Christopher alexander - A pattern language

We can identify three kinds of places that need these properties:

1. Awnings—sunshades over windows, retractable, and used to filter very bright hot sunlight.

2. Curtains—moveable, half-open walls on outdoor rooms, balconies, and galleries—places that are occupied mainly during the day, but might benefit from extra wind protection.

3. Tent-like roofs on outdoor rooms—a tent which can hold off a drizzle and make outdoor rooms, or trellises, or courtyards habitable in the spring and autumn and at night.

Here is Frank Lloyd Wright describing his use of the canvas roof in the very early structures at Taliesin West:

. . . the Taliesin Fellowship (is a) desert camp on a great Arizona mesa which the boys, together with myself, are now building to work and live in during the winter-time. Many of the building units have canvas tops carried by red-wood framing resting on massive

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stone walls made by placing- the flat desert stones into wood boxes and throwing in stones and concrete behind them. Most of the canvas frames may be opened or kept closed. . . . The canvas overhead being translucent, there is a very beautiful light to live and work in; I have experienced nothing like it elsewhere except in Japan somewhat, in their houses with sliding- paper walls or “shoji.” {The Future of Architecture , London: The Architectural Press, 1955, pp. 255- 5 6-)

Another example: In Italy, the canvas awning is used quite commonly as a simple awning over south and west windows. The canvas is often a bright and beautiful orange, giving color to the street and a warm glow to the interior rooms.

As a final example, we report on our own use of this pattern

in the housing project in Lima. We roofed interior patios with

movable canvas material. In hot weather the covers arc rolled back,

and a breeze blows through the house. In cold weather, the

canvas is rolled out, sealing the house, and the patio is still

useful. In Lima, there is a winter dew which normally makes

patio floors damp and cold for eight months in the year. The

cover on the patios keeps them dry and warm and triples their

useful life. They eliminate the need for glass windows almost

entirely. The windows which look into patios give light to rooms

and may be curtained for visual control—but since the cold and ✓

damp are kept out by the patio canvas there need be no glass in the windows and no expensive moving parts.

Our fatio covers in Peru.

Therefore:

1 130 244 CANVAS ROOFS

•£* 4-^*

Use the canvas awnings, especially, to filter light over those windows which face west and south and glare because they face the sky—filtered light (238). Colored canvas will add special life—ornament (249), warm colors (250). . . •

245 RAISED flowers*

. . . outdoors there are various low walls at sitting height— sitting wall (243) ; terraced gardens, if the garden has a natural slope in it—terraced slope (169); and paths and steps and crinkled building edges—paths and goals (120), stair

SEATS (125), BUILDING EDGE (l6o), GARDEN WALL ( 17 3) -

These are the best spots for flowers, and flowers help to make them beautiful.

Flowers are beautiful along the edges of paths, buildings, outdoor rooms—but it is just in these places that they need the most protection from traffic. Without some pro-tection they cannot easily survive.

Look at the positions that wildflowers take in nature. They are as a rule in protected places when they occur in massive quantities: places away from traffic—often on grassy banks, on corners of fields, against a wall. It is not natural for flowers to grow in bundles like flower beds; they need a place to nestle.

What are the issues?

1. The sun—they need plenty of sun.

2. A position where people can smell and touch them.

3. Protection from stray animals.

4. A position where people see them, either from inside a house or along the paths which they naturally pass coming and going.

Typical flower borders are often too deep and too exposed. And they are so low the flowers are out of reach. Concrete planter boxes made to protect flowers often go to the other extreme. They are so protected that people have no contact with them, except from a distance. This is next to useless. The flowers need to be close, where you can touch them, smell them.

Therefore, instead of putting the flowers in low borders, on the ground, where people walk, or in massive concrete tubs, build them up in low beds, with sitting walls beside them, along the sides of paths, around entrances and edges. Make quite certain

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Raised flowers.

that the flowers are placed in positions where people really can enjoy them—and not simply as ornament: outside favorite windows, along traveled paths, near entrances and round doorways, by outdoor seats.

Therefore:

raised flowers 1-3 feet high

Soften the edges of buildings, paths, and outdoor areas with flowers. Raise the flower beds so that people can touch the flowers, bend to smell them, and sit by them. And build the flower beds with solid edges, so that people can sit on them, among the flowers too.

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246 CLIMBING PLANTS

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5-10,000 population
control of local taxes

Separate the communities from one another by means of substantial areas— subculture boundary(13); subdivide each community into 10 or 20 independent neighborhoods, each with a representative on the community council— identifiable neighborhood( 14); provide a central place where people have a chance to come together— eccentric nucleus(28), promenade (31);and in this central place provide a local town hall, as a focal point for the community’s political activity— local town hall(44). . . .