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West Dean College Gardens Visitor’s Center
1994 to 1996The 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 terrace.
Contents
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Exterior wall with exposed herringbone brick pattern, alternating with exposed concrete bands and grey flint stones
1994
The exposed surface of the perimeter thick wall is made of a combination of red bricks, exposed concrete and flint stones. there are several patterns of alternating repetition, the predominant one being the alteration between concrete bands and the herringbone ...
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Massive thick structural walls with poured concrete, blocks and bricks
1994
Construction of perimeter and transverse structural walls, eighteen inches to two feet thick. The materials used was an integrated poured combination of bricks, concrete, flint, stone and massive blocks and insulation working together as a single structural wall, because of ...
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Structural columns
1994
Columns to support the arches in the cross-walls; low columns with simple capitals resting on the thick walls. Arriving at the proper shape and size of the column capital was an arduous process, since the arches are low, with their ...
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Forwarding a list of drawings that have been mailed together with their digital CAD files
19/12/1994
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Forwarding information and guidelines for exchanging digital files
01/03/1994
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Forwarding four drawing reductions and information about access to digital files
01/03/1994
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Design Development Drawings - Site plan
2 2) Location plan & site plan with building volume, gardens, terrace, new access road & parking area
01/04/1994
Two drawing sheets of the site plan and location plan.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Design Development Drawings - Plans
2 2) Floor plan with explanatory notes on finishes, material specification, fire rating, etc
01/05/1994
Two drawing sheets of the foundation and floor plans.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Design Development Drawings - Elevations
2 2) South & West elevations
01/05/1994
Two drawing sheets of the four elevations of the building with table of finishes.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Application for Planning Permission
07/03/1994
Forwarding eleven pages with official information and guidance ragarding application requirements for the planning permission by the Chichester District Council.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Revised Truss Design
27/01/1995
12 pages with rough structural design information and calculations for the wooden roof truss of the West Dean Visitor’s Center. Two pages include notes about assumed forces, allowed stresses, size estimations, wind bracings etc. and the rest of the pages ...
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Work Plan, Time Table
01/04/1995
One page plan of works for a five month period from April until August, organized by weekly activities.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Photographs of the project site
01/01/1994
Two images depicting the building site conditions and existing buildings.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Photographs of sketches
2 2) Early sketch of the south wall windows, focusing on their shape and interplay with the brickwork areas around them
01/01/1994
Two early sketches by Christopher Alexander, depicting details of walls and windows.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Photographs of the project during construction
01/10/1994
View of the north facing wall during the early phases of construction, before the roof was installed.
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References
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The Unfolding of Public Space and Gardens as Positive Space
Outdoor space is positive when it is shaped just as a room is shaped. It has a contained character, it is bounded by walls, fences, natural vegetation, enclosure of some kind. It looks into other positive spaces, some larger, some ...
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Geometry and Fifteen Fundamental Properties
Christopher Alexander recognized the importance of the geometry of centers and for years he was looking for the common structural features among buildings, paintings, streets, carpets, doors, windows, etc. which have "life" and "wholeness". He identified fifteen structural features which ...
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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 Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Two - The Process of Creating Life
2002
“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 ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Four - The Luminous Ground
2004
“The Luminous Ground” is the fourth and last volume of “The Nature of Order” series. In this volume, Alexander attempts to show the cosmological underpinning of the nature of order. The book has two goals. First, to show that the ...
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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
“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, ...
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15. Emergence of Formal Geometry, 2 / Formation of Brutal and Massive Chunks in the Visitor Center at West Dean
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Chapter 17. Simplicity, 8 / At Each Step Get Rid of Everything That is not Required; "Making Life" and "Being Simple" are the Same
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Chapter 10. Pleasing Yourself, 10 / The Effort it Took to Get the Stark Geometry of West Dean to a State Where it Really Pleases me
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Brick and Block Construction: Forwarding three pages with various close-up photographs of wall mock-ups
03/12/1994
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Brick and Block Construction: Forwarding four pages of photocopied images depicting exterior walls under construction with close-up images of flint walls
24/12/1994
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Door and Window Shaping: Forwading initial sketches of the curved window mullions of two window types, the small and the large; includes relative proportions of the glazed areas
01/11/1994
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center: Prince of Wales to Open Visitor Center by World-Reknown Architect & Theorist
02/08/1996
Two-page text of an announcement by “Perspectives” for the opening of the West Dean Visitor’s Center, with a brief presentation of the unique building process applied in response to its sensitive environment. It includes two images of Christopher Alexander on ...
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Tables, chairs and benches for the restaurant: Furniture for the West Dean Visitors Center, June 14, 1995
14/06/1995
Four pages of an initial draft with specifications and dimensions of various furniture for the restuarant and upper gallery: 1) Five rectangular tables; 2) Four approximatelly square tables; 3) Five wall bracket tables of the upper gallery; 4) Four ellipse ...
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Hand-made Tilework: Sketches & notes on tile glazes
05/07/1996
Four sketches with notes of the two tile patterns for which four versions of color combinations and distribution are proposed by the specified glaze codes.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Exterior wall with exposed herringbone brick pattern, alternating with exposed concrete bands and grey flint stones: Photographs of samples
01/01/1994
Thirteen images of the flint stone depicting the variety of samples of the existing stone sizes, colors and availability. Displayed in an array of combinations as when embedded in a wall and including close-ups of various individual stone types .
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Exterior wall with exposed herringbone brick pattern, alternating with exposed concrete bands and grey flint stones: Photographs of mock-up
01/05/1994
Three images of early mock-ups of the exposed face of the wall, built on the project grounds and exploring what balance of the materials would best create the whole.
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Exterior wall with exposed herringbone brick pattern, alternating with exposed concrete bands and grey flint stones: Photographs of mock-up
01/05/1994
Three images of mock-ups for the entrance porch wall, with brick plinth, concrete and stone vertical bands and red brick herringbone inserts.
SEE ALL Photographs