Notes on the Synthesis of Form

Notes on the Synthesis of Form PDF Author: Christopher Alexander
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674627512
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
"These notes are about the process of design: the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function." This book, opening with these words, presents an entirely new theory of the process of design. In the first part of the book, Christopher Alexander discusses the process by which a form is adapted to the context of human needs and demands that has called it into being. He shows that such an adaptive process will be successful only if it proceeds piecemeal instead of all at once. It is for this reason that forms from traditional un-self-conscious cultures, molded not by designers but by the slow pattern of changes within tradition, are so beautifully organized and adapted. When the designer, in our own self-conscious culture, is called on to create a form that is adapted to its context he is unsuccessful, because the preconceived categories out of which he builds his picture of the problem do not correspond to the inherent components of the problem, and therefore lead only to the arbitrariness, willfulness, and lack of understanding which plague the design of modern buildings and modern cities. In the second part, Mr. Alexander presents a method by which the designer may bring his full creative imagination into play, and yet avoid the traps of irrelevant preconception. He shows that, whenever a problem is stated, it is possible to ignore existing concepts and to create new concepts, out of the structure of the problem itself, which do correspond correctly to what he calls the subsystems of the adaptive process. By treating each of these subsystems as a separate subproblem, the designer can translate the new concepts into form. The form, because of the process, will be well-adapted to its context, non-arbitrary, and correct. The mathematics underlying this method, based mainly on set theory, is fully developed in a long appendix. Another appendix demonstrates the application of the method to the design of an Indian village.

Notes on the Synthesis of Form

Notes on the Synthesis of Form PDF Author: Christopher Alexander
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674627512
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book

Book Description
"These notes are about the process of design: the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function." This book, opening with these words, presents an entirely new theory of the process of design. In the first part of the book, Christopher Alexander discusses the process by which a form is adapted to the context of human needs and demands that has called it into being. He shows that such an adaptive process will be successful only if it proceeds piecemeal instead of all at once. It is for this reason that forms from traditional un-self-conscious cultures, molded not by designers but by the slow pattern of changes within tradition, are so beautifully organized and adapted. When the designer, in our own self-conscious culture, is called on to create a form that is adapted to its context he is unsuccessful, because the preconceived categories out of which he builds his picture of the problem do not correspond to the inherent components of the problem, and therefore lead only to the arbitrariness, willfulness, and lack of understanding which plague the design of modern buildings and modern cities. In the second part, Mr. Alexander presents a method by which the designer may bring his full creative imagination into play, and yet avoid the traps of irrelevant preconception. He shows that, whenever a problem is stated, it is possible to ignore existing concepts and to create new concepts, out of the structure of the problem itself, which do correspond correctly to what he calls the subsystems of the adaptive process. By treating each of these subsystems as a separate subproblem, the designer can translate the new concepts into form. The form, because of the process, will be well-adapted to its context, non-arbitrary, and correct. The mathematics underlying this method, based mainly on set theory, is fully developed in a long appendix. Another appendix demonstrates the application of the method to the design of an Indian village.

Notes on the Synthesis of Form

Notes on the Synthesis of Form PDF Author: Christopher Alexander
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674251911
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
“These notes are about the process of design: the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function.” This book, opening with these words, presents an entirely new theory on the process of design.

A Pattern Language

A Pattern Language PDF Author: Christopher Alexander
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190050357
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books 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, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language. 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 of 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. At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. "Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.

Jordan Canonical Form

Jordan Canonical Form PDF Author: Steven Weintraub
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031023986
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Jordan Canonical Form (JCF) is one of the most important, and useful, concepts in linear algebra. The JCF of a linear transformation, or of a matrix, encodes all of the structural information about that linear transformation, or matrix. This book is a careful development of JCF. After beginning with background material, we introduce Jordan Canonical Form and related notions: eigenvalues, (generalized) eigenvectors, and the characteristic and minimum polynomials. We decide the question of diagonalizability, and prove the Cayley-Hamilton theorem. Then we present a careful and complete proof of the fundamental theorem: Let V be a finite-dimensional vector space over the field of complex numbers C, and let T : V → V be a linear transformation. Then T has a Jordan Canonical Form. This theorem has an equivalent statement in terms of matrices: Let A be a square matrix with complex entries. Then A is similar to a matrix J in Jordan Canonical Form, i.e., there is an invertible matrix P and a matrix J in Jordan Canonical Form with A = PJP-1. We further present an algorithm to find P and J, assuming that one can factor the characteristic polynomial of A. In developing this algorithm we introduce the eigenstructure picture (ESP) of a matrix, a pictorial representation that makes JCF clear. The ESP of A determines J, and a refinement, the labeled eigenstructure picture (lESP) of A, determines P as well. We illustrate this algorithm with copious examples, and provide numerous exercises for the reader. Table of Contents: Fundamentals on Vector Spaces and Linear Transformations / The Structure of a Linear Transformation / An Algorithm for Jordan Canonical Form and Jordan Basis

The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth

The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth PDF Author: Christopher Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 526

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Book Description
Christoper Alexander's always controversial work raises issues critical to regenerating the environment and creating a new culture for building--and rebuilding--our cities, neighborhoods, buildings, and gardens. Demonstrates the application of Alexander's theories and methods to a large-scale project and shows how architecture can bring life to a community. The creative processes described in the book are for anyone who designs, builds, shapes, repairs, or otherwise modifies the built environment.

Chemical Solution Synthesis for Materials Design and Thin Film Device Applications

Chemical Solution Synthesis for Materials Design and Thin Film Device Applications PDF Author: Soumen Das
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 012823170X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 748

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Book Description
Chemical Solution Synthesis for Materials Design and Thin Film Device Applications presents current research on wet chemical techniques for thin-film based devices. Sections cover the quality of thin films, types of common films used in devices, various thermodynamic properties, thin film patterning, device configuration and applications. As a whole, these topics create a roadmap for developing new materials and incorporating the results in device fabrication. This book is suitable for graduate, undergraduate, doctoral students, and researchers looking for quick guidance on material synthesis and device fabrication through wet chemical routes. Provides the different wet chemical routes for materials synthesis, along with the most relevant thin film structured materials for device applications Discusses patterning and solution processing of inorganic thin films, along with solvent-based processing techniques Includes an overview of key processes and methods in thin film synthesis, processing and device fabrication, such as nucleation, lithography and solution processing

Community and Privacy

Community and Privacy PDF Author: Serge Chermayeff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture, Domestic
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description


Structure and Synthesis

Structure and Synthesis PDF Author: Mark Fell
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1913029956
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
An anthology of pioneer sound artist Mark Fell's work charting his defiantly unorthodox thinking on time, structure, technology, and the relation between academic and popular electronic music. In this extensive anthology, Mark Fell, a pioneering artist known for his sound installations and his musical work solo and as part of SND and Sensate Focus, assembles a collection of diverse materials charting his defiantly unorthodox thinking on time, structure, technology, and the relation between academic and popular electronic music. An amalgam of workbook and manifesto, featuring a collection of interleaved statements, diagrammatic scores, and instructional texts, Structure and Synthesis is a direct engagement with Fell's original thinking and his continual provocations in regard to "experimental" music. Alongside reflections on theory and practice, the volume includes exercises for dismantling musical expertise, habits, and intuitions, documenting Fell's explorations of the peripheries of rhythm, shape, and time in perception and performance. Long-term collaborator designer Joe Gilmore provides a striking graphic context for Fell's evolving thinking and the methods and structures he has developed through his solo and collaborative work.

Basic Neurochemistry

Basic Neurochemistry PDF Author: Scott Brady
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0080959016
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1120

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Book Description
Basic Neurochemistry: Principles of Molecular, Cellular, and Medical Neurobiology, the outstanding and comprehensive classic text on neurochemistry, is now newly updated and revised in its Eighth Edition. For more than forty years, this text has been the worldwide standard for information on the biochemistry of the nervous system, serving as a resource for postgraduate trainees and teachers in neurology, psychiatry, and basic neuroscience, as well as for medical, graduate, and postgraduate students and instructors in the neurosciences. The text has evolved, as intended, with the science. It is also an excellent source of current information on basic biochemical and cellular processes in brain function and neurological diseases for continuing medical education and qualifying examinations. This text continues to be the standard reference and textbook for exploring the translational nature of neuroscience, bringing basic and clinical neuroscience together in one authoritative volume. Our book title reflects the expanded attention to these links between neurochemistry and neurologic disease. This new edition continues to cover the basics of neurochemistry as in the earlier editions, along with expanded and additional coverage of new research from: Intracellular trafficking; Stem cells, adult neurogenesis, regeneration; Lipid messengers; Expanded coverage of all major neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders; Neurochemistry of addiction; Neurochemistry of pain; Neurochemistry of hearing and balance; Neurobiology of learning and memory; Sleep; Myelin structure, development, and disease; Autism; and Neuroimmunology. Completely updated text with new authors and material, and many entirely new chapters Over 400 fully revised figures in splendid color 61 chapters covering the range of cellular, molecular and medical neuroscience Translational science boxes emphasizing the connections between basic and clinical neuroscience Companion website at http://elsevierdirect.com/companions/9780123749475

Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts

Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts PDF Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 9781855840577
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
8 lectures plus extracts and notes (CW 286) This collection introduces Rudolf Steiner's vision of architecture as a culmination of the arts. Such architecture unites sculpture, painting, and engraving as well as drama, music and dance--a vital synthesis of all the arts working in cooperation through the common ideal of awakening us to our individuality and task in life. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Steiner's ideas did not remain abstract. Within his lifetime he was able to design and construct a number of buildings, including his architectural masterpiece, the Goetheanum--a center for culture and arts near Basle, Switzerland. In these lectures Steiner describes, with reference to the Goetheanum, the importance of an architecturally coherent and integrated community, and how this in turn affects social unity and harmony. These lectures offer a panorama of the development of architecture in parallel with the emerging human soul in human evolution. This is a valuable collection for all students of architecture, the arts, social science, and those looking for a deeper spiritual understanding of the art of architecture. Includes eight color plates and 30 black & white illustrations. CONTENTS: Part One: The Temple Is the Human Being An Art & Architecture that Reveal the Underlying Wholeness of Creation The Task of Modern Art & Architecture Proposals for the Architecture of a Model Anthroposophical Community at Dornach Part Two: Ways to a New Style of Architecture True Artistic Creation Art As the Creation of Organs through which the Gods Speak to Us A New Concept of Architecture The Aesthetic Laws of Form The Creative World of Color Appendix: The Evolution of Architecture at the Turn of Each New Millennium Notes & Color Plates Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts is a translation from German of Wege zu einem neuen Baustil. "Und der Bau wird Mensch"