Tenants shocked: Amazon demolition plan will proceed By Arfk Hesseldahl O'tMjnn Dsu-'y f/rvKAVt Amazon housing residents wore* not surprised by Wednesday's ter mination of tin* contract with CES/T&E, but they were shocked to hear timt the University plans to pro ceed on schedule with plans to demolish and rebuild the Amazon housing facility Nancy Forrest of the Amazon Com munity Tenants council says that fir ing Alexander is missing the point. She wants the entire process to come to a halt, and for the University to start over from the beginning. ''They still don't understand do thev?” Forrest said. ''They're not addressing any of the serious con cerns raised by the residents here They're still planning to demolish a habitable building and put up something else without any idea of cost. We're just jumping from one fry tug pan into anotner. rorresi sain. Forrest stil questions the Univer sity’* position that Amazon is in need of demolition. “Their own report says that there is no more threat to life and safety than there over was Ixifore." she said. “Why is it that the University does not want to take the lime to look at some of the important issues here? We want the University to stop back from the table, take a deep breath, and start over on this pro(e<.1.’' Several Eugeno-area state legisla tors have joined with the Amazon residents in milling for a moratorium on the relocation of current Amazon rusidonts in order to reevaluate all available options. Jim Fisher, another Amazon resi dent. said that he's glad Alexander and his firm are off the project, but he's concerned about what the Uni versity plans to do. He's said he doesn't think the University is con cerned about cost, "Cost is our number one issue, anti wo don't understand tho University's position there." Fisher said. Fisher said he is concerned that alt the money paid to Alexander's firm, both for work completed and any losses from a lawsuit, will have to be paid by University Housing residents m tho form of increased rents. "I’m glad that the University got rid of him." Fisher said. "But from this day forward we re going to hr! paying him for tho work he's already done, including the Amazon mas ter plan which is useless. Architect’s designs seen on campus By Arik Hesseldahl Several question* wen* answered Wednesday as the f 'nivendty admimstra lion announced an end to it s relationship with Christopher Alexander, the embat tled architec t of the Agate and Amazon family housing fa< ilities Administration offit nils said there was n "lank of understanding" between Alexan der and his firm C.I..S l.vl venture and that it will proceed on schedule with plans to demolish and rebuild the Amazon facil it\ ill time for the school year |ust who is ( hristopher Alexander am way? This is not an easy question to answer When contai ted (k t 2H for comments on another storv, Alexander informed the Emrrnhi he would no longer speak with representatives of this newspaper Alexander lives in Berkeley, Calif . and runs an organization t ailed tin* ('enter for Environmental Structure, which formed a partnership with the Eugene architectur al firm of Thnllon and Edrington for the sole purpose of designing and rebuilding the family housing facilities at the comer of lHth Avenue and Agate Street and the Amazon facility . at 24th Avenue and Pat terson oiri*ei Alexander has n history with the .in hi tis turai environment of the 1 'mversity tfuit diitos bin k to the early 1970s, when lie wrote a book titled 7hr Oregon Expert mrnt The processes descrilxtd In Alexan der in that fiook have become standard University polity when planning con struction projcK ts, and are required read ing for archills lure students. The Si teni e (Complex. additions to the t>ducalion build ing and additions to the musii si.boot were all designed using Alexander's Oregon Experiment processes. but by other firms Architects around the country regard Alexander as either a genius or a self appointed guru. Critii s sometimes m i use him of trying to create a cult Ihh a use his ideas run counter to the conventional yvis dom of an Intel tore In the archill* turel sense, what he does is "not done Hut there is n growing mimlter of people who believe his philosophies have revo lutionized the way buildings are now built and how they will lie built in the future Count Jerry Kinrow, dean of the School of Architecture and Allies! Arts, among them. "Christopher Alexander is one of the most important theorists in 2()th century architecture liecause when he was a prac ticing theorist, he proposed views and approaches that no one else had thought of before in the history of the field." Fin row said The saga of Alexander's mark on the architei tore world began at Cambridge University, where he completed his first college degree, in mathematics He then i ompleted Cambridge’s three-year pre liminary program of architecture in two years From w hat am- trade writer hss said, Alexander believed the program missed the point “He wanted to know how to make .1 beautiful building- He's been olea-sscd with that question ever sun e." wrote |err\ Ship sk\ ui the journal Arthiti■< lure Alexander moved across the Atlantic to Harvard University, where he was posse lily tin- first student to ever 1 omplete a i’h 1) in arc hitte lure there Put simply. Alexander applied his Ivu k ground in mathernatu s toward solving problems of an hilecture. Finruw said Shipskv compared Alexander's work to "inventing calc ulus simply in order to solve a partic ular equation or creating the laws of motion simply in order to ride in a c.ar " Finrow said this led Alexander to the idea that an hitei lure, as it has lieen i.om monly practiced, is too simplistii and for mulaic to "make beautiful buildings Applying the traditional niles doesn't ms essarilv result in a nice building Alexander believes that the environment is made up of patterns, rather than things The distini tiori between a good and bad pattern can lie dec ided upon objectively by groups of people who have a stake in the design of the building That means forming committees, known ns "user groups” that combine their thoughts on how the building should look into a prac tical. workable building plan. Hus prtx ess is fundamentally different from anything tried before, and has been hailed bv some as the wave of the future Between 1977 and 1080. Alexander pu!> lishod a serit*s of books that < ulminated in The Oregon Experiment, which F'inrow considers to be the sei ond phase of Alexander's development. "I think that's tin- most produi live set of ideas he ever had.” f 'inrow said. "The process expressed then- is very structured and organized and /-Hows the architect to get into the same place that the users are It uses their insignts to create a basis to work from "Our own environment has been ruined fi\ the current arc hitectural separation between client, art hiloct and contractor." Alexander told Progressive Architecture in 1991. In that article. Alexander tells an anec dote about a housing projoc t lie worked on m Mexicali. Mexico, during the 1970s "A bank official came to the Mexicali props 1 as we were building it and said that clearly the people didn't know how to design housing since, in one. the bedrooms were too big and the living room too small “1 asked the woman whose house it was to come over and explain, and she told him that it was very simple The bedrooms were big to give each of her children a place to study, since education was so vital to their betterment the living room was small la-cause "our family all sits togeth isr on lMt* MHir s