Locus Manifesto-exposition “Re-enchant the World: Architecture and the City facing society´s transitions”, in Science Cabinet 2.
Photograph:
- 1) Blue-blossom pattern sketch
- 2) Blue-blossom pattern tried on tiles
- 3) Blue-blossom pattern tried on tiles
- 4) Blue-cross shaped ornament tried on tile - close-up
- 5) Blue-cross shaped ornament tried on tile - another close-up
- 6) Blue-cross shaped ornament tried on tile
- 7) Pattern with knots color sketch
- 8) Pattern with knots enhanced at ends of cross
- 9) Pattern with knots enhanced at ends of cross, tried on tile - close-up
- 10) Pattern with knots enhanced at ends of cross, tried on tile
- 11) Geometric pattern with rhombs
- 12) Geometric pattern with rhombs, more developed sketch
- 13) Geometric pattern with rhombs, tried on colored mock-up using red & grey
- 14) Final geometric pattern with continuous loop braid
- 15) The continuous loop braid forming multitude of centers
- 16) Final geometric pattern with continuous loop braid tried on tiles
- 17) Final mock-up on tile of the geometric pattern with continuous loop braid
- 18) Final mock-up of the geometric pattern with continuous loop braid forming a checkerboard of twenty tiles
References
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Color and Inner Light: The Eleven Color Properties
Christopher Alexander postulated that centers and the field of centers they create are the building blocks from which wholeness is made. However, he further argued that geometry alone is not sufficient, and that color is the way wholeness comes to ...
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Ornament and Function as Products of Unfolding
Ornament arises as part of the design process, when a person is making and seeks to embellish this "something" while making it. It arises as a result of the latent centers in the uncompleted thing requiring still more centers, requiring ...
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Strong Centers in all Levels of Scale
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 ...
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The Julian Street Inn - Shelter for the Homeless: Exterior wall cladding with hand-painted and hand-glazed tilework - Tile pattern studies
01/01/1987
Sequence of four sketches titled “Simplicity and Nothing”, developed as studies of tile patterns, applying the property of simplicity in the formation of a tile design.
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The Julian Street Inn - Shelter for the Homeless: Exterior wall cladding with hand-painted and hand-glazed tilework - Tile pattern studies
01/01/1987
Sequence of three sketches titled “Process of Creating Centers”, depicting the centering process for developing a tile design to be used in the San Jose Shelter for the Homeless.
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The Julian Street Inn - Shelter for the Homeless: Exterior wall cladding with hand-painted and hand-glazed tilework - Original tile painting and sketch
01/01/1988
Two original tile-paintings; the first depicts the actual tile size with the final pattern and colors painted on it, and the second an earlier study of a different tile pattern in which blue is also used. .