A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
SKU: 41978373671

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

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A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, ConstructionYou 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

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.


Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 08/25/1977
ISBN: 9780195019193
Pages: 1216
Weight: 2.13lbs
Size: 8.03h x 5.65w x 1.82d

Review Citations: Newsweek 03/24/2008 pg. 16
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SKU: 41978373671

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Joel Monterrey
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★★★★★ 5
Foams well, smells good, rinses off nicely, perfect!
Scent: Eucalyptus, Size: 12 Fl Oz (Pack of 1)
Oh five stars easily! I bought some other brand, starts with an M, but no foam! Nothing! Then I ordered this one hoping it would at the very least be foamy. It is, and it smells wonderful, and it cleans hands perfectly. It also rinses off well. FIVE STAR! I will be buying all of these! The lavender is probably my favorite scent, The Satsuma & Eucalyptus is excellent too, and I will be ordered others when they are available.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2026
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Gaffe0880
Omaha, US
★★★★★ 5
Cleans without any harsh fragrance or residue
Scent: Fragrance Free, Size: 12 Fl Oz (Pack of 1)
I got tired of other overly-scented hand soaps and decided to give this a try. It works well for a quick wash after using the toilet and when you're hands are really dirty. It rinses off easily and quickly. While it's unscented, it does have a smell - it's hard to describe, sort of like a bleach-clean scent but, it definitely does NOT smell like bleach. It just smells "clean." Since it's in the bathroom, it also gets used to clean up some other adult things. Since it isn't scented and doesn't leave any residue it's perfect for things that are in close contact with sensitive areas.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2026
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R. Blair
Birmingham, US
★★★★★ 5
Smells nice, foams up. Really good.
Scent: Lavender, Size: 64 Fl Oz (Pack of 1)
Good price, got it for a backup in case we run out of the stuff we normally use. It smells pretty good actually.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2026
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Diego & Natalie
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★★★★★ 4
Good smelling soap!
Scent: Lavender, Size: 12 Fl Oz (Pack of 1)
Smells great and is gentle on the hands. No artificial colors and no leaks! It smells good and is a good price! The pump works very well, overall am very happy with this soap!
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Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2026
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AmyFranklySpeaking
Natrona Heights, US
★★★★★ 5
Must Use FOAMING SOAP BOTTLE for this soap & you will Love it!
Scent: Fragrance Free, Size: 64 Fl Oz (Pack of 1)
I have been using this soap refill for years and love it. I also use the scented versions when this is out of stock and they are not very strong scent. But if you prefer no fragrance, then this is a great soap. Many reviewers are complaining it is watery and thin. YES, IT IS. It is SUPPOSED to be. If you don't know how foaming soap works, you do need a couple pumps of foaming soap but you are using a fraction of the amount of soap you would use (aka WASTE) with standard soap. Have you ever seen your kid pump soap in the bathroom? Not once, or twice, but three or four times? Well, they can do that with this soap and not waste it because it's half air in each pump. It's SUPPOSED to be for foaming hand soap. Don't get fooled by your costly regular or foaming soap. Buy this and have clean hands and SAVE money! My family has very sensitive skin and nobody gets rough, red hands from this soap. No problems. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THESE FOAMING SOAP DISPENSERS FOR THIS PRODUCT: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PVFXSVC/ref=sbl_dpx_bath-accessories-countertop-soap-dispensers_B07Z8J57J7_0?th=1 UPDATE ON REVIEW (August 2020): I recently just ordered this item and it was delivered with new packaging. I thought it was the same product, but it seems to have additional ingredients now including alcohol. Hm. Need to look closer into this and will update when figure out what has changed. UPDATE ON INGREDIENTS (October 2020): The new formula is now showing the ingredients. It has changed. A lot. One ingredient that was removed is PHENOXYETHANOL which is GREAT they removed that! However, if they only removed that, then this would be an amazingly safe hand soap (by EWG standards it would be golden). However, it is a completely different soap with a completely different list of ingredients. I will wait until the EWG rates these ingredients before continuing to purchase this. As other reviewers have noted, it does now have "fragrance" in the ingredients - and misleadingly states "(natural)" next to the word fragrance, which means absolutely nothing in terms of what is allowed and what is not. Do your research on what the word "fragrance" means on labels and what could possibly be in your product under that ingredient. In addition it now does have alcohol in it, which some may like, however I don't think soap needs it. If you are washing, you don't need to sanitize anything. It's overkill ingredient - not needed and dries your hands out.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2020

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