A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction: 2 (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
Product ID: 55133326
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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. Review: Enlightening and Practical - I've just bought the 10th copy of this book.......Someone gave it to me more than 10 yrs ago, recommending it as their favorite book - and I find that I read and re-read it all the time and I'm always recommending it and sending it to people. Whether youre interested in architecture or not this is a fascinating book, its written in very short chapters that cross reference and link up back and forwards across the book meaning that every time you pick it up you follow a different thread, sometimes into the realms of town planning and sometimes into hand building your own house and all points in-between. Christopher Alexander introduces us to a wide variety of the simple formulas that make a house into an excellent living space and demonstrates why some interior spaces are successful and why some fail. It's both enlightening and practical, I highly recommend it. Review: A little treasure - Bought this book on a recommendation from a friend as I am in the process of designing a self-build house. I'm so glad I read this. Despite the fact that it was written in the 70's, it is still full of relevant, practical, thought provoking and wonderful advice and ideas for anyone involved in building design. All the advice is focused on making the spaces where we live better for us and not about making design statements. Loved the unusual structure of the book, the ratings for each of the "patterns" and the surprisingly poetic way it is written. What I really appreciated is great design advice about things I couldn't find in any of the self-build magazines, for example, where to put your building on your plot to the best height for your window sills.
| Best Sellers Rank | 35,929 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 3,867 in Arts & Photography (Books) 6,360 in Social Sciences (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 964 Reviews |
L**Y
Enlightening and Practical
I've just bought the 10th copy of this book.......Someone gave it to me more than 10 yrs ago, recommending it as their favorite book - and I find that I read and re-read it all the time and I'm always recommending it and sending it to people. Whether youre interested in architecture or not this is a fascinating book, its written in very short chapters that cross reference and link up back and forwards across the book meaning that every time you pick it up you follow a different thread, sometimes into the realms of town planning and sometimes into hand building your own house and all points in-between. Christopher Alexander introduces us to a wide variety of the simple formulas that make a house into an excellent living space and demonstrates why some interior spaces are successful and why some fail. It's both enlightening and practical, I highly recommend it.
D**4
A little treasure
Bought this book on a recommendation from a friend as I am in the process of designing a self-build house. I'm so glad I read this. Despite the fact that it was written in the 70's, it is still full of relevant, practical, thought provoking and wonderful advice and ideas for anyone involved in building design. All the advice is focused on making the spaces where we live better for us and not about making design statements. Loved the unusual structure of the book, the ratings for each of the "patterns" and the surprisingly poetic way it is written. What I really appreciated is great design advice about things I couldn't find in any of the self-build magazines, for example, where to put your building on your plot to the best height for your window sills.
A**R
I highly recommend either grabbing a copy of this or looking through ...
If you're studying architecture, I highly recommend either grabbing a copy of this or looking through it in the library. I found it useful for a studio project to use this as my starting point.
D**S
Fast delivery, good quality, very happy.
Fast delivery, good quality, very happy.
J**G
Expensive for its age, drastically needs updating to account for changes in tech
I really wanted this to be a stunning book. Certainly many of the "patterns" that are presented make perfect sense. The patterns often articulate things that you already know at a subconscious level, so there are lots of "oh, of course!" moments (in a good way). I got a *lot* from the building patterns themselves. What it really, really needs, though, is updating for the 21st century. The construction section, in particular, is laughably out of date. It suggests avoiding the use of wood as a construction material because it's such a scarce and expensive resource. It talks about building vaulted structures out of resign reinforced burlap and lightwateight aggregate concrete. Good luck getting building regs to sign off on that. Basically, it's probably safe to ignore the entire section on construction. The format really need updating. It's a small, very thick book with thin pages. If the pages were twice the size, there'd be room for more pictures (which would also be an opportunity to update the hideous, unclear black-and-white examples presently used), while allowing better quality paper and a thinner volume. Finally, it's too expensive. I rarely begrudge paying for books, but this is unquestionably overpriced in my opinion. It should be at most half the current price given its age, the poor quality of pics, and the complete lack of updates in the 35 years since it was published.
J**E
greatest works on urban design and planning ever written - ...
One of, if not the, greatest works on urban design and planning ever written - despite the appalling mini-sketches. A must for anyone working in this field.
T**R
Superb price, superb book. I thought I was ...
Superb price, superb book. I thought I was buying a used copy at that price, but it was brand new!
S**W
all fine thanks
all fine thanks
A**F
Niche mais précieux
Où l'on comprend comment les villes ont été pensées, par des humains, pour des humains. Un cadeau parfait pour un architecte ou n'importe quel fan d'urbanisme.
D**D
A book must read by building designers.
Excellent book, I recommend anyone who is interested in design their own home or renovation to read it. I bought this book for a friend who is a builder.
R**R
Top
Gutes Buch
M**S
A must read for architects
Every architecture student must read this book !
R**Z
excelentehqed cover book binding and content
The haedcover book binding is of gigh quality, if feels sturdy in your hands, the ink seems if pigment type and dark enough, the paper is of good quality. The book itself is good as many other reviews have stated before. It covers the author's (there are several, not just Christopher Alexander, although he is the main author) views with his reasoning on why different approaches to building make us happier and bring calm and enjoyment to our lives. The author's use a confidece system where thow asterisks (**) mean they are highly confident in their suggestions, one (*) not highly and no asterisk means they believe that pattern to be true but thy lake empirical evidence. This book was highly influential in different areas such as computer science, where the pattern approach was used as a model to diffeten well known books. It was also an influence to game design books, which were inspired by its structure as shell's "a book of lenses". Nowadays it can be regarded as old, but it is still a classic and a gateway to understand the thinking process of Christopher Alexander.
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