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Book Cover
Book
Author Alexander, Christopher, 1936-

Title The production of houses / Christopher Alexander with Howard Davis, Julio Martinez, Donald Corner
Published New York : Oxford University Press, 1985

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 WATERFT ART&ARCH  690.837 Ale/Poh  AVAILABLE
Description 381 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm
Series Center for Environmental Structure series ; v. 4
Center for Environmental Structure series ; v. 4
Contents Introduction -- I . The system of production -- II . The Mexicali project. The architect builder ; The builder's yard ; The collective design of common land ; The layout of individual houses ; Step by step construction ; Cost control ; The human rhythm of the process -- III . Large scale production -- IV . The shift of paradigm -- Postscript on color
Summary As an innovative thinker about building and planning, Christopher Alexander has attracted a devoted following. His seminal books--The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, the Oregon Experiment, and The Linz Café--defined a radical and fundamentally new process of environmental design. Alexander now gives us the latest book in his series--a book that puts his theories to the test and shows what sort of production system can create the kind of environment he has envisioned. The Production of Houses centers around a group of buildings which Alexander and his associates built in 1976 in northern Mexico. Each house is different and the book explains how each family helped to lay out and construct its own home according to the family's own needs and in the framework of the pattern language. Numerous diagrams and tables as well as a variety of anecdotes make the day-today process clear. The Mexican project, however, is only the starting point for a comprehensive theory of housing production. The Production of Houses describes seven principles which apply to any system of production in any part of the world for housing of any cost in any climate or culture or at any density. In the last part of the book, "The Shift of Paradigm," Alexander describes, in detail, the devastating nature of the revolution in world view which is contained in his proposal for housing construction, and its overall implications for deep-seated cultural change. --Publisher description
Analysis Houses Architectural design
Subject House construction -- Mexico.
House construction.
Author Corner, Donald.
Davis, Howard, 1948-
Martinez, Julio.
LC no. 82014097
ISBN 0195032233