A Small House for One Person, Design sequence

01/07/2000
Research Paper

Draft report on the development of a twelve-step process for a user-design software program, in five parts. Part 1 – dated 7-Jul-2000. Fifteen steps/concepts are included in the first, 74-page printed mock-up of the software, containing description of the objectives of each step with the manual of how to go about designing each one: 1. Garden; 2. House Volume; 3. Terrace; 4. Main Room and view; 5. Latent structure of the place; 6. Main room contents; 7. Two main centers; 8. Walls of main room; 9. House Entrance; 10. House entrance; 11. Roof and eaves; 12. Building structure; 13. All positive space outdoors; 14. Doors and windows; 15. Ornament. Part 2 – Dated 14-Jul-2000. A 9-page draft laying out Christopher Alexander’s editing suggestions for specific steps of a previous process version. Part 4 – Jenny’s Cottage design sequence experiment, including sketches and calculations for eleven steps. Part 5 – Dated 29-Jul-2000. Chris’ ‘Notes/Revisions after Jenny’s experiment’ of 5 pages, includes an 11-step design process outline as developed by this experiment. One added, handwritten page by Ingrid King, suggests a few more points to be considered on specific steps.

Authors:
Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, Christopher Alexander, Jenny Quillien, Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.