For Coffee Hour today I would like to share with you some of the philosophy found in The Timeless Way of Building by noted architect, Christopher Alexander. Last week I shared with everyone that the City of Vallejo is in the process of creating a new general plan. See: Street Prophets Coffee Hour - Vallejo General Plan Update - Part 1 and Part 2.
From Wikipedia: Apse at the Arcosanti experimental town
I'm excited by the opportunity I have in Vallejo to bring his concept of "Timeless Building" in to the process of creating a new general plan. Beyond the fold lets share our thoughts about our favorite spaces, buildings, or Churches and think about the qualities that cause us to love being there. This is a timeless open thread and coffee hour.
There is one timeless way of building. It is a thousand years old, and the same today as it has ever been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way. And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form, as the trees and hills, and as our faces are. The opening from Christopher Alexander's book: The Timeless Way of Building
The Timeless Way of Building is the first volume of a three-volume set; in it, he sets out a radically different perceptual framework for conceiving of, and creating architecture. In the second volume of the series, A Pattern Language, he discusses his own exploration of architecture within this perceptual framework and the two hundred fifty-three patterns that he has intuited. In the third, final volume of the series, The Oregon Experiment, he explains how this "language" of two hundred fifty-three patterns was used in practice to design a building complex at the University of Oregon. From the timeless page at www.davidsheen.com
Additional References on the "The Timeless Way of Building:" The 253 patterns in his language The Structure of Pattern Languages University of Oregon's use of Pattern Language Christopher Alexander's website Also, see my diary on my project to bring Vallejo into the 21st Century: eVallejo - 21st Century Infrastructure Projects