Reddit reviews A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
We found 32 Reddit comments about A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Oxford University Press USA
That's fantastic. There's a design pattern* associated with balconies, and the vast majority of apartment complexes make them so small they are useless, and in some cases they make the space even less accessible. It looks like they got the proportions right, but i wonder if it feels crowded.
I don't remember the page # but here's the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199
Sounds like they are following the advice of A Pattern Language.
Start here with "A Pattern Language" considered to be the bible by many architects, but it's very readable for the layman. Well worth $40 and you will learn a lot about the elements of building.
I'm a big fan of Not so Big House by Sarah Susanka. The book doesn't really contain actionable information -- it's more about presenting and promoting her thesis that we should spend our housing budgets on well designed, well built homes with smaller footprints rather than using the same budget to build a larger house with worse design or materials.
I personally think you should use an architect if you have the budget. The knowledge they can bring to the process isn't really something a layperson can replicate well. If you do want to try designing your own, A Pattern Language would be an interesting read. It can provide some useful rules of thumb regarding specific design elements that you might not otherwise consider.
Also you should familiarize yourself with passive solar building design. If you consider the concepts when developing a design and choosing a site you'll be able to leverage them for cheaper heating/cooling at little or no additional design cost. Building a well-insulated structure (a big part of passive solar design) also makes for a more comfortable home in terms of thermal regulation, noise management, air quality management, etc.
Fixing existing developments and creating better ones in the future are very different beasts. One very influential group working on latter is the Congress for New Urbanism. A useful volume by a few of CNU's leading practioners is Suburban Nation. One pertinent critique of New Urbanism though is that is has been relatively ineffective about the retrofitting you describe. For that you might check out books like Retrofitting Suburbia.
If you want a good rant on how we got into the mess J.H. Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere is an angry read. On patterns that underlay places we like being in, there is the always present work of Christopher Alexander. For my money one of the most under-read great urbanists of our time is Richard Sennett, particularly his book The Uses of Disorder.
Finally, Jacob's has a lot of prescriptive stuff in Death and Life. I'll give you that it is not as rule-based as most contemporary approaches, but therein lies its greatness.
In my humble opinion, the following are great and important reads for a newcomer into the subject.
Experiencing Architecture by Rasmussen
Any and ALL of Frank Ching's books, starting with Form, Space and Order
Sun, Wind, and Light is a timeless reference book.
The Dynamics of Architectural Form by Rudolf Arnheim is a great study on environmental psychology.
Also, Pattern Language if you're a complete masochist and really want to go DEEP into the subject.
I've got more if you're interested, but that should keep you busy for quite a while haha. Best of luck and I hope you find them as enjoyable as I have.
Interaction Design
Interior Design
Landscape Architecture
Lighting Design
Product Design
Product Design
Sound Design
Urban Design
* Cities for People by Jan Gehl
Web Design
Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language isn't just the best book on architecture I've ever read, but one of the best books I've read on any subject. It talks about architecture on both its highest and most basic levels—from the design of cities to the location of window seats—and it's remarkably wise, lucid, and insightful. It reflects a very particular philosophy of architecture and urban planning, but it influenced my views on countless topics, and I think about it almost every day.
The Art of Game Design - Jesse Schell is very very good.
Game AI (Millington and Funge new edition iirc) is very very good.
Some non-game-design books that are very useful for those doing game design:
Scott McLoud: Making Comics (the other two in the series are good but the section on plot, characterization, and development in this one is great)
Donald Norman: The Design of Everyday Things. (How design works and how people interact with technology and...)
Christopher Alexander et al A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, and Construction (Thinking about scale and design elements and modularity and...)
Kevin Lynch: The Image of the City (How do urban spaces work - essential if your game is set in a city - how do people actually navigate)
Polti: The 36 Dramatic Situations (old, quirky, examines how there are really only a few human plots)
Matt Frederick: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School (how to think about and execute simple art, improve your design sense, ...)
Note: links are to amazon though any library or used book will do.
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
On War by Von Clausewitz
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky
Improving Performance: How to Manage the Whitespace in the Organization Chart by Geary Rummler
Books by Edward T. Hall
Books by Edward Tufte
Books by Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action by Donald Schön
let me know if you want more....
Very cool how much you want to support him.
The biggest misconception about the industry is probably how little math we actually use. There is of course a spectrum to our field that spans from sculptors and artists to programmers and engineers. By and large, however, we are visual people who hone our skills by practicing art. I was happily surprised in my first term of college to find out how much time we'd spend sketching and drafting. Hopefully that's appealing to him!
As far as what skills to learn: I took a CAD drafting class in high school that gave me a good head start in college. Sketchup is easy to pick up and I'd encourage him to get comfortable with Rhino to really be able to model digitally. I would not recommend Revit at this early stage as it's extremely technical. Physical modeling is also helpful. I grew up on Legos before moving to paper / cardstock / cardboard sketch modeling. Messy and fast and gives three-dimensional insight you can't get from a page or a screen, plus having the ability to make clean models is a great way to impress professors early on.
Regarding reading material. These books made an enormous impression on me:
I would highly recommend each and every one to him. All very approachable reading for a 14 year old already sketching commercial spaces.
And Bjark Ingel's Yes is More is a fun read in graphic novel form.
Lastly— reach out to your local AIA chapter. They can connect you and your brother with resources specific to your area including firms to check out / potentially shadow at, scholarships to apply for, and summer programs and other workshops to attend.
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Best of luck to you both! It's quite a journey and a rewarding one if it fits.
I'm happy to talk more if you'd like to message me.
You could always check out A Pattern Language: http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199 or a Timeless Way of Building : http://www.amazon.com/The-Timeless-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028
I disagree somewhat with that distinction. The reason I say this is that a few of the patterns in GoF where actually documented as idioms in Advanced C++ Programming Styles and Idioms and recast as patterns. On the other hand, some purists argue that the GoF patterns are not even real patterns in the Alexandrian sense, therefore they would all be idioms.
So if you are sticking to the GoF definition of patterns, they aren't much more than idioms. If you look at the Alexandrian patterns, then I might agree with you. A good distinction would be to limit idioms to language specific solutions and real patterns to solutions that arise independent of the language. I edited my reply above to reflect this.
Coming back to this, I found my collection of research bookmarks...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_(architecture)
http://portico.space/architecture-concepts
http://portico.space/journal//architectural-concepts-circulation
https://www.pinterest.nz/portico_/concepts-circulation/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095263514000375 <-- This one is promising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architectural_plan
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195019199/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
and
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195024028/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1 are the origins of software design patterns, but talk about physical architecture. There is a lot of good information in these books.
A Pattern Language. This is my all-time favorite book on design and how we interact with our surroundings:
http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1369950438&amp;sr=8-1-spell&amp;keywords=A+Pattern+Lnaguage
A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander.
Read all the Derrida or any other theorist du jour, but temper it with this. At the end of the day, you're building for humans, and A Pattern Language covers the elements of Architecture that enrich life.
http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1261628781&amp;sr=8-1
Also a fantastic read, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, by Lewis Mumford.
More along Urban Design lines, but knowing how we got here and where we're headed is important.
http://www.amazon.com/City-History-Origins-Transformations-Prospects/dp/0156180359
A Visual Dictionary of Architecture
The Logic of Architecture
[The Social Logic of Space] (http://www.amazon.com/Social-Logic-Space-Bill-Hillier/dp/0521367840/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1341518625&amp;sr=1-1)
A Pattern language
The Timeless Way of Building
Symmetry
Symmetry in Science and Art
The Geometry of Environment: An Introduction to Spatial Organization in Design
http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199
Get yourself a copy of this book and you'll be set to do it yourself.
I'm coming from a game design perspective rather than architect, so take this with a grain of salt, but I've been told (numerous times) to check out the work Christopher Alexander, particularly A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building.
I haven't read either one yet, but they are at the top of my "To Read" list.
Well, the kitchen is pretty far from the garage, and through a lot of doors and a tiny room. This makes carrying groceries inside suck.
and, as many others have mentioned, the dining room is too far from the kitchen to be functional. Does anybody actually USE a formal dining room anymore? I'd suggest a flex-space addendum to the living room where a formal table can be set in the event of guests, but is normally a nice part of the living room or a usable space between the kitchen & living area.
Overall, it seems messy and inelegant.
If you don't want to scrap the design completely, I would suggest clustering the bedroom/office on the left behind the garage, making the entry central next to the garage, and positioning the kitchen, dining & living areas on the right side. I also like to cluster water-walls for ease of plumbing.
The mudroom is a wonderful idea, but it needs to be big enough to set down groceries, remove shoes & coats, put them away. Also a great place for a laundry/dog sink.
I am not understanding the "dressing" room. Do people dress outside of their bedrooms?
Personally, I'd start over.
I love reading this book for refining ideas.
Three architecture books by Christopher Alexander:
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
The Timeless Way of Building
The Oregon Experiment
There's a surprising amount of crossover between LA and psych. Here are some links:
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William H Whyte (video)
Environmental Psychology
Travel to places that you like and journal/sketch about what you like, how it makes you feel to be in the space, take note of elements like lighting, seating, fountains/sculptures, and materials. Find out who designed the space and check out more of their work.
Call up a local LA firm that does similar work to the type you want to do, and ask for a tour of their office, shadow them in the field, or ask for an internship.
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. It's not a programming book; it's not an art/design book per se. But if you read it, and you grok it, it may change the way you think about code (and design).
A Pattern Language
It makes basic considerations of design approachable and practical. I don't agree with everything in the book but the way they do it and the breadth of their study is admirable.
A real home is not just about the elevations or what it looks like.
I suggest reading something like Christophers Alexanders A Pattern Language
Found it! The Timeless Way Of Building was what I was looking for. Other interesting suggestions were A Pattern Language and The Design Of Everyday Things
SOLVED
Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language
This isn't guitar specific, but maybe something like this would be of interest to you: https://www.amazon.com/Harmonic-Experience-Harmony-Natural-Expression/dp/0892815604 (Though it does cover just intonation extensively, and while that's something I find very interesting, it's not really directly applicable to guitar, except as a way of understanding equal temperament.)
The music book that I wish someone would write is to take the general idea and structure of this amazing book: https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199, and apply it to music instead of architecture.
A Pattern Language
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195019199/?tag=googhydr-20&amp;hvadid=43848937162&amp;hvpos=1t1&amp;hvexid=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=16665708471552453648&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=b&amp;hvdev=c&amp;ref=pd_sl_1tl3jngmex_b
A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building
The Designer Eye
How Buildings Learn
Thermal Delight In Architecture
These last ones may not exactly be what you are looking for but they go into the architectural aspects of specific types of architecture, japanese, malaysia and so I think are pretty interesting in that they show how specific types of houses work.
The Malay House
Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings
A Place of My Own
Read the book A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. It is actually a book for architecture, but you can use allot of it in game design. Another good book is Level design in games by Phil Co.
I'd like to recommend another book, with a more psychologically oriented approach to urban and architectural design: A Pattern Language