Christopher Alexander’s 15 principles

Theory Assignment, Semester 3, Batch 2016, WCFA : To reinterpret and redraw fifteen fundamental principles formulated by Christopher Alexander. Drawing by student : Vismaya N

Alexander formulates these principle in the book “The Nature of Order, Book One : The Phenomenon of Life” This has guided me immensely in my teaching process, especially for design studios. The drawing below is interpretive drawing from the architecture office TWKA, which they have used as guiding principles for their practice. They also have summarized and written here. I feel Alexander’s texts are grossly under-read.

In the class we discussed these diagrams and the students were asked to redraw the diagram. Vismaya’s drawing below inventively reinterprets these ideas. My favorite one is ‘inner calm’ which is left undrawn and for ‘void’ literaly a hole is made in the sheet.

Vismaya1 — click on the image to enlarge

Drawing 03

A series on drawings i explore to understand ideas of geometry or enclosure.

Tracing Casa Del Fascio by Terragni

Drawing : 02

A series on drawings i explore to understand ideas of geometry or enclosure.

Tracing IIM

History Assignment, Semester 6, Batch 2016, WCFA : To explore an architects work by choosing a particular lens. Drawing by student : Rahul Kustagi.

IIMB Tracing — click the image to enlarge

Rahul uses the method of the Nolli plan (a brilliant interpretive drawing of Rome by Giambattista Nolli in 1748 , revealing the porosity of public space in both built and unbuilt forms ) to explore the spatial porosity of IIM Ahmedabad . The intensity of yellow is proportionate to the publicness. The library even though a built space, becomes the crux of the publicness in IIM

nolli_06 — Nolli Map, 1748. The streets and public interior of all the buildings are shown in white and private areas in black , showing the permeability of the city. Click the image to enlarge

Wall Sections

On the similar line of thought Ruskin saying that “If you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world”, i believe if one can draw a careful wall section, you can take care of the whole building.

Wall Section, Kamala House, 1959 , BV Doshi

This section reveals

1. the attitude of the built form towards the ground by slightly extending the plinth outside casting a shadow

2. folded RCC chajja-cum-parapet as an instrument to allow diffused light

3. rat trap bond as insulator

4. reveal plastered and exposed surfaces

5. tectonics and materiality of the facade

detailed wall section — click the image to enlarge

This drawing (1: 20 scale part sections) below is a drawing I made for my UG thesis (Public Library) at USD Mysore in 2008. It captures all the edge conditions of the building. It was my professional training at Apurva Amin Architects in Ahmedabad trained me to look at a building this close. And it was Bijoy Ramachandran, my thesis guide then, insisted to look carefully at the tectonic quality of the building.

Since then, for me this drawing ( and scale of noticing) has been a very important method and tool to read and build architecture .

Notes : The wall section of Kamala House is a scan from a booklet published on this house from Sangath.