Go BackDynamics of a Growing Neighborhood – Rules and Patterns for Laying out a Neighborhood
Neighborhoods and communities grow and change over time, and the effect of time on the process of its adaptation on real needs is huge, and leads to types and styles of order quite different from any planned arrangement, based on a master-plan. The dynamic time-dependent process, in which increments of construction will happen over time, creates and maintains relatedness with real situations. When a dynamic process is followed, each time the next step follows existing things --preserves the structure, and creates and maintains relationships-- we get a harmonious living community.
Thoughts and Arguments Explored and Developed
The importance of reality: the importance of laying out streets and houses in the land itself, in direct response to its detailed configuration
Feedback, diagnosis and repair
Forms, when they are generated in time, not designed at the drawing board, display qualities of life, and do have life
Simulations and reality: Simulations are essential tools for testing new rules and processes capable of generating a coherent and complex morphology of space. Only then, is one ready to apply the process to real land, through the actions of real people.
Step by step construction
References
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The Production of Houses
1985
The fifth volume in “The Center for Environmental Structure Series” on architecture published by Oxford University Press, “The Production of Houses” puts Alexander’s theories to the test and shows what sort of production system can create the kind of environment Alexander ...
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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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Chapter 11. Further Dynamics of a Growing Neighborhood, 1 / The Stuff of Life
Chapter 11. Further Dynamics of a Growing Neighborhood, 2 / The Essential Reason for Dynamic Thinking
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Chapter 11. Further Dynamics of a Growing Neighborhood, 3 / Santa Rosa de Cabal, Colombia
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Chapter 11. Further Dynamics of a Growing Neighborhood, 5 / Laying out a Larger Neighborhood by a Dynamic Process - A Fully Generated Plan
SEE ALL Book Chapters
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Grass Roots Housing
1973
A proposal for an entirely new concept in the field of housing, written in the hope that sponsors will come forward and invest enough seed money to start a number of pilot projects. The proposal covers financing, design, social structure, ...
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User Designed Apartment Building
1974 to
1975
Design 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, ...
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Low Cost Houses for Mexicali
1975 to
1977
A cluster of houses for large families, with a builders yard, built by the families themselves with the help of students from the Universidad Autonoma of Mexico, and a team of builders from the Center for Environmental Structure. Each house ...
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Grass Roots Housing
1973
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Design studio on the Pasadena Multi-family Housing
1987
The Spring 1987 design studio addressed the generative sequences for the process of design and the issuance of building permits for a new class of apartment buildings in Pasadena, which would respect its tradition by making the garden the most ...
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Low Cost Houses for Mexicali: Draft letter with a description of the project background, an overview of its design and construction process and its implications, addressed to potential participants
20/04/1976
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Housing Plan for Guasare New Town: Letter addressed to Rosario, sent via Kevin Lynch traveling to Maracaibo; describes the progress on the work being accomplished, and includes an 8-page attachment on the "Form and Organization of a Typical Guasare Neighborhood", with references on lot subdivision, house growth, house layout the form of the street
01/12/1982
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Low Cost Houses for Mexicali: Sketches of layout process
01/01/1976
Eight pages with sketches recording part of the sequence of the house cluster layout; the first four refer to the choice of individual lots; the next three to the subdivision of lots; and the last one the initial steps of ...
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Low Cost Houses for Mexicali: Sketches of future development
01/01/1976
Site plan depicting the future development of house clusters; growth extends along a pedestrian spine as a continuation of the first house cluster and the builders’ yard laid-out by the families and of a second cluster with an indicative layout. ...
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Low Cost Houses for Mexicali: Preliminary Design Drawings - Clusters
01/01/1976
Outline-plans of the two clusters; the first refers to the builder’s yard and focuses on the two courtyards, well defined by the building volumes, and the second depicts the house cluster with its central courtyard .
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Master Plan for the University of Oregon: A Planning Process for the University of Oregon
01/04/1971
38-page first draft of the master plan for the University of Oregon. It includes Preface, Introduction, six chapters and two appendices. Chapter 1 on “Balance”, Chapter 2 on “Piecemeal Growth”, Chapter 3 on “Participation”, Chapter 4 on “Morphological Integration”, Chapter ...
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Master Planning Process for the Town of Marsta: A New Kind of Planning Process
01/01/1972
31-page document explaining how families in Marsta-Sigtuna will be able to design their own house by using patterns, participate in the process and contribute their good ideas to the design. The process is explained by using an example of a ...
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The Grass Roots Housing Process
01/06/1973
55-page proposal for a new concept in the field of housing, which covers financing, design, social structure, principles of ownership, and rate of growth. It includes the following sections: 1. Introduction; 2. The Housing problem; 3. The project proposal – ...
SEE ALL Reports
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Master Plan for the University of Oregon: Project for the College of Education
30/05/1971
25-page document which presents a project as an example, and creates a design for the College of Education, in order to solve the deficiencies the college is experiencing in its current state, by satisfying a group of selected patterns. A ...
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Master Plan for the University of Oregon: Project Application - Administrative Services Building
01/01/1971
5-page example of the standard form to be used for a project application. Example used refers to the Administrative Services Building, for which a specific user-group identifies the following: The basic problems to be addressed, the proposed solutions/projects, the specific ...
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Neighborhood Plans for Guasare New Town: Housing Production in Guasare
25/09/1982
14-page document with tentative conclusions regarding the housing production in the new town of Guasare, discussed by the design group of ISA, and tentatively approved. Includes points crucial to the organization of the project, describing the percentages of family-owned (“user-intimate”) ...
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Master Plan for the University of Oregon - Simulation of University development: Photographs of drawings
01/01/1969
Four images of site plan drawings illustrating how the entire University of Oregon could grow over a period of thirty years by accumulating hundreds of projects, all compatible with the diagnosis that would emerge throughout these years and during each ...
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Master Plan for the University of Oregon: Photographs of drawings
01/01/1972
Image of an outline drawing of the plan for the School of Music which includes proposed areas of development.
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Master Plan for the University of Oregon: Photographs of drawing
01/01/1972
Images of two colored diagnosis drawings for the University plan development, illustrating the places of the campus which are “not working” and the places which are “working” harmoniously, accompanied with short notes of what is wrong or what needs to ...
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A Transparent Building Process: An Example of a Building Manual for Self Help Housing and the Organization of the Building Process
01/01/1977
299-page Master of Architecture thesis with the following Table of Contents: Part One: The Mexicali Project – A Case Study; Part Two: An example of building manual for self-help housing; Part Three: The organization of a building process for self-help ...
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Mini-Neighborhood Project
01/04/1987
99-page professional report for the Master of Architecture, developing the idea of a mini-neighborhood, as a small neighborhood with affordable small houses, beautifully made, using common land, and based on a layout process, allowing users to layout and design their ...
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Arch. 201, Spring 1987 - Pasadena Multi-Family Housing: Building rules for Pasadena Multifamily Housing
01/04/1987
Material provided to the students to be used in the studio project development; includes 7 pages in which a set of nineteen steps is describing the process to be followed in laying out and designing new building developments on selected ...
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