Reading - A Pattern Language - Christopher Alexander

For the past few weeks I've been reading the book A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander in order to find some inspiration and ideas for the upcoming  Project 1 - Future Scenario and Architectural Opportunities. What I've found are some very interesting and useful sections that I plan to use and help inform the project out comes.

City Country Fingers

"Keep interlocking fingers of farmland and urban land, even at the centre of the metropolis. The urban fingers should never be more than 1 mile wide, while the farmland fingers should never be less than 1 mile wide."

C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 25

From this, the main idea is that one continuous sprawling city destroys life and ruins the land. by having these 'fingers' of city and countryside that interlace with each other giving city dwellers access to the country and rural dwellers access to the city whilst promoting corridors of green space.


Agricultural Valleys

"The land which is best for agriculture happens to be best for building too. But it is limited - and once destroyed, it cannot be regained for centuries. ...

Preserve all agricultural valleys as farmland and protect this land from any development which would destroy or lock up the unique fertility of the soil. Even when valleys are not cultivated now, protect them: keep them for farms, parks and wilds."

C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 28

Quite simply put, build on the hills, farms and green space in the valleys.

This is also quite logical in terms of natural disaster planning; by building minimal structures in the low lying areas you prevent potential disasters and death caused by floods, flash flooding during storms, and land slides etc. It must be noted though that by clearing trees off the side of the hill it weakens the earth and opens up the potential for a land slide. There fore it would be suggested that terraces and rows of trees be integrated into the hillside development as a preventative measure.


Four Story Limit

"...high buildings make people crazy ... they destroy social life, promote crime ... expensive to maintain and they wreck open spaces near them."

Alexander believes that tall buildings really don't offer any genuine advantage other and profits for developers and super densifying a city. He also believes that by moving people further up and away from the ground you remove them from the casual social life of the sidewalk and interaction with other people.


Activity Nodes

"Community facilities scattered individually through the city do nothing for the life of the city."

Alexander explains that a city must have nodes of concentrated communal activity. Made by directing paths through public squares.