CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER

urban design assignment

Christopher Wolfgang Alexander Is a widely influential British-American architect and
design theorist, and currently emeritus professor at the University of California,
Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected
fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, sociology and others.

•In architecture, Alexander’s work is used by a number of different contempo rary

architectural communities of practice, including the New Urbanist movement, to help
people to reclaim control over their own built environment.

•He is known for many books on the design and building process, including Notes
on the Synthesis of Form, A City is Not a Tree, pattern Language, A New Theory of
Urban Design, and The Oregon Experiment etc. All his works are developed or
accumulated from his previous works, so his works should be read as a whole
rather than fragmented pieces.

02
THEORY OF WHOLENESS
•Wholeness, as described by Christopher
Alexander, is the source of coherence in any part of
the world. Wholeness, when implemented properly,
can cause a sense of harmony and can invoke the
feeling of “life”.
•Fifteen Structural Properties of Wholeness are as
follows :-

-Levels of scale -Roughness

-Strong centre -Echoes
-Alternating repetition -The void
-Positive space -Good shape
-Local symmetries -Non-separateness.
-Deep interlock -Boundaries and ambiguity
-Contrast -Simplicity and inner calm
-Gradients

03
03
•The most important - strong centers, refer to any manner of spatial concentration,
organized focus, or place of more intense pattern or activity.
•A second integral part a set of 10 structure-enhancing actions that establish a practical
means for fabricating wholeness through an incremental intensifi- cation at all levels of
environmental and physical scale, from city and urban dis- trict through building layout and
massing to architectural structure, ornament, and furnishings.
• Alexander’s Ten Structure-Enhancing Action are as follows :-

- Making use of step-by-step adaptation.

- Using each step to enhance the whole.
- Always making centers.
- Allowing steps to unfold in the most fitting order.
- Creating uniqueness everywhere.
- Working to understand the needs of clients andusers.
- Evoking and being guided by a deep feeling of the whole.
- Finding geometric order.
- Establishing a form language that rises from and- shapes the thing
being made.

05
 THEORY OF WHOLENESS AS TETRAD OF CREATIVE ACTIVITY
Alexander used JG Bennet’s Tetrad to im-
plement the idea of wholeness.
J.G Bennett explained that the underlying
structure or pattern of a thing can be
understood qualitatively by the concept of whole
no:
-

- Ground - The raw material through which the activity is

transformed
- Agent - Forces and qualities that drive the actualization
procedure
- Instrument - Sets of tools and instruction through
which actualization is implemented
-Goal - Ideal result or end product
-Vertical line provides the need for ground to be ordered
to form the out- come or goal, which then provides all
possible options.
-Horizontal line signifies the means (practical and con-
ceptual) to realize the goal.

06
• Alexander’s theory has been viewed in both positive and negative light.
• Provides an integrated, comprehensive means for facilitating effective and creative
designs.
• It not only has a clear vision but provides a detailed procedure by which the vision can
be actualized
• Itis however, not easy or clear cut or guaranteed to produce desirable re sults. Requires
a longstanding commitment to produce buildings that exude elegance and breathes
life.

07
A NEW THEORY OF URBAN DESIGN

08
•A new theory of urban design, published by
Christopher Alexander and the center for environmental
structure attempts to recapture the process by which cities
develop organically.

•In this radical new look at the theory and practice of

urban design, Christopher Alexander asks why our
modern cities so often lack a sense of natural growth,
and suggests a set of rules and guidelines by which we
can inject that `organic’ character back into our High
Streets, buildings, and squares. At a time when so many of
Britain’s inner cities are undergoing, or are in need of,
drastic renovation, Christopher Alexander’s detailed
account of his own experiments in urban-renewal in San
Francisco makes thought provoking reading.

09
• Wholeness is the continuous creator of ongoing growth.
• The task of creating wholeness in the city can only be dealt with a process
and not merely a form.
•An entirely new kind of urban process was imagined, that was guided entire- ly by
this single ‘ C e n t e r i n g ’ process.

• This whole process is described in three parts

- Theory
- Experiment
- Evaluation

10
THEORY

•In each of the growing wholes, there are certain fundamental and essential features
• In detail, the growth of a town or a city is made up of many processescon struction,
development, gardening, public works, maintenance etc.
• He proposed a single overriding rule:
“ Every new act of construction has just one basic obligation: it must cre ate a continuous
structure of wholes around itself ”
• Thus seven intermediate rules were created which gave people instructions about what to
do, and how to do it, which will have to be adjusted according to the local context.

11
THEORY: 7 RULES OF GROWTH RULE

RULE1: Piecemeal Growth

•It is necessary that the idea of piecemeal growth be specified exactly enough so that we
guarantee a mixed flow of small, medium and large projects in equal quantities.
•Inorder to guarantee the piecemeal nature of growth, the following sub rules are:
- No building increment may be too large.
- Guarantee of a reasonable mixture of sizes.
- Guarantee of a reasonable distribution of function.

RULE 2: The Growth of Larger Wholes

•Every building increment must help to form at least one larger whole in the city, which
is both larger and more significant than itself.
• The sub rules for this are:
-In the process of growth, certain larger structures or centres emerge slowly and
spontaneously.
Each of these larger centres have a very definite natural history.
- The total number of larger centers are surprisingly great.

12
THEORY: 7 RULES OF GROWTH RULE

RULE 3: Visions

• It describes the content and character of the individual increments.

•Every project must first be experienced, then expressed, as a vision which can be seen
in the inner eye. Itmust have the quality to be communicative and felt by others as a
vision.

RULE 4: Positive Urban Space

•Currently the urban spaces have become negative: the leftover after buildings are
built.
• Every building must create coherent and well shaped public space next to it.
• The sub rules are:
-Each time a building increment is built, it is shaped and placed in such a way that
it creates well shaped pedestrian space.
- Building volume of the increment is simple and well shaped.
- Often, but not always the building will be shaped to create a garden.

13
THEORY: 7 RULES OF GROWTH RULE

RULE 5: Layout of Large Buildings

• buildings themselves should not be un whole internally.
•The entrances, the main circulation, the main division of the building into parts, its
interior open spaces, its daylight, and the movement within the build ing, are all
coherent and consistent with the position of the building in the street and in the
neighborhood.

RULE 6: Construction
• This rule deals with the details of the buildings.
•The structure of every building must generate smaller wholes in its entire physical
construction and appearance.

RULE 7: Formation of Centers

•This rule deals with the geometric shape of all the wholes, at all scales within the
process.
•It describes certain geometric rules which will make sure that a building as a volume,
or any increment of a building, is capable of making wholes which include both the
building and the space.

14
 EXPERIMENT

The experiment consists of

a simulated process of
urban growth, which is
entirely based on the single
rule and the seven rules
which embody it.

Map at beginning. The completed project.

For the simulation, a part of the San Francisco waterfront was chosen, which was destined for
development in the near future. It is located to the north of Bay Bridge, with an area of about 30acres.It
includes several existing streets. Piers & buildings. Its done through over 90 projects .

15
EXPERIMENT

PROJECT 1: Gateway PROJECT 3 : The Café

the vision of a gate, The vision Of the café was
which creates a sense describes as: a café, the
of the whole street which front of the café faces the
is to follow. busy pedestrian sidewalk.
The back has a sunny
terrace which opens
onto a public garden.

PROJECT 2: Hotel PROJECT 4: Market

The next project should and Fishing Pier on
enhance this whole. the left after
Hence a ho- tel was crossing a beautiful
proposed to shape a dome in front of the
pedestrian street behind freeway, leads to the
the gate with a small market and that in turn
garden at back leads to a fishing pier on
proved to be a the far side of the freeway.
smaller whole.

16
EXPERIMENT

PROJECT 5: Community
Bank
To form the mall more clearly, a
bank which is a Group of
three buildings built around a
square was proposed. The next
four projects were large ones
which continued to fill out the
structures which has been
defined so far:
6. Building Complex
7. Apartment Building PROJECT 10: Hedges and Paving After
8. Apartment Building having a definite character, its ends had to
9.Parking Garage and be defined. Hence details of having and
Apartments planting were proposed to set the character.

PROJECT 11: Fountain and Kiosk

They were proposed to give the square two
smaller centers, not one, to balance its
complicated shape.

PROJECT 12: Educational Center

This was the last increment to complete the
south west side of the square.

17
EVALUATION

Success
•Most obviously of all, the city which has been created, does have some of the positive
character and structure that we see in the old cities.
•It does have the organic, personal and human character which we associate with many of the
most beautiful cities of the past.
Drawbacks
•The large scale structures were not as profound as imagined. The whole setting did not
yet have a profound unity like Amsterdam or Venice.
•The physical character of the building was rather weird. To make sure the buildings contribute
physically to the formation of unity, as a side effect- a very particular style which was not intended
was produced.

This process which is motivated and guided by the search for wholeness, pro- duces an entirely
different effect from current practice in urban design. Urban process can only generate wholeness,
when the structure of the city comes from the individual building projects and the life they contain.
Wholeness only occurs when the larger urban structure, and its communal spaces, spring from these
individual projects.

18
UNDERSTANDING A PATTERN LANGUAGE BY CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER

• Pattern language focus on unconscious, intuitive, and user friendly design process.
• It is one of the popular design methods in design and architecture.

THE NETWORK OF PATTERNS

• pedestrian streets and building complexes function as key patterns among the
downtown-related patterns.

19
• Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a helpful tool to identify the structure of connections
and visualize the relations of entities joined by multiple rela tionships; in general
people groups and organizations.

research processes compared with the work of alexander (1977)

20
• Two sets of network analyses are conducted.
• In the first, every pattern related to the downtown design is included in order to examine
the relationships between all the patterns with regard to frequecy and degree, closeness,
and betweenness centrality
• Inthe second analysis, the patterns are assigned to four different groups considering
spatial levels in the downtown area: urban structure, street,inter face, and buildings

special reclassification of a downtown area.

21
• Frequency partially explains how important a pattern is.
• Patterns with the highest centrality scores are considered the key patterns.
• The preceding patterns, just below the key patterns, are termed as the pri mary
contributors.
• a node with a high betweenness score is often likened to a ‘bottleneck’ lead ing to
major highways in a transportation network.

22
MAPS : a network of pattern

• It illustrates connections of patterns using a bubble diagram.

• The size and color of the bubble and the distance from the center explains the relative
importance of the patterns.
• Patterns denoted by the highest degree, closeness, and betweenness cen trality are
likely to be located at the central parts of the web.

Network of pattern of reclassified space for urban structure

23
Network of pattern of reclassified space for a street

Network of pattern of reclassified space for an interface

24
Network of pattern of reclassified space for a building

25
CONNECTIVE RULE FOR COMPLETENESS

•While most key and primary patterns come from the source patter, it is pos- sible that a primary
pattern can also come from a non-source pattern.
•Identifiable Neighbourhood and Pedestrian Street appeared as primary con- tributors in addition to
the source patterns.
•Activity Pockets could set the groundwork for, or facilitate the process of oth- er patterns required for
street design.

IMPORTANCE OF INTERFACE DESIGN IN DOWNTOWN

•Activity Pockets, Arcades, Canvas Roof, Sitting Wall, Street Café, and Posi- tive Outdoor Space are
six of the 18 key and primary patterns for improving a street condition.
• These interface are mostly a private sector meant for public use
•Due to the semiprivate/semi-public nature, the importance of this interface is often overlooked.
•It is important to establish clear roles from the private and public sector, in order to make a
successful interface project.

26
IMPLEMENTING PATTERN LANGUAGE FOR FUTURE PLANNING

• Step 1: collect patterns that are important for a project

• Step 2. Find all linked patterns illustrated in the book.
• Step 3. Conduct SNA and establish connections between patterns. If neces sary,
conduct SNA in subsets of patterns
• Step 4. List key patterns and primary contributors.
• Step 5. Examine the sequential influence of listed patterns and plan the im plementing
phases of each project
• Inaddition to the steps suggested in the book, the following process might be
considered:
• decide necessary patterns for the project;
• add linked patterns
• drop patterns that seem less important or doubtful.

27
EARLY WORKS

o His first book, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, addressed the problem of
design as a question of part-whole relations.

o Parts of a design problem tended to relate to the wholes through a

hierarchical relationship: parts have sub-parts, sub-parts have sub-sub-parts
and so on.

o This web network aspect provided crucial characteristics of the structure and
this was the main insight of his famous paper, ‘A City is Not a Tree.’

o - ‘like the members of a family were not free to make friends outside the
family, except when the family as a whole made a friendship.’

o In contrast, he termed a ‘semi-lattice’, a structure with a complex network,

with overlaps & interactive relationships.

o ‘A City is Not a Tree’ became one of the seminal planning criticisms of that
era.

28
o It helped shape the thinking of a new generation of urban and architectural reformers and resulted in slowing
the development of the so-called new towns & urban renewal projects.

o From the semi-lattice diagrams he identified clusters of elements or sub-units, which he referred to as ‘patterns’.

o these patterns could be abstracted & re-combined in useful ways, while preserving the contextual, web network
structures of the patterns.

o Just as the words can be combined to make a sentence, this ‘pattern language’ too allows a more poetic
combination of design elements.

o Like how vernacular buildings were complex and adapted to the challenges, the past builders too adapted to
and shaped their environment.

29
THE NATURE OF ORDER

o The Nature of Order dealt with the process of creating particular

geometric structures in the built environment.

o inspired from the intimate relationship b/w the structures of the

human environment and the structures of the natural world.

o a good-quality design is almost always in part a transformation of

what existed before, rather than a creation of wholly new parts.

o A key feature was the recognition of interdependent, system-wide

characteristics that occur within every stage – holism or wholeness.

o He made a deep connection between aesthetics and well being

o His tools sought to generate global connectivity.

o his framework helped investigators come up with urban metrics,

scenario modelling tools, etc

30
CONCLUSION

His works were situated deeply within recognizable, ancient topics of science and philosophy. Topics of
mereology, hylomorphism, ethics, ontology and other human concerns can be seen throughout his work.
His ideas have contributed to various fields and not necessarily confined to architecture or urbanism.

31
Thank you.