--- product_id: 55133326 title: "A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction: 2 (Center for Environmental Structure Series)" price: "AED 384" currency: AED in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.ae/products/55133326-a-pattern-language-towns-buildings-construction-2-center-for-environmental store_origin: AE region: United Arab Emirates --- # A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction: 2 (Center for Environmental Structure Series) **Price:** AED 384 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction: 2 (Center for Environmental Structure Series) - **How much does it cost?** AED 384 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ae](https://www.desertcart.ae/products/55133326-a-pattern-language-towns-buildings-construction-2-center-for-environmental) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## 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. Review: Enlightening and Practical - I've just bought the 10th copy of this book.......Someone gave it to me more than 10 yrs ago, recommending it as their favorite book - and I find that I read and re-read it all the time and I'm always recommending it and sending it to people. Whether youre interested in architecture or not this is a fascinating book, its written in very short chapters that cross reference and link up back and forwards across the book meaning that every time you pick it up you follow a different thread, sometimes into the realms of town planning and sometimes into hand building your own house and all points in-between. Christopher Alexander introduces us to a wide variety of the simple formulas that make a house into an excellent living space and demonstrates why some interior spaces are successful and why some fail. It's both enlightening and practical, I highly recommend it. Review: A little treasure - Bought this book on a recommendation from a friend as I am in the process of designing a self-build house. I'm so glad I read this. Despite the fact that it was written in the 70's, it is still full of relevant, practical, thought provoking and wonderful advice and ideas for anyone involved in building design. All the advice is focused on making the spaces where we live better for us and not about making design statements. Loved the unusual structure of the book, the ratings for each of the "patterns" and the surprisingly poetic way it is written. What I really appreciated is great design advice about things I couldn't find in any of the self-build magazines, for example, where to put your building on your plot to the best height for your window sills. ## Features - Oxford University Press USA ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | 35,929 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 3,867 in Arts & Photography (Books) 6,360 in Social Sciences (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 964 Reviews | ## Images ![A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction: 2 (Center for Environmental Structure Series) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61DirDeK3tL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enlightening and Practical *by L***Y on 25 September 2015* I've just bought the 10th copy of this book.......Someone gave it to me more than 10 yrs ago, recommending it as their favorite book - and I find that I read and re-read it all the time and I'm always recommending it and sending it to people. Whether youre interested in architecture or not this is a fascinating book, its written in very short chapters that cross reference and link up back and forwards across the book meaning that every time you pick it up you follow a different thread, sometimes into the realms of town planning and sometimes into hand building your own house and all points in-between. Christopher Alexander introduces us to a wide variety of the simple formulas that make a house into an excellent living space and demonstrates why some interior spaces are successful and why some fail. It's both enlightening and practical, I highly recommend it. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A little treasure *by D***4 on 16 July 2012* Bought this book on a recommendation from a friend as I am in the process of designing a self-build house. I'm so glad I read this. Despite the fact that it was written in the 70's, it is still full of relevant, practical, thought provoking and wonderful advice and ideas for anyone involved in building design. All the advice is focused on making the spaces where we live better for us and not about making design statements. Loved the unusual structure of the book, the ratings for each of the "patterns" and the surprisingly poetic way it is written. What I really appreciated is great design advice about things I couldn't find in any of the self-build magazines, for example, where to put your building on your plot to the best height for your window sills. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I highly recommend either grabbing a copy of this or looking through ... *by A***R on 15 March 2017* If you're studying architecture, I highly recommend either grabbing a copy of this or looking through it in the library. I found it useful for a studio project to use this as my starting point. ## Frequently Bought Together - A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series) - The Timeless Way of Building - The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.ae/products/55133326-a-pattern-language-towns-buildings-construction-2-center-for-environmental](https://www.desertcart.ae/products/55133326-a-pattern-language-towns-buildings-construction-2-center-for-environmental) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Arab Emirates* *Store origin: AE* *Last updated: 2026-06-04*