patterns

[Theo Armour]

Hi Everybody

 

Please have a look at:

 

http://caper.ws/patterns

 

This is a temporary repository until Lev comes up with a more permanent location.

 

The original files contain a mish-mash of styles. In this current on-line version I have stripped much but not all the styling – so that most of what appears is just plain text.  I have, however, been able to retain most of the links.

 

Again, after a more permanent solution is agreed then a more handsome style can be applied to the files.

 

Background

There are over 1,100 files (text + images). If I had downloaded them manually – at thirty seconds per file – it would have taken ten hours of non-stop clicking to capture the files.

 

I tried programming a PHP file to fetch the files, but I could not hack my way around the 'cookie' security system. So in the end I built an 'Electric Theo' that simulated the mouse movements and keystrokes of a logged in user. Once I had the files downloaded, I built some search and replace scripts to tidy up the files.

 

'Caper.ws' is a domain name that I own and which I use to serve out test files and experiments.

 

Next Steps

Please do let me know if you think I messed up any of the patterns in any way.

 

If anybody is interested I could probably create a PDF file – with links – of the patterns.

 

Enjoy!

 

Theo

 

 

 

 

 

[Eliezer Israel]

Good stuff!

Now the question: how much can we put online and still be in the realm of "fair use"? 

[Theo Armour]

Lev

 

>> how much can we put online and still be in the realm of "fair use"? 

 

The sooner we start editing, enhancing, tagging, morphing patterns the better…

 

As soon as there are photo-galleries, links to psychological studies, detailed FAQs and so on – it will be hard to say where the CA stuff begins and ends…

 

Theo

 

[Yodan Rofe]

Good work, Theo and Eliezer.
I suggest we keep the APL patterns available for the group to mine - but outside the eye of the general public - this until we have a workable site, where 90% of the stuff is ours. At that point we can approach Chris and OUP for their permission to use what is remaining.

Yodan

--

Dr. Yodan Rofe` - Senior Lecturer
Desert Architecture and Urban Planning - J. Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sde Boqer Campus, Israel 84990
Tel. 972-8-6596884  Fax. 972-8-6596881
http://www.bgu.ac.il/CDAUP/yodan-rofe.html

[Theo Armour]

>> I suggest we keep the APL patterns available for the group to mine - but outside the eye of the general public

 

Accepted and agreed.

 

Theo

[Bob Theis]

Perching Near Walkways

People like to sit near pedestrian activity, but normal sitting height puts one uncomfortably low in relation to standing people. 

( Photo of people perched on a wall facing a busy sidewalk ) 

We want peoples' faces to be within our cone of vision, even if we are not conversing with them. If people stand close to where we sit, tilting our heads to be able to see faces is not comfortable for long.  

  

Overcoming this disparity in head height is commonly done two ways: 

1.  Keep the walkways at a distance from the sitters  You see this where cafe´s define their sidewalk sitting areas with planters. 

2. Where the seating is too close to the walkway to see passing faces with a level gaze, a higher than normal seat, a perch, feels more comfortable. At stool height, a sitter has rough eye height parity with people standing nearby.

If you raise the floor level of the sitting area relative to the adjacent walking area, this both defines a personal space with a subtle threshold, and permits the use of normal height seating.

  Near very busy walkways, people seem to prefer being above the eye height of walkers. 

(  from City, by William Whyte ) 

Eye height disparity is particularly pronounced when people sit on the floor.  Where floor sitting is the cultural norm, it is often the case that the sitting floor is raised several steps up from where people enter and circulate. 

( Photo of Middle Eastern cafe´with raised seating platforms ) 

Therefore: Where sitting is too close to busy pedestrian traffic to see faces with a level gaze, raise seating heights or floor levels to give sitting people the ability to see the faces of people standing at a glance. Where possible , create a spatial buffer between sitters and standers to accomplish this. 

( Here we rough out the rules of thumb for distances and heights ) 

( And note some versions of this; high sitting as a boundary around low sitting, for example )