C. Alexanders "a pattern language" is this book a must read? a mind opening- life changing experience for every architect, urban planner and interior designer or a list of basic rules for diletants in the birkenstock-eco-building scene... or maybe just a nice birthday present for the "I want to be an architect and change the world-student"?
are there rules out there to create "timeless buildings"? is our collective experience made of (this) basic rules - guiding kongitiv perception.
the urban planning rules are maybe to politically orientated, the construction part in the end of the book in many parts out of time... exept for hippie-communities... the rest is archi-psychology at his best.
If Zumtor is writing abuot aura and mistery of a building has he the patterns of C Alexander in his subconsciousness?
“The elements of this language are entities called Patterns. Each Pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.” - A Pattern Language, C.A.
I love this book, and I graduated last year. But, at my University, it wasn't even mentioned. I learned about it during a summer internship. My school preached "Ching," but I prefered "Pattern Language." It discussed real life things, and HOW people use SPACES rather than just how to make them read beautifully in drawings. I don't think it should be used as a RULE book, but it should be read and considered.
It's very interesting read, and a useful reference tool when designing at your desk. Some professors live by it, some scrutinize it for being hypacrytical theory trash. Take what u will from it.
I actually just bought a copy. I heard about it for a long time. After read a few chapter I really love it. After working for many years, it is great to read something that close to reality but also have spiritual content in it. It's a great way of thinking during design process, the relationship between different scales of design. As the book said, this book should be continuously added on; it is first trying to find some solution to improve the environment. I wonder maybe it should be put on line and people can add on their own solutions on each chapter. It will be a live book and others can grade their solutions.
I really like the book. I think it gets knocked because it in some ways it feels like a prescriptive approach to architecture rather than letting the architect exercise design freedom. Kind of a menu of design choices. Alexander, however, states that these are just ideas, and some of them he acknowledges aren't well thought out.
Some of the ideas are obvious, but commonly not followed, like the one about letting light into a room from two different directions to animate a space.
Some ideas are very political, like dividing the world up into a bunch of small nation-states, almost like city-states, with different laws tailored to individual communities. Then let there be open borders. That way, anyone can immigrate to the country whose laws and culture suit them best. You could have one country with baptist theocracy, for example, and another where everyone is forced to have continual anonymous sex. Although architects wish they could create worlds like this, somewhat out of our jurisdiction...
Title: Nature of order : an essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe / [Christopher Alexander].
Publication info: Berkeley, Calif. : Center for Environmental Structure, c2002.
Source: Center for Environmental Structure.
Series Title: (Center for Environmental Structure series, v. 9)
Ser. untr./tr. diff: (<v. 1- >, ill. (some col.). 29 cm.)
Dissertation note: Book 1. The phenomenon of life. -- Bk. 2. The process of creating life. -- Bk. 3. A vision of a living world. -- Bk. 4. The luminous ground.
actually I think "the synthesis of form" is a fundamential description of what rem calls hyperrationalism. creating the diagram out of forces and context ( in the overall meaning) getting to a "form" or architectural program.
its a great, small book.
is much better than ching (awful books, those ching books)
alexander wrote a brilliant response to the metabolists that is credited with ending them in the late 60's (or so), called "a city is not a tree". seriously brilliant.
he also did some nice work on urban planning around the same time that shares some ideas with today's new urbanism, and he is now angling to take credit for that movement...
hm...last intelligent writing done 40 years ago...trying to take credit for more well recognised talent (duany, etc)...sounds like someone who is past it to me.
pattern language is fine, but about as useful as smlxl, in the end. worse it IS very prescriptive, whatever chris might claim to the contrary. take with very large bag of salt and you should be fine. he isn't saying anything new so is pretty safe.
The only commonality between Ching and Alexander are that architectural students buy their books around the same time in their education.
Ching = practical (simple) technical grounding (some of which are obsolete)
Alexander = practical (simple) design notions (some of which are obsolete)
Read Sean Keller's "Fenland Tech: Architecture and Science in Postwar Cambridge" Grey Room 23 (Spring 2006) ... it does a really good job of contextualizing Alexander's work with that of Lionel March, Leslie Martin, and Phil Tabor ....
You hit it exactly Freq-arch. I am not saying they are the same, in fact, I beleive them to be completely opposite. But at my university, I never would have known it existed since it was never mentioned. I didn't know it existed til after my 3rd year. The profs all told us to look in our Ching "Form, Space, and Order" books to realize designs, which was required during 1st year desing courses. I just found I could connect more with Alexander becuase it leans more to the way I think, in terms of space and movement. I wonder what would have happened if I had found "Pattern Language" first.
This book line out the basic rules for object oriented programming , so it is a very inportant book about software architecture, Next I guess, an architecture would evolve , where things like units and exchangable functions would occour ,that talk about units and spaces, humans as robots, to fit exchangable spaces with varying functions or even intiligent followers acting like swarms I guess .
"Optimization is an Artificial Intelligence technique based on the study of collective behavior in decentralized, self-organized systems. Swarm Intelligence is an example of a "behavior- based" system, as it relies on low-level agents with minimum competency that are placed in a
specific environment and have a limited time to act. Each agent acts autonomously, without central control, and the problem-solving nature of the swarm comes from its emergent behavior. " ;
if ching is the ching book full of variations of spatial layout, that was a book we students had to buy. i flipped thru it a few times (i tried to give it a chance) but it doesn't do anything for me. i don't think any instructor ever specifically mentioned the book in any class (eg, "take a look at this in ching's examples of [blank blank]")
pattern lang is often recommended. i read a few pages in it at libraries a few times. again, there's nothing really in it as far as i can see. the bits in it are either ridiculously obvious stuff. or irrelevant. but i commend its snippets type of organization. like a poetry book or recipe book.
sorry if i offend with my firm reaction, but both books were probably beneficial to the authors (similar to the benefit of creating a personal log).
your creativity is probably better off by studying physics, biology or listening to sasha :-)
Mar 2, 07 5:48 am ·
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a pattern language - out of time or still a bible for good architecture?
C. Alexanders "a pattern language" is this book a must read? a mind opening- life changing experience for every architect, urban planner and interior designer or a list of basic rules for diletants in the birkenstock-eco-building scene... or maybe just a nice birthday present for the "I want to be an architect and change the world-student"?
are there rules out there to create "timeless buildings"? is our collective experience made of (this) basic rules - guiding kongitiv perception.
the urban planning rules are maybe to politically orientated, the construction part in the end of the book in many parts out of time... exept for hippie-communities... the rest is archi-psychology at his best.
If Zumtor is writing abuot aura and mistery of a building has he the patterns of C Alexander in his subconsciousness?
“The elements of this language are entities called Patterns. Each Pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.” - A Pattern Language, C.A.
I love this book, and I graduated last year. But, at my University, it wasn't even mentioned. I learned about it during a summer internship. My school preached "Ching," but I prefered "Pattern Language." It discussed real life things, and HOW people use SPACES rather than just how to make them read beautifully in drawings. I don't think it should be used as a RULE book, but it should be read and considered.
Yes it is a very interesting book about software develobing.
Sorry ,about software architecture , is what I ment.
It's very interesting read, and a useful reference tool when designing at your desk. Some professors live by it, some scrutinize it for being hypacrytical theory trash. Take what u will from it.
I actually just bought a copy. I heard about it for a long time. After read a few chapter I really love it. After working for many years, it is great to read something that close to reality but also have spiritual content in it. It's a great way of thinking during design process, the relationship between different scales of design. As the book said, this book should be continuously added on; it is first trying to find some solution to improve the environment. I wonder maybe it should be put on line and people can add on their own solutions on each chapter. It will be a live book and others can grade their solutions.
I like it, but get made fun of for liking it - especially when I was in school.
Reason, I think that's the idea with patternlanguage.com/
I really like the book. I think it gets knocked because it in some ways it feels like a prescriptive approach to architecture rather than letting the architect exercise design freedom. Kind of a menu of design choices. Alexander, however, states that these are just ideas, and some of them he acknowledges aren't well thought out.
Some of the ideas are obvious, but commonly not followed, like the one about letting light into a room from two different directions to animate a space.
Some ideas are very political, like dividing the world up into a bunch of small nation-states, almost like city-states, with different laws tailored to individual communities. Then let there be open borders. That way, anyone can immigrate to the country whose laws and culture suit them best. You could have one country with baptist theocracy, for example, and another where everyone is forced to have continual anonymous sex. Although architects wish they could create worlds like this, somewhat out of our jurisdiction...
check out alexanders next version - 4 volumes
Title: Nature of order : an essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe / [Christopher Alexander].
Publication info: Berkeley, Calif. : Center for Environmental Structure, c2002.
Source: Center for Environmental Structure.
Series Title: (Center for Environmental Structure series, v. 9)
Ser. untr./tr. diff: (<v. 1- >, ill. (some col.). 29 cm.)
Dissertation note: Book 1. The phenomenon of life. -- Bk. 2. The process of creating life. -- Bk. 3. A vision of a living world. -- Bk. 4. The luminous ground.
or
notes on the synthesis of form
for you cybernetic geeks
actually I think "the synthesis of form" is a fundamential description of what rem calls hyperrationalism. creating the diagram out of forces and context ( in the overall meaning) getting to a "form" or architectural program.
its a great, small book.
is much better than ching (awful books, those ching books)
alexander wrote a brilliant response to the metabolists that is credited with ending them in the late 60's (or so), called "a city is not a tree". seriously brilliant.
he also did some nice work on urban planning around the same time that shares some ideas with today's new urbanism, and he is now angling to take credit for that movement...
hm...last intelligent writing done 40 years ago...trying to take credit for more well recognised talent (duany, etc)...sounds like someone who is past it to me.
pattern language is fine, but about as useful as smlxl, in the end. worse it IS very prescriptive, whatever chris might claim to the contrary. take with very large bag of salt and you should be fine. he isn't saying anything new so is pretty safe.
kinda a random observation, but I don't see Ching and Alexander as being in competition so much as described above. Could you elaborate SH?
The only commonality between Ching and Alexander are that architectural students buy their books around the same time in their education.
Ching = practical (simple) technical grounding (some of which are obsolete)
Alexander = practical (simple) design notions (some of which are obsolete)
Read Sean Keller's "Fenland Tech: Architecture and Science in Postwar Cambridge" Grey Room 23 (Spring 2006) ... it does a really good job of contextualizing Alexander's work with that of Lionel March, Leslie Martin, and Phil Tabor ....
You hit it exactly Freq-arch. I am not saying they are the same, in fact, I beleive them to be completely opposite. But at my university, I never would have known it existed since it was never mentioned. I didn't know it existed til after my 3rd year. The profs all told us to look in our Ching "Form, Space, and Order" books to realize designs, which was required during 1st year desing courses. I just found I could connect more with Alexander becuase it leans more to the way I think, in terms of space and movement. I wonder what would have happened if I had found "Pattern Language" first.
This book line out the basic rules for object oriented programming , so it is a very inportant book about software architecture, Next I guess, an architecture would evolve , where things like units and exchangable functions would occour ,that talk about units and spaces, humans as robots, to fit exchangable spaces with varying functions or even intiligent followers acting like swarms I guess .
"Optimization is an Artificial Intelligence technique based on the study of collective behavior in decentralized, self-organized systems. Swarm Intelligence is an example of a "behavior- based" system, as it relies on low-level agents with minimum competency that are placed in a
specific environment and have a limited time to act. Each agent acts autonomously, without central control, and the problem-solving nature of the swarm comes from its emergent behavior. " ;
http://show.imagehosting.us/show/1943422/0/nouser_1943/T0_-1_1943422.jpg
if ching is the ching book full of variations of spatial layout, that was a book we students had to buy. i flipped thru it a few times (i tried to give it a chance) but it doesn't do anything for me. i don't think any instructor ever specifically mentioned the book in any class (eg, "take a look at this in ching's examples of [blank blank]")
pattern lang is often recommended. i read a few pages in it at libraries a few times. again, there's nothing really in it as far as i can see. the bits in it are either ridiculously obvious stuff. or irrelevant. but i commend its snippets type of organization. like a poetry book or recipe book.
sorry if i offend with my firm reaction, but both books were probably beneficial to the authors (similar to the benefit of creating a personal log).
your creativity is probably better off by studying physics, biology or listening to sasha :-)
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