You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. "Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

Arts & Photography

Christopher Alexander

Sara Ishikawa

Murray Silverstein

Max Jacobson

Ingrid Fiksdahl-King

Shlomo Angel

Architecture

Oxford University Press

Alexander, Christopher. The Timeless Way of Building. New York, Oxford University Press, 1979. 20 cm x 13,8 cm. XV, 552 pages. With several black-and-white illustrations throughout book. Original Hardcover. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Only slightly foxed. Includes for example the following essays: Patterns which are alive / The multiplicity of living patterns / Our pattern languages / The creative power of language / The breakdown of language / The structure of language / The evolution of a common language / The genetic power of language / The process of construction / The slow emergence of a town / The kernel of the way etc etc. Christopher Wolfgang Alexander (born October 4, 1936 in Vienna, Austria) is an architect noted for his theories about design as well as over 200 building projects around the world. Reasoning that users know more about the buildings they need than any architect could, he produced and validated (in collaboration with Sarah Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein) a pattern language to empower anyone to design and build at any scale. He moved from England to the United States in 1958, living and teaching in Berkeley, California from 1963. Currently an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Alexander lives in Arundel, England. Alexander is often overlooked by texts in the history and theory of architecture because his work intentionally disregards contemporary architectural discourse. However, Alexander's polyvalent approach to the discipline of architecture has had enormous ramifications through his vast corpus of essays and books. He is regarded as the father of the Pattern Language movement, and various contemporary architectural practices such as the New Urbanist movement have resulted from Alexander's ideas, which seek to help normal people reclaim control over their built environments. (Wikipedia).

The timeless way of building

Phenomenon Of Life Nature Of Order An Essay On The Art Of Building & The Nature Of The Universe Book 1

The Linz Cafe / Das Linz Cafe (Center for Environmental Structure Series) (English and German Edition)

Community and Privacy Toward a New Architecture of H [Paperback]

Community and Privacy Toward a New Architecture of Humanism

Serge Chermayeff`

DOUBLEDAY

In 1965, the architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander published a landmark theoretical critique of modern urban design, and by extension, modern design in general. His critique was different from others of the day in that it was not based on a social or political argument, but rather, on a structural analysis, rooted in then-emerging insights from the fields of mathematics and cognition. Here, published again on its fiftieth anniversary, is Alexander's classic text, together with new interpretive commentaries and discussions by leading theorists and practitioners. This volume is destined to become an invaluable resource for a new generation of students and practitioners.

A City is Not a Tree: 50th Anniversary Edition

Politics & Social Sciences

Michael W. Mehaffy

Social Sciences

Sustasis Press

The Islamists are Coming A wide range of experts from three continents cover the major countries where Islamist parties are redefining politics and the regional balance of power. They cover the origins, evolution, positions on key issues and the future in key countries. Full description

The Islamists are Coming

Religion & Spirituality

Nathan Brown

OLIVIER ROY

Robin Wright

Khalil al-Anani

Manal Omar

David Ottaway

Thomas Pierret

Abdeslam Maghraoui

Jillian Schwedler

Nicholas Blanford

Les Campbell

Omer Taspinar

Annika Folkeson

Islam

United States Institute of Peace

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Books by Christopher Alexander