Ajami // Midterm Presentation

Ajami Neighborhood (Jaffa) - First Impressions

I entered Ajami through "Ajami Gate", as it is known to the residents, and rode my bike up the narrow street. I could immediately feel the difference and clear border between Ajami and its neighboring Old Jaffa and Southern Tel Aviv neighborhoods. The streets are narrow and quiet, and from the buildings' windows I could hear the voices of people talking and the sounds of silverware clanking. I could find only few people walking along the streets...

At the northern-most part of the neighborhood, new large houses stand facing the sea, clearly a sign of the gentrification process that is taking place in the neighborhood. The private homes, occupied mainly by Jewish families, are surrounded by walls that send me the message "Do not enter!"

Just a few hundred meters westward, I find an empty corner that a house used to occupy. A passerby informs me that an Arab family once used to live here, but the house was demolished a few years ago due to some form of "illegal building".

I can't help but notice the contrast between the closed doors of some of the homes (of new Jewish residents)...

And the wide open doors of others (of native Arab families)...

When I reach the southern part of Ajami, I can feel the atmosphere of the old neighborhood, something in the air unchanged from time ago. And with it, dilapidated old buildings...

Camillo Sitte // City Planning According to Artistic Principles

Camillo Sitte (1843-1903) was a noted Austrian architect, painter, and city planning theoretician who had great influence on the development of urban construction, planning, and regulation in Europe. In his City Planning According to Artistic Principles (1889), Sitte criticized modern city planning of his time, as was embodied in Hausmann's all too formal and monumental boulevard approach. Wide, straight boulevards cut through the city without regard for the parts of the city which were being cut through (ex. Paris), and public squares were built according to the convenience of traffic. While much has been achieved technically, almost nothing has been achieved artistically. He called for the Picturesque, characterized by irregularity and asymmetry in planning, using the medieval Italian city as a reference for a great example of such. Sitte conceived of the Picturesque as follows:
"...stronger architectural projections, more frequent interruptions of the building line, zig-zag and winding streets, uneven street widths, different heights of houses, flights of stairs, loggias, balconies, gables..."

Through an examination of what he considered to be lovely old European plazas and entire urban layouts, he attempted to extract principles for the designs of plazas, streets, and squares which, when followed, "would lead to similar admirable effects". He hoped to provide study materials and theoretical deductions for the expert, but his challenge lay in finding a balance between the Picturesque he so desired and the practical demands of modern life - such as sanitation, comfort standards, transportation systems.

Could those new demands possibly be reconciled with the delights and irregularities of the true Picturesque? The answer he came to was no - although architectural features of the Picturesque may be imitated and reconstructed, the spontaneity and accidents of history over the centuries cannot be invented and constructed anew in plan. "Modern living and modern building techniques no longer permit the faithful imitation of old townscapes (p. 119)".

A Pattern Language // Christopher Alexander

"When you build something, you cannot build it in isolation, but must repair the world around it and within it so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent and more whole."
- Christopher Alexander

A Pattern Language (1977) constitutes the second volume of Christopher Alexander's previous book, The Timeless Way of Building (1979) in which he explains the idea of patterns in architecture and provides the theory and instruction for the use of what he calls "the pattern language".
A Pattern Language provides the actual pattern language, and describes detailed patterns for building and planning.
The book is meant to provide "a working alternative to our present ideas about architecture, building, and planning", to be used by anyone to guide them in the actual process of construction - whether it be a private home or a public building. The language is practical, based on natural considerations, and comes out of Alexander's own building and planning efforts during the 8 years prior to the publishing of the book.
The language consists of 253 patterns, with which one can create an infinite variety of combinations. Each pattern presents a solution to a common problem in our environment. Just as words must be combined and related to each other to form a coherent and useful language, the patters must be related to each other to form a pattern language.
The patterns are ordered in a straight linear sequence from largest to smallest scales: regions and towns, neighborhoods, clusters of buildings, buildings, rooms and alcoves, and details of construction. This order is essential to the way the language works, and the sequence is based on the connection between the patterns. Each pattern is connected to certain "larger" patterns which come above it in the language, and to certain "smaller" patterns which come below it in the language (Alexander).

Example of a pattern:
Pattern 167: Six-foot balcony
Problem: Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly ever used.
Solution: Always build balconies and porches at least six feet deep, so that there is room for a table and at least two or three people to sit comfortably. They should have half-open enclosures around them (partial privacy makes people more comfortable), and should be recessed (since it provides a sense of security).
This pattern is connected to patterns "above" it - such as "arcades" and "galleries, surround" - and to patterns "below" it - such as "half-open wall" and "column places".

The pattern language takes a holistic approach to design; there is a connection between all the different elements. No pattern is an isolated identity - each pattern can exist in the world, only to the extent that it is supported by other patterns (Alexander).
This represents the fundamental view of the world.