Charles Knevitt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles Knevitt

Charles Knevitt (born of British parents in Dayton, Ohio, USA, on 10 August 1952, died 14 March
2016)[1] was a British journalist, author, broadcaster, curator and playwright, and former Architecture
Correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph (1980–84) and The Times (1984–91).[2] In 2016 he was
made an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA for his contribution to architecture.[3]
In 1975 he coined the term 'community architecture'[4][5] in an article in Building Design, and later
wrote the definitive book on the subject for Penguin, with co-author Nick Wates (1987);[2] it was
reissued in the Routledge Revivals series (2013).
As Director of the RIBA Trust (2004–11) he was responsible for bringing the first major exhibition on
Le Corbusier in a generation to Liverpool and London; and loaned original work by Palladio in the
RIBA Drawings Collection to touring exhibitions in Europe and the US.
In 2012–13 he performed his one-man show, 'Le Corbusier's Women', in London and New York.[6] In
2008 Knevitt was named by Design Week as one of the 'Hot 50' making a difference in design.[7]

Contents
[hide]

 1Television
 2Books
 3RIBA Trust
o 3.1Director of the RIBA Trust
o 3.2Le Corbusier Exhibition and season
o 3.3Palladio Touring Exhibitions
 4Other Exhibitions
 5One-Man Show
 6Honorary Positions
 7Bibliography
 8Other Publications
 9Recent Papers
 10Alma Mater
 11References
Television[edit]
In the mid-1980s he popularised coverage of contemporary architecture on television with the ‘Our
London’ viewers’ poll of modern buildings for Thames Television (1984), to coincide with the 150th
anniversary celebrations of the Royal Institute of British Architects and its Festival of Architecture.
The following year (1985) he was consultant on the six-part Anglia Television series for Channel 4,
‘Space on Earth’ and wrote the accompanying book.[8] In 1987 he was the writer and presenter of an
award-winning Granada Television programme in its 'New North' series.

Books[edit]
He was the author/editor of 12 books. Among them is the Top 20 best-seller, One's Life
(1988);[9] Perspectives,(1986);[10] and Shelter,(1994; US edition 1996).[11] The last of these raised
more than £100,000 for Shelter – The National Campaign for Homeless People.

RIBA Trust[edit]
Director of the RIBA Trust[edit]
Between 2004 and 2011 he was Director of the RIBA Trust, managing the cultural assets and
delivering the public outreach programme of the Royal Institute of British Architects.[12] The Trust
included the British Architectural Library, more than four million items based at the RIBA and the
Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A); the permanent Architecture Gallery at the V&A; the annual RIBA
Stirling Prize for Architecture, broadcast live on Channel 4 and later BBC2, with Kevin McCloud; the
Royal Gold Medal and Honorary Fellowships; exhibitions; talks; and development.[13]
Le Corbusier Exhibition and season[edit]
He was UK Director of the Vitra Design Museum travelling exhibition, 'Le Corbusier – The Art of
Architecture'[14] and season in Venice (Biennale), Liverpool (European Capital of Culture) and London
(V&A, Barbican Art Gallery, RIBA and the Architectural Association), 2008–09.
Palladio Touring Exhibitions[edit]
There were also two touring Palladio exhibitions, based on original work in the RIBA Drawings
Collection, in Europe (with the Royal Academy)and the USA.

Other Exhibitions[edit]
He curated several exhibitions in London, most recently 'Lifelines' at the European Commission's 12
Star Gallery (2012), with Emma Flynn and Cassandra Tsolakis;[15] and in Malta, 'Richard England –
Architect and Artist' for the Bank of Valletta (2013).[16] The catalogue introduction was written
by Renzo Piano.

One-Man Show[edit]
In 2012 he wrote and performed his one-man show, 'Le Corbusier's Women', which premiered at
Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, and subsequently performed it at Chelsea Arts Club, London, and
Bowery Poetry Club, New York (2013).[6] It is currently in development as a musical with Peter
Manning, Concertmaster at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and will be premiered at the
Edinburgh International Festival Fringe (2014).[17]

Honorary Positions[edit]
 Honorary Fellowship, Royal Institute of British Architects[18]
 Patron, Invisible Structures, with Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter Carter[19]
 Ambassador, Chelsea Arts Club Trust[20]
 Chairman, Swiss Cultural Fund in Britain (now UK), 2007-14[21]
 DCMS Working Party on the first UK City of Culture, 2013 (awarded to Londonderry)
 Co-Founder, First Wednesdays, Chelsea Arts Club
 Honorary Secretary, The Times/RIBA Community Enterprise Awards, under the patronage of
HRH The Prince of Wales[22]
 Honorary Treasurer, The Architecture Club; International Building Press (UK)

Walter Segal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Apartment building, Knightsbridge, 1957

Walter Segal building at Surrey Docks Farm

Walter Segal (1907–1985) was an architect who developed a system of self-build housing,
the Segal self-build method. Based on traditional timber frame methods modified to use standard
modern materials, his method eliminates the need for wet trades such as bricklaying and plastering,
resulting in a light-weight method which can be built with minimal experience and is ecologically
 sound. The roofs tend to be flat with many layers of roofing felt, which allows the creation of grass-
covered roofs. Foundations are minimal, often just paving slabs, the strength coming from the
geometry of their construction. Segal houses have been compared to traditional Japanese houses.[1]

Contents
[hide]

 1Early life
 2The little house in the garden
 3Legacy
 4References
 5Bibliography
 6External links

Early life[edit]
Segal was born in 1907 and grew up in Berlin, Germany, as the son of the Romanian Jewish
painter Arthur Segal,[2] but spent the time of the First World War in Ascona, Switzerland close to an
alternative community called Monte Verità (McKean: 1988). Walter Segal studied architecture
among the pioneers of the Modern Movement in Berlin and Delft, Netherlands,[3] and received his
first commission in 1932 from a patron of his father, Bernhard Mayer, to build a small wooden
holiday cabin in Ascona.
He moved to London, UK in 1936 where he met and eventually married Eva Bradt, a student at
the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He taught at the school, wrote in trade journals,
published a couple of books and had a few small architectural commissions. They lived in Highgate,
London, and their son, John, was born in 1948.[2] By then Segal had built his first main building,
which was a block of flats in south London. Eva died in 1950.

The little house in the garden[edit]

In 1963 Segal married Moran Scott, who also lived in Highgate. To gain more living space, they
eventually demolished and rebuilt Scott's house. They built a temporary structure in the garden using
standard cladding materials and with no foundations other than paving slabs. It took two weeks to
build and cost £800. This house, dubbed the "Little House in the Garden",[4] roused considerable
interest and led to a number of commissions using a similar style around the country. As the system
developed the clients were able to do more and more of the building themselves.
In the 1970s Lewisham Borough Council made three small sites, unsuitable for mainstream housing,
available for people to build their own homes using the method. Due to the success of these a fourth
site was later made available.[5]

Legacy[edit]
After his death in 1985 the Walter Segal Self Build Trust was set up, and his methods have gained in
popularity. A Segal house at the Centre for Alternative Technology has helped in spreading the
system. At least six of these buildings and schemes have won awards, ranging from the prestigious
Housing Project Design Award to Green Building of the Year. The dry-trade construction used in
Segal method houses allowed such a building in London, constructed in 1988 and by 2012
scheduled for demolition, to be dismantled and re-erected on a new site.[6]
Byker Wall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Byker Wall

Tom Collins House, Byker Wall Estate

Byker Wall

Byker Wall shown within Tyne and Wear

OS grid reference NZ270645

 54.975°N 1.578°WCoordinates: 54.975°N
Coordinates
1.578°W

List of places

UK

England

Tyne and Wear

The Byker Wall is the name given to a long, unbroken block of 620 maisonettes in the Byker district
of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. They were designed by architect Ralph Erskine and constructed
in the 1970s. The wall is just part of the estate, which, in total, covers 200 acres.[1]

Contents
[hide]

 1Design and construction

 2Refurbishment
 3Byker Community Trust
 4Awards and recognition
 5Notable residents
 6References
 7External links

Design and construction[edit]

The Wall, along with the low rise dwellings built to its south, replaced Victorian slum terraced
housing. There were nearly 1200 houses on the site at Byker. They had been condemned as unfit
for human habitation in 1953, but demolition did not begin until 1966.[2]
The new housing block was designed by the notable architect Ralph Erskine assisted by executive
architect Vernon Gracie. Design began in 1968[2] and construction took place between 1969 and
1982.[3] The architects opened an office on site to develop communication and trust between the
existing residents. Existing buildings were to be demolished as the new accommodation was built.[2]
The new high-rise block was designed to shield the site from an intended motorway (which
eventually was never built).[2] Construction materials for Byker Wall were relatively
cheap, concrete, brick and timber. Surfaces were treated with bright colours, while brick bandings
were used on the 'Wall' to indicate floor levels.[2]
Its Functionalist Romantic styling with textured, complex facades, colourful brick, wood and plastic
panels, attention to context, and relatively low-rise construction represented a major break with
the Brutalist high-rise architectural orthodoxy of the time.[4]
Following completion, less than 20% of the original local residents were housed at Byker Wall.[5]

Refurbishment[edit]
Refurbishment of the whole estate was commenced in partnership with Your Homes Newcastle
(YHN), the social housing arm of Newcastle City Council. The work was undertaken by Mansell, a
division of Balfour Beatty. The work involved careful reinstatement of original features and colour
schemes, using modernised materials where possible, while retaining the look and feel of the 1970s
design scheme. For example, a new coloured aluminium window frame was designed to allow for
improved security and insulation, without compromising the visual impact of the buildings. The most
recent phase of this was completed in June 2008. A bid for PFI funding from the Homes and
Communities Agency (to the value of £80 million) was sought in June 2009 to fund the project, which
was estimated to cost £210 million, but was rejected as it did not meet the criteria; subsequent
negotiations with the Department for Communities and Local Government led to the creation of the
Byker Community Trust in 2012.
A two-year refubishment programme with a budget of £26 million began in April 2014. New roofs,
doors and windows will be installed and the estate will be repainted in line with the original colour
scheme.[6]

Byker Community Trust[edit]

The Byker Community Trust (‘BCT’) was incorporated in September 2011 under the Industrial and
Provident Society Act 1965 with charitable objectives. BCT is also a ‘registered provider’ of social
housing.[7]
In July 2012 a stock transfer from Newcastle City Council was completed[8] and BCT became the
owner of 1,800 properties.[9] The creation of BCT has had the support of Newcastle City
Council,[10] the Homes and Communities Agency and English Heritage.[11] The proposal for the stock
transfer was also supported by the tenants of the estate who voted in favour of the transfer in a
ballot in June/July 2011.[citation needed]
The government wrote off the historic debt associated with the Estate which enabled BCT to secure
funding from the Yorkshire Building Society (a loan facility of up to £12m over the next 5 years).[citation
needed]

The vision of BCT is ‘to secure for the Byker Estate high quality sustainable housing and services,
where people want to live and work with a sense of pride in their homes and communities.[citation needed]

Awards and recognition[edit]

In 2013, Bolam Coyne won the Royal Institute Chartered Surveyors award for Best North East
Regeneration Project of the Year.
In 2003 the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced a proposal to award the Byker
estate, of which the Wall forms a part, a Grade II listed rating as an example of outstanding
architecture. In January 2007, the Estate became a grade II* listed building (grade two star).[3]
Its innovative and visionary design has earned it many awards notably the Civic Trust
Awards,[12] the Eternit Award, the Ambrose Congreve Award for Housing (in 1980), and the Veronica
Rudge Green Prize for Urban Design from Harvard University.[13] The Wall has also been placed
on UNESCO's list of outstanding twentieth century buildings.[14]
In 1988 Byker Wall was featured in an episode of Building Sights presented by writer Beatrix
Campbell, who compared the development to a pomegranate. [15]
The Byker estate received a Grade II* heritage listing in 2007, citing its "groundbreaking design...
influential across Europe" and its “pioneering... approach to public participation".[5]

Christopher Alexander
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses of the name, see Christopher Alexander (disambiguation).

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Christopher Alexander

Christopher Alexander in 2012

Born Christopher Wolfgang Alexander

October 4, 1936 (age 81)

Vienna, Austria

Nationality American

Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge

Harvard University (Ph.D)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

University of California, Berkeley

Occupation Architect

Awards Vincent Scully Prize

Christopher Wolfgang Alexander (born 4 October 1936 in Vienna, Austria)[1][2] is a widely

influential architect and design theorist, and currently emeritus professor at the University of
California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields
 beyond architecture, including urban design, software, sociology and others.[3] Alexander has
designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor.[4][5]
In software, Alexander is regarded as the father of the pattern language movement. The first wiki—
the technology behind Wikipedia—led directly from Alexander's work, according to its creator, Ward
Cunningham.[6][7][8] Alexander's work has also influenced the development of agile software
development.[8]
In architecture, Alexander's work is used by a number of different contemporary architectural
communities of practice, including the New Urbanistmovement, to help people to reclaim control
over their own built environment.[9] However, Alexander is controversial among some mainstream
architects and critics, in part because his work is often harshly critical of much of contemporary
architectural theory and practice.[10]
Alexander is known for many books on the design and building process, including Notes on the
Synthesis of Form, A City is Not a Tree (first published as a paper and recently re-published in book
form), The Timeless Way of Building, A New Theory of Urban Design, and The Oregon
Experiment. More recently he published the four-volume The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art
of Building and the Nature of the Universe,about his newer theories of "morphogenetic" processes,
and The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth, about the implementation of his theories in a
large building project in Japan. All his works are developed or accumulated from his previous works,
so his works should be read as a whole rather than fragmented pieces. His life's work or the best of
his works is The Nature of Order on which he spent about 30 years, and the very first version of The
Nature of Order was done in 1981, one year before this famous debate with Peter Eisenman in
Harvard.
Alexander is perhaps best known for his 1977 book A Pattern Language, a perennial seller some
four decades after publication.[11] Reasoning that users are more sensitive to their needs than any
architect could be,[12][13][14] he produced and validated (in collaboration with his students Sara
Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid King, and Shlomo Angel) a "pattern language" to
empower anyone to design and build at any scale.

Contents
[hide]

 1Personal life
 2Education
 3Honors
 4Career
o 4.1Author
o 4.2Works of architecture
o 4.3Teaching
 5Influence
o 5.1Architecture
o 5.2Computer science
o 5.3Religion
o 5.4Design science
o 5.5Complex networks
 6Published works
 7See also
 8References
 9Further reading
 10External links
Personal life[edit]
As a young child Alexander emigrated in fall 1938[15] with his parents from Austria to England, when
his parents were forced to flee the Nazi regime. He spent much of his childhood
in Chichester and Oxford, England, where he began his education in the sciences. He moved from
England to the United States in 1958 to study at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He moved to Berkeley, California in 1963 to accept an appointment as Professor of
Architecture, a position he would hold for almost 40 years. In 2002, after his retirement, Alexander
moved to Arundel, England, where he continues to write, teach and build. Alexander is married to
Margaret Moore Alexander, and he has two daughters, Sophie and Lily, by his former wife Pamela.

Education[edit]
Alexander attended Oundle School, England. In 1954, he was awarded the top open scholarship
to Trinity College, Cambridge University in chemistry and physics, and went on to read mathematics.
He earned a Bachelor's degree in Architecture and a Master's degree in Mathematics. He took his
doctorate at Harvard (the first Ph.D. in Architecture ever awarded at Harvard University), and was
elected fellow at Harvard. During the same period he worked at MIT in transportation theory and
computer science, and worked at Harvard in cognition and cognitive studies.

Honors[edit]
Alexander was elected to the Society of Fellows, Harvard University 1961-64; awarded the First
Medal for Research by the American Institute of Architects, 1972; elected member of the Swedish
Royal Academy, 1980; winner of the Best Building in Japan award, 1985; winner of the ACSA
(Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) Distinguished Professor Award, 1986 and
1987;[16] invited to present the Louis Kahn Memorial Lecture, 1992; awarded the Seaside Prize, 1994;
elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1996;[3] one of the two inaugural
recipients of the Athena Award, given by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), 2006;.
awarded (in absentia) the Vincent Scully Prize by the National Building Museum, 2009; awarded the
lifetime achievement award by the Urban Design Group, 2011; winner of the Global Award for
Sustainable Architecture, 2014.[17]

Works of architecture[edit]
Among Alexander's most notable built works are the Eishin Campus near Tokyo (the building
process of which is outlined in his 2012 book The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth); the
West Dean Visitors Centre [23] in West Sussex, England; the Julian Street Inn (a homeless shelter)
in San Jose, California (both described in Nature of Order); the Sala House and the Martinez House
(experimental houses in Albany and Martinez, California made of lightweight concrete); the low-cost
housing in Mexicali, Mexico (described in The Production of Houses); and several private houses
(described and illustrated in The Nature of Order). Alexander's built work is characterized by a
special quality (which he used to call "the quality without a name", but named "wholeness" in Nature
of Order) that relates to human beings and induces feelings of belonging to the place and structure.
This quality is found in the most loved traditional and historic buildings and urban spaces, and is
precisely what Alexander has tried to capture with his sophisticated mathematical design theories.
Paradoxically, achieving this connective human quality has also moved his buildings away from the
abstract imageability valued in contemporary architecture, and this is one reason why his buildings
are under-appreciated at present.[10]
His former student and colleague Michael Mehaffy wrote an introductory essay on Alexander's built
work in the online publication Katarxis 3, which includes a gallery of Alexander's major built projects
through September 2004.[24]

Teaching[edit]
In addition to his lengthy teaching career at Berkeley (during which a number of international
students began to appreciate and apply his methods), Alexander was a key faculty member at both
The Prince of Wales's Summer Schools in Civil Architecture (1990–1994) and The Prince's
Foundation for the Built Environment.[20]

Influence[edit]
Architecture[edit]
Alexander's work has widely influenced architects; among those who acknowledge his influence
are Sarah Susanka,[25] Andres Duany,[26] and Witold Rybczynski.[27] Robert Campbell, the Pulitzer
Prize-winning architecture critic for the Boston Globe, stated that Alexander "has had an enormous
critical influence on my life and work, and I think that's true of a whole generation of people."[27]
Architecture critic Peter Buchanan, in an essay for The Architectural Review's 2012 campaign The
Big Rethink, argues that Alexander's work as reflected in A Pattern Language is "thoroughly
subversive and forward looking rather than regressive, as so many misunderstand it to be." He
continues:
Even architects not immune to the charms of the places depicted, are loath to pursue the folksy
aesthetic they see as implied and do not want to engage with such primitive construction—although
the systemic collapse now unfolding may force that upon them. The daunting challenge for architects
then, if such a thing is even possible to realise, would be to recreate in a more contemporary idiom
both the richness and quality of experience suggested by the pattern language.[28]
Many urban development projects continue to incorporate Alexander's ideas. For example, in the UK
the developers Living Villages have been highly influenced by Alexander's work and used A Pattern
Language as the basis for the design of The Wintles in Bishops Castle, Shropshire.[29] Sarah
Susanka's "Not So Big House" movement adapts and popularizes Alexander's patterns and outlook.

ELEMENTS OF URBAN DESIGN

Urban Design involves the design and coordination of all that makes up
cities and towns:

Buildings

Buildings are the most pronounced

elements of urban design - they shape
and articulate space by forming the
streetwalls of the city. Well designed
buildings and groups of buildings work
together to create a sense of place.

Public Space

Great public spaces are the living room

of the city - the place where people
come together to enjoy the city and
each other. Public spaces make high
quality life in the city possible - they
form the stage and backdrop to the
drama of life. Public spaces range
from grand central plazas and squares,
to small, local neighborhood parks.

Streets

Streets are the connections between

spaces and places, as well as being
spaces themselves. They are defined
by their physical dimension and
character as well as the size, scale, and
character of the buildings that line
them. Streets range from grand
avenues such as the Champs-Elysees in
Paris to small, intimate pedestrian
streets. The pattern of the street
network is part of what defines a city
and what makes each city unique.

Transport

Transport systems connect the parts of

cities and help shape them, and enable
movement throughout the city. They
include road, rail, bicycle, and
pedestrian networks, and together form
the total movement system of a
city. The balance of these various
transport systems is what helps define
the quality and character of cities, and
makes them either friendly or hostile to
pedestrians. The best cities are the
ones that elevate the experience of the
pedestrian while minimizing the
dominance of the private automobile.

Landscape

The landscape is the green part of the

city that weaves throughout - in the
form of urban parks, street trees,
plants, flowers, and water in many
forms. The landscape helps define the
character and beauty of a city and
creates soft, contrasting spaces and
elements. Green spaces in cities range
from grand parks such as Central Park
in New York City and the Washington
DC Mall, to small intimate pocket
parks.

Urban Design weaves together these elements into a coherent,

organized design structure

PARIS BATH ROME

The urban design structure defines the urban form and the building
form
 PARIS BATH ROME

The creative articulation of space is the

most prominent aspect of urban
design. The following artistic principles
are an integral part of creating form and
spatial definition:

order

unity

balance

proportion

scale

hierarchy

symmetry

rhythm

contrast

context

detail

texture

harmony

beauty