A Preliminary Analysis On Alexander's Space Research In "A Pattern Language"

This dissertation is a part of a serial space researches supervised by Professor Wang Lifang. It tries to dig out Alexander's methods and favors when he conducts his space researches. By a preliminary analysis throughout the whole 253 patterns, this dissertation first finds out three space characters Alexander emphasizes the most: the scale, the relationship and the boundary.During the scale research, Alexander splits the concept of"human"into"physical measurement","behavior habit"and"mental feeling". He always selects the best fit one according to different circumstances. The result can be divided into"the precise ones","the relative ones"and"the vague ones".When it comes to the relationship part, Alexander concerns mostly about privacy and publicity. He studies the location and organization of space too. Alexander recommends some semi-private and semi-public space relationship. However, it's based on the acquirement of privacy first. According to him, privacy and publicity are not equal, the previous the priority. Alexander creates three prototypes to form such relationship:"the alcove","the tangent"and"the lifted".The boundaries in Alexander's research can be divided into"clear ones"and"ambiguous ones". It's import because it's the key role forming the"wholeness"in space. Besides, there's no way an organic world will turn up if all the parts own too much independence. Alexander sticks spaces together with"mixture"and"cushion".The space research of Alexander's is fairly unique. It's different from Francis D. K. Ching and his"Architecture: Form·Space & Order", not sharing too many similarities with Ashihara Yoshinobu's"Exterior Design in Architecture"as well. He stresses human feeling, and he designs with it too. His words are vivid and easily understandable, which makes a firm base for the wide spread of his ideas and designs.