User Tools
This is an old revision of the document!
This book, with a 1968 copyright by The Center for Environmental Structure at the University of California at Berkeley, is authored by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein. A preview is available on Google Books.
The 64 patterns are summarized as follows:
1. Small Target Areas: The multi-service center servces a target area with population of 34,000 ± 20%.
2. Location: Service centers are located within two blocks of a major intersection.
3. Size Based on Population: The total size of an MSC which services a target area of population N, is .9N square feet.
4. Community Territory: The service center is divided into two zones, services and community territory; community territory includes space for community projects and a public area.
5. Small Services without Red Tape: No one service has a staff size greater than 12; each service is physically cohesive and autonomous; the services are loosely organized with respect to each other.
6. Expansion: the number of services can grow and the size of any one service can grow; but the relationship of all services to community territory does not change.
7. Entrance locations: The building's main entrances are immediately visible to a person approaching, by foot or by car, from any direction.
8. Parking: Either parking is provided for everyone [this will require .5N square feet for a target population of N], or there is emergency parking only; staff-only parking is never provided.
9. Arena Thoroughfare: There is a natural pedestrian shortcut through the MSC's community territory.
10. Open to Street: Major community projects, services and arena activities are plainly visible to passers-by, in the street.
11. Arena Enclosure: The public area is as open as possible to the world around it, while still maintaining the required Effective Temperature inside.
12. Locked and Unlocked Zones: The building is zoned according to three different time schedules: with one door closing each zone off from the next: 9am-5pm, 9am-11pm, and “always open”.
13. All Services Off Arena: All services open off the public arena; their frontages are roughly equal.
14. Free Waiting: All services share a common waiting area, which contains a variety of activities; this waiting area is part of the public area.
15. Overview of Services: All of the services housed in the MSC are instantly visible to a person entering the center.
16. Necklace of Community Projects: Small, store front type stall, organized and run by members of the community, ring the multi-service center.
