caliwag

It would be useful to include a link to the site of the free download.

 

Here is the wikipedia entry  The contents should be treated with care - respectful scepticism even. However at the very least, the links included make for interesting reading.

 

I have found the books illuminating, having inherited them from my dad who was leant them by a lady who had spent her life doing interesting things in Africa which included building her own huts, but died before her zero-cost windmill conversion project came off.

 

This is quite a good, but slightly lengthy, summary, from the Wiki piece. The best observation is that the 'patterns' are experience-based hypotheses - good servant, poor master, definitely not a pattern-book in the Georgian/Victorian sense, but can help your designs be more 'human'.

 

Quote

 

"

According to Alexander & team, the work originated from an observation that

At the core […] is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea […] comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, front bookflap

The book uses words to describe patterns, supported by drawings, photographs and charts. It describes exact methods for constructing practical, safe, and attractive designs at every scale, from entire regions, through cities, neighborhoods, gardens, buildings, rooms, built-in furniture, and fixtures down to the level of doorknobs. The patterns are regarded by the authors not as infallible, but as hypotheses:

[…] each pattern represents our current best guess as to what arrangement of the physical environment will work to solve the problem presented. The empirical questions center on the problem—does it occur and is it felt in the way we have described it?—and the solution—does the arrangement we propose in fact resolve the problem? And the asterisks represent our degree of faith in these hypotheses. But of course, no matter what the asterisks say, the patterns are still hypotheses, all 253 of them—and are therefore all tentative, all free to evolve under the impact of new experience and observation.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, p. xv

Some patterns focus on materials, noting that some ancient systems, such as concrete, when adapted by modern technology, may become one of the best future materials:

We believe that ultra-lightweight concrete is one of the most fundamental bulk materials of the future.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, p. 958

Other patterns focus on life experiences such as the Street Cafe (Pattern 88):

The street cafe provides a unique setting, special to cities: a place where people can sit lazily, legitimately, be on view, and watch the world go by […]. Encourage local cafes to spring up in each neighborhood. Make them intimate places, with several rooms, open to a busy path, where people can sit with coffee or a drink and watch the world go by. Build the front of the cafe so that a set of tables stretch out of the cafe, right into the street.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, p. 437,439

When these patterns are taken together, the authors say, they begin to form a kind of language, each pattern forming a word or thought of a true language rather than being a prescriptive way to design or solve a problem."

 

 

 

 

F

Edited November 16, 2017 by Ferdinand

Aye thanks each...link attached

 

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Ecological_Building/A_Pattern_Language.pdf

 

Interesting there Ferdinand. I bought mine from the wonderful Architectural Bookshop way back, but found a copy in the remainder bin for £3 in Blackwells in York,  a while ago, no wonder they don't exist there! Cheers, Jamie

Still in print, I think.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Ferdinand