The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

Alexander, Christopher; Silverstein, Murray; Angel, Shlomo; Ishikawa, Sara; Abrams, Denny

ISBN 10: 0195018249 / ISBN 13: 9780195018240

Published by Oxford University Press, 1996

About this Item

Crisp, bright, clean pages; no owners' marks; red cloth hard cover shows only very light edgewear at spine ends; dust jacket is modestly sunned along the spine and has a small wrinkle at the upper right front, otherwise excellent. 190pp.; Vol. 3. Seller Inventory # 00085666

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Oregon Experiment (Center for ...

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Publication Date: 1996

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Near Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Edition: First Edition; Eighth Printing.

About this title

Synopsis:

After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are not publishing a major statement in the form of three works which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building, and planning, which will, we hope, replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The Oregon Experiment. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation fo the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. This book is the master plan for the University of Oregon, and is now being implemented at that university; but it shows at the same time how any community the size of a university or small town might go about designing its own future environment-with all members of the community participating personally. It is a concrete example at the Center's theories in practice, showing in simple detail, with numerous illustrations, how to implement six guiding principles: organic order, participation, piecemeal growth, patterns, diagnosis, and coordination.

Review:

"The Oregon Experiment is perhaps this decade's best candidate for a permanently important book."--Rory Campbell, The Boston Globe