News from Building Beauty
Building Beauty Dispatch #8
Students with their completed ceramic projects.
In the Classroom and Out in the Field
Having completed the ceramic work, stone carving work, and carpet design work in the fall, the students are now working on larger scale design and building projects.
These include the design and construction of a new wooden pergola structure in the Sant’ Anna garden, as well as designing a “House for Oneself” on individual sites in Sorrento. As part of the house design process, each student developed five “jewels” for their project: qualitative elements or patterns that encapsulate the vision of how they want to live in their home (not just a programmatic list of rooms). The students also staked out at 1:1 the overall massing of the houses on their individual sites, and then developed their designs through models and drawings by incorporating the jewels with the massing form that was determined from the stake-outs.
Working on the “House for Oneself” project, the students continue to try to create something with feeling that is personal and meaningful to them, but they are now creating something more architectural and at a larger scale than they were with the ornament projects. This project will also lead into Duo’s international HOME design event coming up in March, where Building Beauty students will join students from the University of Hartford, the University of San Francisco, Alfred State College SUNY, and others from around the world to explore further the deeper meaning of HOME.
Preliminary sketches of “House for Oneself” project, section sketch by Mohit Badre; plan sketch by John Killeen
Invitation to Advisors to Participate in the 2019 HOME Design Event
Duo again invites all Building Beauty Advisors who are interested to sign up to participate as a reviewer for this year’s HOME project. Each advisor will have the opportunity to review 5-6 individual HOME projects by students from all of the institutions involved, as well as listen in on the live initial kick-off lecture and the live final presentation of projects that Duo will present from Sorrento. Key dates include:
March 12 11:00 EST: Rally Cry Live Webcast Introducing the Project
March 15 – April 1: Building Beauty Advisors review preliminary HOME designs
April 12 1:00 EST: We Are HOME: International Live Presentation of HOME Designs
Sign up to be a reviewer and to register for the event by contacting Karen Erickson at kerickson-duos@snet.net.
Also, please pass the word along if you know of any students or others who would like to participate in this world-wide event – all are welcome. More details can be found at the link below:
https://www.buildingbeauty.org/news/2019/2/9/home-live-international-design-event-series
2019 Building Beauty Summer School: Building with Stone in the Italian Alps
This year’s 2-week summer school session runs from May 5-15 and is located in the tiny medieval village of Ghesc in the Ossola Valley at the foot of the Italian Alps. Participants will help to restore this abandoned village, learning how to build and restore structures out of stone. All are welcome to attend; self-reporting continuing education credits are available. See the link for more info and a flyer that can be downloaded. Please spread the word!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4gqtl2p2y19q7v6/Building%20Beauty%20Summer%20School%202019.pdf?dl=0
The medieval village of Ghesc, and an example of the stone work
Nature of Order Book 3: A Vision of a Living World
Building Beauty’s year-long webinar class (Mondays and Thursdays 17:00-18:30 Italian time) led by Yodan Rofè, Susan Ingham, and Chris Andrews, has just embarked on Book 3 with students, visitors, and guest speakers who are speaking about their work as it relates to specific chapters in the book. Sessions on Book 3 will conclude on March 25th. Upcoming guest speakers include Michael Mehaffy, Erik Hancock, Seth Wachtel, Hajo Neis, and Alfred Bay. If you would like to be included in these sessions, or are interested in presenting some of your work as it relates to the readings to the class, please contact Yodan Rofè at yodanr@gmail.com.
Recruiting Students for Fall 2019
Now that we are halfway through the second year of Building Beauty, it is not too soon to start thinking about students for next fall. It is an exciting time as we are currently in the process of forming partnerships with other institutions in the US, in Europe, as well as in Asia, and we hope to have some of those in place for the next academic year.
Thank you all very, very much for your continued support for Building Beauty – we appreciate your continued help in getting the word out about this unique program, and we also very much appreciate any financial support as well.
https://facebook.com/BuildingBeautySorrento/
Twitter @_BuildingBeauty
To Donate: https://www.buildingbeauty.org/acbb
Duo Dickinson Susan Ingham
Goodness of Space as a Matter of Fact - Rather than Opinion
Dr. Bin Jiang will present this tutorial at the 14th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT), in Regensburg, Germany, September 9-13 2019. His session will be held on September 10th.
According to Christopher Alexander, wholeness is defined as a mathematical and physical structure of space that pervasively exists in our surroundings: not only in built environment such as buildings, streets, and cities, but also in art such as artifacts and paintings. This tutorial provides a structural perspective on goodness of space – both large- and small-scale – in order to bridge together the two concepts of space and place through the very concept of wholeness. A space is good – genuinely and objectively – if its adjacent spaces are good, the larger space to which it belongs is good, and what is contained in the space is also good. Eventually, goodness of space is considered a matter of fact rather than of opinion under the new view of space of Alexander: space is neither lifeless nor neutral, but a living structure capable of being more living or less living. Under the new view of space or new cosmology, geography will become part of complexity science for not only understanding complexity, but also making and remaking complex or living structures. To paraphrase Alexander (1983, as cited in Grabow 1983, p. xi) – geography would significantly re-shape our world picture of the 21st and 22nd centuries towards an organic one, just as physics did in the 19th and 20th centuries in framing our mechanistic world view.
HOME: Live International Design Event Series 2019
Duo Dickinson will lead this year’s HOME event beginning March 12, 2019 at 11:00 Eastern Standard Time. To register, send an email to kerickson-duos@snet.net. Tune into live webcasts hosted by Building Beauty in Sorrento, Italy, and the University of Hartford in Connecticut, USA.
The link to access this free online streaming event will be emailed to all registrants in advance of the broadcast at University of Hartford shared with Building Beauty/Sant'Anna Institute, Alfred State College SUNY, University of San Francisco and available to view by anyone, worldwide. The gist:
Duo Dickinson speaks live to assembled students from Hartford, Alfred NY, San Francisco & Sorrento:
The Idea of Home: its universality, its deep idiosyncrasy, its protection, its public face, its intimacy, its dependence on culture and context; the largest clothing we wear, the most expensive thing we may own or pay for, the most valuable asset many of us have and the greatest liability. We are all experts on our own home: its program is of and by and for us:
1) March 12th 11am EST/4 PM Sorrento/ 8am PST 1.5 Hour LIVE! TUNE IN!
A design by each entrant will be
- 70 sq m (750 sq ft)
- on a flat site: but one that exists. It can be urban, rural or any locale.
- no budget consideration
2) INITIAL DESIGN DUE 11:59 pm EST MARCH 15TH (Ides of March!) Sent to duo.dickinson@snet.net Entrants submit a preliminary design in any format you choose, but a single sheet 600 dpi x 600 dpi. Show site, floor plan and exteriors in any way . Your work will then be sent to advisors from around the world for review.
3) PRELIMINARY FEEDBACK will be returned to submitters by APRIL 1st midnight EST (April Fool's Day) from advisors.
4) FINAL SUBMISSION by 9AM EST MONDAY APRIL 8th Sent to duo.dickinson@snet.net
Entrants submit a digital square image 600 dpi x 600 dpi, compiling any and all input, reflecting their preliminary design. The actual submission is digital. You can build a model and take photos of it, or hand draw everything, or use electronic media.
5) WE ARE HOME INTERNATIONAL PRESENTATION: Friday April 12th 1PM EST/7pm Sorrento/10am PST Interactive worldwide session between critics, submitters and reviewers. The link to be online will be emailed at least 8 hours before the broadcast.
Duo Dickinson: Universal Architecture is only Gravity and History
See Duo Dickinson’s November 2018 lecture for the University of Hartford, Connecticut, and Building Beauty in Sorrento here. More lectures to come in the HOME Series 2019.
Building Beauty Dispatch #7: Season's Greetings
Our 2018-19 students on the bench made by our 2017-18 students.
Season’s Greetings from Building Beauty
Building Beauty Dispatch #7, December 13, 2018
As the end of the year approaches, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you very much for your ongoing support of the Building Beauty program. Our second year is in full swing; the students are enthusiastically immersed in learning and making, and are starting to see and understand the world in a new, more integrated way.
Here are a few quotes from our students describing their dreams and aspirations as they began this year’s course:
“The idea of seeing a space through a different lens, also the idea of breaking the wall of restrictions and dreaming of possibilities without any fear…is achieved by Building Beauty.”
Mohit, from India
“I am in pursuit of understanding the concepts of beauty and wholeness in a building, and also to create such experiences in urban areas.”
Anushka, from India
“I am an architectural engineer and natural builder seeking to grow in my understanding of how truly beautiful places are created in this world.”
John, from the USA
“I would like to be part of this program and experience the art of making new and innovative things that can add to the beauty of a place.”
Saakshi, from India
“I feel it would be great if one knows exactly what he is imagining and how it should evolve, and once it does, how it should grow.”
Ankit, from India
“Building Beauty has the methods of teaching and practical work I have been searching for.”
Ishwari, from India
Making
The students begin the program by exploring the process of making in very personal terms on small objects of their choice. The process of “always making centers” is studied first in the context of making something special that is an expression of themselves. Later the lessons learned are applied to making at graduating levels of scale. Again this year, master ceramicist Pasquale Ligouri guided the evolution of pots on the pottery wheel, painting, and the crafting of tiles.
Then, as he did last year, Felice Tagliaferri, a blind sculptor, taught the students to sculpt their personal objects without sight. The purpose was to learn to not only see forms, but also to feel them.
We share a video that was made last year with the students as they worked with Felice as we reflect on our inaugural year and look forward to the year ahead:
The Feeling Hand: https://vimeo.com/258517740
Money Matters
We very much appreciate financial help to keep the promise of this program going, and especially to provide funds for students from less developed countries to attend Building Beauty. For this purpose, we have established the Kyriakos Pontikis Scholarship fund in honor of our late colleague. Please feel free to donate any amount to the fund, or to Building Beauty in general at this link:
Warmest wishes from us to you for a wonderful holiday season and a bright and beautiful new year!
2018-19 Session is of Building Beauty is Underway
A new academic year has begun at Building Beauty in beautiful Sorrento, Italy. We are excited to welcome the students for another year of learning, designing, and making! In addition to the regular academic program for the students, Building Beauty is also offering short mini-courses and workshops for professionals. This includes our summer school (May 5-15, 2019) in the Ossola Valley at the foot of the Italian Alps.
We would love to have you come and spend some time with us and the Building Beauty students. Or, you can also sign up for the online Nature of Order course that we are offering remotely. It is not too late to sign up, so if you are interested, or know someone who is, please read more here, and send us an email at hello@buildingbeauty.org .
www.buildingbeauty.org/continuing-professional-development-and-mini-courses/
This year we have students from India and the US. They have settled in quickly and are hard at work with learning about their surroundings in the coastal region of Sorrento, as well the practice and theory of making with master ceramicist Pascale Ligouri, and architect Chris Andrews.
We are currently in negotiations with several universities to create partnerships for credit and to enroll more students. If you have contacts at institutions who might be interested in joining with Building Beauty to offer this rich learning opportunity to their students, please let us know.
Cost has been one of the limiting factors for student participation, especially for those students coming from developing countries, so we are also increasing our outreach for scholarship help. If you would like to contribute to a scholarship fund, or to Building Beauty in general, please see www.buildingbeauty.org/acbb/ for donation opportunities. One of the scholarship funds is in honor our colleague, Kyriakos Pontikis, who passed away in 2015.
This year Duo Dickinson will be hosting several joint events with Building Beauty and the University of Hartford in Connecticut, USA. This is the first. If you would like to tune into the November 30th session, please contact Karen at kerickson-duos@snet.net.
PUARL Presentation on Building Beauty, October 27, 2018
“Building Beauty: An Innovative Program in Architectural Education” was given by Susan Ingham, Yodan Rofè, Chris Andrews, and Duo Dickinson at the PUARL 10th Anniversary conference in Portland, Oregon. See the whole presentation here.
Tile panel produced by Building Beauty’s 2018-19 class.
Mini Courses, Workshops, Continuing Professional Development at Building Beauty
This year at Building Beauty in Sorrento, Italy, we offer a series of Mini Courses, short Workshops, and Continuing Professional Development opportunities. Please see the events scheduled here. Attendees will work directly with our students, staff and master craftspeople on various aspects of the syllabus. Courses can be tailored to fit individual interests and time limitations by talking with our staff.
To express interest or ask for more information about any of our short courses, please write to us at hello@buildingbeauty.org.
Additional short course offerings will be announced as they are scheduled.
PUARL Conference Agenda October 2018
October 26-28, 2018 Portland, Oregon, USA
To register click here.
Building Beauty featured in Create Streets
Building Beauty is featured in the Create Streets blog at dev.createstreets.com/building-beauty/.
Building Beauty Dispatch #5: BB's International Flavor
A view of the Marina Grande Bay from the Sant’Anna Institute in Sorrento, with the Vesuvio volcano and the city of Naples emerging from the morning mist.
With this edition of Building Beauty Dispatches we would like to thank you for your interest in and support of Building Beauty, which has enjoyed a lot of success in its inaugural year. As it grows and makes its way into different parts of the world, we thought you might like to hear from some educators and professionals who are finding value in its hopeful message: that we can all build beauty that makes a difference in the world.
Munishwar Nath Ashish Ganju and Narendra Dengle are leading the new Asian Advisory Board, which now has representation from India, Nepal, Vietnam, and Turkey. Jim Fuller and his students at the University of Hartford were enthusiastic participants in BB’s HOME event hosted by Duo Dickinson in Hartford and Sorrento. Gina Calabro, the Director of the American Institute of Architecture in Connecticut is also finding BB’s activities attractive to young architects. A few words from them, Olga Stinga, Director of the Sant’Anna Institute; Yodan Rofe, our Program Director; and Sergio Porta, our International Director; follow.
Maggie Moore Alexander, Honorary President
Our students at the University of Hartford were excited and eager to participate in the HOME Design event hosted by Duo Dickinson at Building Beauty this past year. For the coming year we are expanding the HOME program to include more of our students as well as other institutions. We will also build on our relationship with Building Beauty to have our students receive credit for their participation at BB as well as offering BB students an opportunity to complete their M.Arch with us. These exciting new relationships are growing to improve the educational experience of our students through the process of building. While technology is necessary in practice today the act and intimacy of building is more important than ever for our students and the architecture profession.
James E. Fuller, AIA NCARB, Chair of the Department of Architecture, University of Hartford
At the Connecticut Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), we were thrilled to be able display the 2017 HOME Exhibit and to promote Building Beauty and what it conveys. Offering students and young architects a new approach to the process as they find their way in a changing profession is elemental in shaping the future of architecture. We look forward to promoting Building Beauty’s new publications to our emerging professionals as well as showcasing upcoming HOME exhibits to our membership.
Gina Calabro, Executive Director, AIA Connecticut Chapter
The presence of Building Beauty at Sant'Anna has been such a pleasure for the Institute and the rest of the community. Thanks to the works being carried out in our garden by the participants of the Building Beauty, we have come to more profoundly understand the interrelatedness of beauty and practicality. Watching their design transform from an idea to a reality has been inspiring and I am happy to say that the students and their collaborators will leave a lasting mark on our Institute.
Olga Stinga, Director, Sant’Anna Institute, Sorrento, Italy, home of Building Beauty
The Asian Advisory Board (www.buildingbeauty.org/asianab) is constituted to make Building Beauty a reality on the most populous continent on the planet.
Mainstream architectural thought in the last century has brought the planetary eco-systems to a point of crisis, largely as a result of the way we have constructed our built environment in an industrialised world. Asian societies have tried to follow and outdo the industrially developed societies in this regard; but in Asia our ancient values are still a reality for the majority.
The principles of Ecologic Design and Construction Process being promoted by the Post-Graduate Certificate in Architecture launched in Sorrento, Italy in October 2017, offer an alternative to mainstream architectural education which is contributing to further environmental degradation on the planet.
The ancient societies of Asia, closer to old world community forms, may have a better chance of embracing and developing further the efforts of Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Centre for Environmental Structure, who have initiated the Building Beauty program to challenge the status quo in architectural education. The quest for re-discovering the timeless way of building is the mission of the Asian Advisory Board of Building Beauty.
Munishwar Nath Ashish Ganju and Narendra Dengle, Co-Chairs of the Asian Advisory Board
Working with an international group of students
The first class of students at Building Beauty was as diverse as can be. In a group of seven we had students from India, Iran, Slovenia, South Africa, Puerto Rico and the US. They were also diverse in their ages, ranging between mid-twenties and early fifties, less balanced in terms of gender with two women and five men. Some of them were in the middle of their architectural education, others were already experienced professionals.
The learning experience in Building Beauty is very intense. As our own feeling of well-being is the main criteria for the goodness of the spatial configurations we encounter or want to generate, it means that getting in touch with one’s own feelings is a pre-condition for being able to learn and understand the field of centers. Trying to learn what from these feelings can be shared and general, and what are personal or cultural idiosyncrasies, is also of primary importance. Much of the work is done as a group, and involves discussion and being able to let go of pre-conceptions and being open to other solutions that seem more wholesome to the group. Learning to do it step by step, using techniques such as the ‘mirror of the self’ is not easy, particularly when working in a foreign language and a cultural context that is alien to everyone.
In the end, as the saying goes, ‘the proof is in the pudding.’ The success of the project for the Sant’Anna Garden and the built bench, and its acceptance by the staff and students of the Institute, show that the students were able to bridge their differences, and to integrate the form language of Sorrento Gardens. One of the nicest compliments we received about the bench was from a visitor to the Institute who said that the bench seemed as if it has always been there. Yet it is totally unique, it doesn’t copy any particular bench seen in the area – and would not have taken the shape that it has, if it wasn’t for the particular sensibilities and capacities of the group of students who designed and built it together – using the building process they learned in the course.
Yodan Rofè, Course Director, Building Beauty
Being international at Building Beauty
It is a dream, and a strong one. And it is practice, organization, timetables, insurance, finances, contracts, trains to take and classrooms to book. And it is incredible to see that after all the dust is settled, the dream is still there. Not the same dream, but one that is larger and bigger and more colorful. Not as a crystal, not as pure gem, but rather showing all the signs of the fatigue, the astonishment, and the happiness that came forward along the way. A living form of dream, in fact not a dream anymore, but a beautiful real thing that somebody crafted at some point and now sits nicely in the Sant’Anna gardens, along with others talking the same language using different words, built by somebody else at some other point along the way. This is our bench and everybody’s bench. It is only a bench. But it is as glorious as our soul is, as easy as our gesture of sitting there to have a chat with a friend, or just enjoying the silence in the garden for a moment. Everybody’s souls and everybody’s gesture.
This is what it means when we claim that we deliver a program that is international. It goes beyond the different nationalities of those who teach and learn and make everything possible in Sorrento, and beyond the dozens of languages spoken. It is not only because we all talk to each other in English language, with all the funny intonations that reflect our individual stories. It is mostly because what we strive to reach has no national individual border, nor boundaries of religion, race, color, football faith or food preferences. It is not about “preferences” at all, or beliefs or opinions. We strive to get to what makes us who we are as human beings, which only can connect us to each other and, when you are there, actually delivers that so nicely and easily. So effortlessly. So naturally. This is what we are made of, when we are beautiful. Ultimately, it is a choice. We choose to build on our beauty, quite literally. And, as it turns out, that is what beauty is made of – the same structure that makes up us and the land around us, the structure that we and the land share, which for that reason resonates in ourselves and the land alike. Such “resonance” is the beauty that talks the language of our body as much as that of our spirit and the spirit of the land. That language is what we seek and explore, what we practice and investigate every day by making stuff in Sorrento. It takes structure, theory, hands-on hard work and sweat, it takes intellectual ability as much as competence in staying close to our own body and feelings first. But it takes – profoundly it takes – to get past the barriers. That is why our program is international.
Sergio Porta, International Academic Director, Building Beauty
REGISTRATION FOR THE FALL TERM IS OPEN NOW.
Course details are at www.buildingbeauty.org.
Contact hello@buildingbeauty.org to express interest and ask questions.
Call for Papers on New Applications of Christopher Alexander's Work
CALL FOR PAPERS
New Applications and Development of Christopher Alexander’s The Nature of Order
A Special Issue with Urban Science: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/urbansci/special_issues/new_applications_development_nature_order
The work of the architect Christopher Alexander has proven enormously influential, if sometimes controversial, spanning from his early work on Notes on the Synthesis of Form, through his seminal paper “A City is Not a Tree”, to later books A Pattern Language and A New Theory of Urban Design.
His ideas have found remarkable applications in software engineering, communications, management theory, and many other fields. Among the spinoff innovations are design patterns (also known as “pattern languages of programming”), popular software programs like The Sims, platforms like wiki (and Wikipedia), and new methodologies like Agile, Scrum and others.
Later in his career, Alexander devoted over 27 years to his most ambitious work of all: the four-volume magnum opus, The Nature of Order: An essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe (Alexander 2002–2005). In this far-ranging book, Alexander presents an intriguing account of the fundamental phenomenon of order, the processes of creating order, and even a new cosmology – as he describes it, a deeper conception of how the physical universe is put together. The book argues that order in nature is essentially the same as that in what we build or make, and underlying order- creating processes of building or making of architecture and design are no less important than those of physics and biology. The book presents an argument for a new kind of beauty – structural beauty – that exists in fine structure of space and matter, and subsequently it argues for a new basis of doing architecture for creating more beautiful and more sustainable buildings, gardens, streets and cities.
While the applications of his earlier works are well-documented, the potential applications of his newest work are still unclear. A number of tantalizing indications suggest a promise that may equal or even exceed the benefits of his earlier work. However, there is a need to develop further peer- reviewed research on this question. We invite papers on Alexander’s work and its potential applications and development, with a focus on The Nature of Order but also addressing other aspects of his contributions related to urban science including both understand and making of better built environments. The purpose of this special issue is not only to debate Alexander’s legacy, but also to try to assess previously-unrecognized potential applications of Alexander’s most recent work.
Submissions may include research papers, reviews, or case studies. The editors will curate the selection of submissions, and if appropriate, the selected submissions will follow the subsequent peer review processes.
Keywords: Life, beauty, wholeness, living structure, 15 fundamental properties, wholeness-extending transformation, organic view of space
Deadline: May 30, 2019, but first come, and first reviewed
Submission: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload/a8421142f2a2b63a5942faebbdbeda05?form%5Bjournal_id%5D=228
Editors: Bin Jiang, PhD and Professor at University of Gävle, Sweden; Nikos Salingaros, PhD and Professor at University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
Advisors: Michael Mehaffy, PhD and Executive Director of Sustasis Foundation, Portland, USA; Yodan Rofe, PhD and Senior Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University, Israel
(PDF) CALL FOR PAPERS: New Applications and.... Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326919948_CALL_FOR_PAPERS_New_Applications_and_Development_of_Christopher_Alexander's_The_Nature_of_Order [accessed Aug 17 2018].
PUARL 10 Year Anniversary Conference: Migration, Refugees, and Patterns, October 26-28, 2018
Call for Participation, Papers and Contributions
New Deadline -- proposals will be accepted through July and August 2018.
The Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory (PUARL), of the University of Oregon in Portland, will hold its 10th anniversary conference in Portland this fall. Please see the poster and conference details on the two major topics that will be addressed: the Future of Pattern Language (October 26th), and Migration, Refugees, and Patterns (October 27-28). Registration details are included there as well.
Building Beauty will be there!
Building Beauty Dispatch #4
We have successfully completed the first year of Building Beauty, and want to share with you some of the work that was produced. Building Beauty Dispatch #4 June 14, 2018
Video from 2nd Session of HOME
From the April 19, 2018 live international design event session led by Duo Dickinson and simulcast from The University of Hartford to students at the University of San Francisco and to our students in the Building Beauty program in Sorrento, Italy.
Building Beauty Dispatch #3
Building Beauty Outreach
Please help us spread the word about Building Beauty - we are actively recruiting students for next year’s class. We need your help to spread the word as far and as wide as we can so that we can continue this valuable program!
American Advisory Board Questionnaire
Thanks very much to all BB Advisory Board members who took the time to fill out the questionnaire. We received many thoughtful answers to the six questions, and wanted to post a couple of them here: What has attracted you to be a part of the American Advisory Board?
“I heartily agree with the premise that craft-knowledge and hands-on understanding of building is crucial to knowing how to design. The seductive ease of instant imaging via BIM and 3-D rendering carries with it the risk of thinking the design is inherently good – which is a gross assumption. Craft-knowledge and hands-on understanding of building is more important than ever in our profession.”
“I will support any program that encourages more beauty (real beauty as opposed to image beauty).”
The inaugural class of Building Beauty Students sitting on their finished bench.
In the Classroom and Out in the Field
As the academic year draws to a close, we wanted to share two of the projects that the Building Beauty students have been working on over the course of the year. The first one is a link to an inspiring 4-minute video titled “The Feeling Hand” that beautifully documents the stone carving workshop with blind sculptor Felice Tagliaferri. This video captures the feeling and the essence of what Building Beauty is all about; we hope you enjoy it. Please find it on the Building Beauty homepage, right under the photo of Christopher Alexander and rock musician Peter Gabriel.
The second project is an in-depth report on the Carpet Design class that Building Beauty Advisor and Faculty Member Chris Andrews led last December (Carpet Class Report C Andrews). Chris has been involved in recreating historically significant 17th century “Transylvanian” carpets as part of the Replika Transylvania Carpet project. This project aims to replace with exact replicas all 380 of the fragile and deteriorating 17th century “Transylvanian” carpets (woven in Turkey) that currently hang in the naves and choir stalls of many of the Lutheran Saxon churches in Transylvania. The goal of the Replika project is to replace the original carpets with exact replicas (using traditional weaving techniques and natural dyes) so that these valuable and significant carpets can be better preserved in a museum environment. The task of transposing the designs so that they can be woven today is an important one in that it teaches Building Beauty students to deeply understand these carpets’ structures in terms of color and geometry, as well as help preserve a piece of history. In his book A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets, Christopher Alexander outlines how these antique Turkish carpets can teach us valuable lessons about the properties of beauty and how to create it in art and architecture. Throughout his career, Alexander referred to and remained inspired by these carpets in both his teaching and his professional work; his collection remains highly regarded world-wide.
In upcoming dispatches, we will share results of the HOME event, and also share with you the main project of the year, designing and building a bench in the Sant’ Anna garden. Until then, feel free to keep up with the students’ work posted on their Learning Journal at https://buildingbeauty.org/learning-journal.
Thank you so much for your support! Duo Dickinson, duo@buildingbeauty.org Susan Ingham, susan@buildingbeauty.org
Celebrating Building Beauty's Inaugural Year
Building Beauty has completed its first year with remarkable accomplishments that the students and staff are celebrating. Expanding on Christopher Alexander’s work, we learned appropriate building techniques during the course in Sorrento and in Summer School. A detailed description of our activities throughout the course can be found in our Learning Journal. One notable achievement is the Form Language we developed for traditional Sorrento gardens. The Form Language served as a point of departure for the project in the Sant’Anna Institute gardens that enhances its current structure. The project model, overall design, and the large bench that was built this year show respect for tradition, but do not copy other gardens. Rather, they are timeless. Many visitors to our Graduation Day celebrations said of the bench, “It looks like it’s always been there.”
Summer School brought another challenge – working under the guidance of a mastro trullaro to build a large-scale model of a trullo, the traditional round buildings with conic roofs in Puglia, Southern Italy. In ten days’ time, we were able to experience the whole cycle of building a trullo from the ground up, starting with the design of the circle on the ground.
The work we did this year sets the stage for the next course which begins in November 2018. Pre-registration is open NOW. Course details can be found at www.buildingbeauty.org. You can reach us at hello@buidingbeauty.org to express interest or ask questions.
The formal accreditation process we are pursuing is at an advanced stage. Students who register for 2018-19 can expect accreditation to be achieved by the end of this year.
Building Beauty Course Presentation May 3-4 Open to the Public
Download the poster here. BB A3 poster-2 Course Presentation
HOME, part 2 with Duo Dickinson April 19th
Duo Dickinson will be at Building Beauty in Sorrento on April 19th to lead the second session of our HOME series at 7:00 pm GMT summer time. From there our students will connect with students at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, and San Francisco University in California. The video from the first session is on Vimeo.