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User Designed Apartment Building
1974 to 1975Design and construction of prototype apartment complex outside Paris. The project was initiated by Francoise Choay, the Minister of Housing in France, in November 1973, when she invited the Center for Environmental Structure to join her analysis of poor quality, mass produced stardard apartment buildings built in France. Besides the analysis, C.E.S. was to make a concrete proposal of how a contemporary apartment building ought to be built, so that besides showing the current deficiencies, it could also function as a prototype to be implemented by a group of developers in conjunction with the goverment. The project presents a pilot apartment building designed by 27 families.
Contents
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The New Apartment House - Project 46
01/01/1975
87-page project report which describes a new form of apartment house, intended for families who own their apartments. The aim of the project was to propose a new kind of apartment which has life and is personal to the people ...
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The New Apartment House: La politique de modeles et son retentissement l'innovation dans le longement social - Model policy and its impact on innovation in social housing
01/05/1975
197-page report presenting an evaluation of a policy developed gradually since 1968 by the Ministry of Equipment called ‘models’, which promoted social housing. The first three chapters analyze and present the methodology, the adopted research plan, the approved draft models ...
References
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Design and Construction is one Integrated Making Process
The design process of a project and its construction process are united into one continuous and intertwined making process, unfolding in a step-by-step sequence. Design ends together with the completion of the construction process. "Making" is a conception of the ...
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The Uniqueness of People's Individual Worlds, Always Respected and Manifested
In the last two centuries "modular" design has produced identical apartments, arranged in typical apartment blocks. The same is true for mass-produced furniture. Uniqueness, which expresses personal needs and whiches, and which springs from the need to adapt and connect ...
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Participation of the Users in the Design Process - Testing and Applying Pattern Languages and Layout Rules
Christopher Alexander believed that people have a right to determine and shape their environment. The genuine and wholehearted involvement of the users in the shaping of their buildings contributes positively to good architecture. It gives life, identity and personal qualities ...
SEE ALL Scientific Research
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Conference at the 'Federation National du Batiment' in Paris
27/01/1976
Christopher Alexander gave a speech about patterns and pattern languages, the active involvement of users in shaping the places they live and use daily, the ways of helping people in the community to use the pattern language and take responsibilities ...
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A New Apartment Building for the Town of Trappes
07/01/1977 to
23/07/1977
The exhibit was aimed at informing the local authorities and at arousing the interest of potential participants in the apartment project. The exhibition was organized in four categories, the introductory text, the Paris apartment project, the Mexicali project and the ...
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Steven Grabow Interviews Christopher Alexander: Grabow recorded and transcribed the interviews, being the raw material for his book on Alexander - The twenty-first transcript includes the May-01 interview
01/05/1977
50-page handwritten transcript of the twenty-first interview titled “Biographic Cont. – Phase II of the Center”. Alexander expands the discussion into the social and practical politics that shape neighborhoods, the need for improving this structure, the importance of the architect-builder ...
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Steven Grabow Interviews Christopher Alexander: Grabow recorded and transcribed the interviews, being the raw material for his book on Alexander - The twenty-second transcript includes the May-04 interview
04/05/1977
35-page handwritten transcript of the twenty-second interview titled “Biographic (Cont.)”, being a foloow–up of the previous interview on phase II of the Center. Similar matters are discussed and expanded with reference to new CES projects. The question of making building ...