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The Nature of Order #2
The Process of Creating Life
Christopher Alexander's masterwork, the result of 27 years of research, considers three vital perspectives: a scientific perspective; a perspective based on beauty and grace; a commonsense perspective based on our intuitions and everyday life.
636 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
About the author
Christopher W. Alexander
26 books385 followersChristopher Wolfgang John Alexander (4 October 1936 – 17 March 2022) was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, and sociology. Alexander designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor.
In software, Alexander is regarded as the father of the pattern language movement. The first wiki—the technology behind Wikipedia—led directly from Alexander's work, according to its creator, Ward Cunningham. Alexander's work has also influenced the development of agile software development.
In architecture, Alexander's work is used by a number of different contemporary architectural communities of practice, including the New Urbanist movement, to help people to reclaim control over their own built environment. However, Alexander was controversial among some mainstream architects and critics, in part because his work was often harshly critical of much of contemporary architectural theory and practice.
In software, Alexander is regarded as the father of the pattern language movement. The first wiki—the technology behind Wikipedia—led directly from Alexander's work, according to its creator, Ward Cunningham. Alexander's work has also influenced the development of agile software development.
In architecture, Alexander's work is used by a number of different contemporary architectural communities of practice, including the New Urbanist movement, to help people to reclaim control over their own built environment. However, Alexander was controversial among some mainstream architects and critics, in part because his work was often harshly critical of much of contemporary architectural theory and practice.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 6, 2016
*In this book I learned that Christopher Alexander wrote the building codes for Pasadena. Pasadena is, of course, one of the more successfully beautiful areas of the country.
*This book may not make much sense if you have not read the first book in this series.
-In his first book he shows that beauty is objective, not subjective.
-In this book he shows that beauty can only be achieved if the process is beautiful as well--beauty as a process will lead to beauty as a product. Truly beautiful products cannot be created any other way.
-The ends do not justify the means--ever.
-The existence of ugliness as a norm in society, instead of beauty, is linked to our inability to perceive beauty today. (And our feelings of deadness, as beauty makes us feel alive and inspired.)
-Everything he says in this book about buildings could be read about clothes or jewelry or human relationships or societies or healthy psychology.
"The nature of order is interwoven in its fundamental character with the nature of the process which create the order."
"We have to make--or generate--the ten thousand living centers in the building, one by one... and the ten thousand centers, to be living centers, must be beautifully adapted to one another within the whole: each must fit the others, each must contribute to the others, and the ten thousand centers then--if they are truly living--must form a coherent and harmonious whole."
"No matter how skillful the architects, no matter how gifted, no matter how profound their powers of design--if the process used is wrong, the design cannot save the project."
"Our current view of architecture rests on too little awareness of Becoming as the most essential feature of the building."
"In the mechanistic view of architecture we think mainly of design as the desired end-state of a building, and far too little of the Way or Process of making a building as something inherently beautiful in itself."
"At each moment in the emergence of a system, the system tends ("prefers") to go in that direction which intensifies the already existing centers in the wholeness in just such a fashion that the new centers reinforce and intensify the larger configuration or wholeness which existed before."
"What this means is that life and living structure will appear in the world inevitably: not by some magic probabilistic occurrence, but because the nature of things--and, in particular, the mathematical way in which space gives rise to structure which reinforces wholeness--sees to it that living structure comes into being as part of its most normal evolution."
"Living structure always arises slowly, by successive transformations of what exists, gradually, gradually, gradually, and then decisively changes slowly until a new thing is born."
"We have been used to understanding value as a subjective, culturally influenced phenomenon which depends on private individual judgement. However, within the framework of wholeness, we may begin to conceive of value as an objective phenomenon which arises inevitably from the existence of the wholes as a structure."
"This is a startling and new conception of ethics and aesthetics. It describes good structure as a structure which has unfolded "well," through these transformations, without violating the structure that exists.... It views with disfavor only that emerges arbitrarily, without respect for what exists."
"The building is created by attention."
"In modern society the rules of the game...have become more and more willful, more rule-bound, less and less in touch with the wholeness that exists."
"A successful living structure will only come about when the building exchanges, and supports the whole ness which exits in the world around it." [This is a perfect fashion philosophy as well.]
"There was no conspiracy here. Just a set of procedures which were introduced, with the advent of modern bureaucratic society, with almost total ignorance as to their unintentional consequences."
"An unfolding process [respect, freedom] by its nature, produces things that are alive (deeply beautiful). The imagine driven process [control, force] by its nature, produces things which are dead (ugly)." [Read this again as parenting advice!]
"Many of us architects, perhaps without even realizing it, lived in a world of fake, taught by fake, worked by fake, and transmitted the fake as an essential part of what we did."
"But even more fundamental, it came about because the idea of creativity which became the norm assumed that it is creative to make things that are unrelated (sometimes disoriented and disconnected just in order to be new), and that this is valuable--where in fact it is merely stupid, and represents a misunderstanding, a deep misapprehension of how things are."
"It comes about, this life, because no one has controlled it. The generative process is free, popular, with no rules or regulations--there is no image, no desire for control, by anyone."
"In every case, the process is straightforward, simple, and above all it is free: it allows the reality of the situation, the human needs, human joys, to find expression."
"Generative processes tell us what to DO, what actions to take, step by step... rather than detailed drawings which tell us what the END-result is supposed to be."
"A center being made more coherent, stronger, by the creation of a boundary."
"Do one small good thing; then do another small good thing, then do another good thing."
"To make the feedback meaningful in a step-by-step process, the process must be open-ended, hence partly unpredictable."
"We must reject the statist conception in which the future is planned now, and embrace a new world of architectural design in which the future of each building is not known, remains open to experiment and chance, and above all to success."
"The first few strokes, which create the form, carry within them the destiny of the rest."
"I am just trying to make that thing, which... will honestly make me feel a tremor, make me feel that my life is (if only slightly) illuminated by the existence of this thing."
"Being afraid of such magnificence is only the sad underside of our too mundane late 20th century."
"On the surface, we were lead to believe that this kind of modular repetition had to be introduced by architects for reasons of efficiency, speed, and so on. But more deeply, I believe, it was an aesthetic idea, a philosophical ideal, an intellectual extension of the ideas of mechanism."
"The main thing is that you have to pay attention, work hard, look at each case as unique. That is the most important part." [Reread this in regards to why laws don't work.]
"The production of a work which has feeling, may be imagined as the creation of an engine which makes this certain kind of feeling."
"Freedom of the kind necessary to create profound wholeness (beauty) is hampered by our institutional norms and by the normal process of our society."
"We have come to believe in the freedom of our society, and we look with intellectual detachment (touched with a smug feeling of superiority) at the great literature of Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, Zamyatin's We, as if these works describe caricatures of something which may have occurred in other societies--in Communism, in Totalitarianism, in Fascism--but never in our own. Rarely have we understood that our own society, too, our own democracy, though originating in the ideal of freedom, has nevertheless created a system of thought and action, in the sphere of architecture, which makes living (beautiful) structure all but unattainable."
"The mystification of professional expertise causes further difficulties. In order to achieve local adaptation of the millions of centers in a living structure, it is necessary that decision-making control over these centers is decentralized as far as possible, placed in the hands of the people who are closest to it. Yet in modern society an extraordinary number of men, women, and children are convinced that they do not know enough to lay out a house or an office or a road--that it is an arcane matter for professionals which only professionals can do. This deep-seated and wrong-headed belief has been inculcated by the heavy-handed tone and legal character of design and engineering professions, leaving people as impotent recipients of the designs handed to them by their more competent "betters."
"It requires a system of social arrangements which Allow people to have control over these parts of their environment, which touch them so deeply."
*This book may not make much sense if you have not read the first book in this series.
-In his first book he shows that beauty is objective, not subjective.
-In this book he shows that beauty can only be achieved if the process is beautiful as well--beauty as a process will lead to beauty as a product. Truly beautiful products cannot be created any other way.
-The ends do not justify the means--ever.
-The existence of ugliness as a norm in society, instead of beauty, is linked to our inability to perceive beauty today. (And our feelings of deadness, as beauty makes us feel alive and inspired.)
-Everything he says in this book about buildings could be read about clothes or jewelry or human relationships or societies or healthy psychology.
"The nature of order is interwoven in its fundamental character with the nature of the process which create the order."
"We have to make--or generate--the ten thousand living centers in the building, one by one... and the ten thousand centers, to be living centers, must be beautifully adapted to one another within the whole: each must fit the others, each must contribute to the others, and the ten thousand centers then--if they are truly living--must form a coherent and harmonious whole."
"No matter how skillful the architects, no matter how gifted, no matter how profound their powers of design--if the process used is wrong, the design cannot save the project."
"Our current view of architecture rests on too little awareness of Becoming as the most essential feature of the building."
"In the mechanistic view of architecture we think mainly of design as the desired end-state of a building, and far too little of the Way or Process of making a building as something inherently beautiful in itself."
"At each moment in the emergence of a system, the system tends ("prefers") to go in that direction which intensifies the already existing centers in the wholeness in just such a fashion that the new centers reinforce and intensify the larger configuration or wholeness which existed before."
"What this means is that life and living structure will appear in the world inevitably: not by some magic probabilistic occurrence, but because the nature of things--and, in particular, the mathematical way in which space gives rise to structure which reinforces wholeness--sees to it that living structure comes into being as part of its most normal evolution."
"Living structure always arises slowly, by successive transformations of what exists, gradually, gradually, gradually, and then decisively changes slowly until a new thing is born."
"We have been used to understanding value as a subjective, culturally influenced phenomenon which depends on private individual judgement. However, within the framework of wholeness, we may begin to conceive of value as an objective phenomenon which arises inevitably from the existence of the wholes as a structure."
"This is a startling and new conception of ethics and aesthetics. It describes good structure as a structure which has unfolded "well," through these transformations, without violating the structure that exists.... It views with disfavor only that emerges arbitrarily, without respect for what exists."
"The building is created by attention."
"In modern society the rules of the game...have become more and more willful, more rule-bound, less and less in touch with the wholeness that exists."
"A successful living structure will only come about when the building exchanges, and supports the whole ness which exits in the world around it." [This is a perfect fashion philosophy as well.]
"There was no conspiracy here. Just a set of procedures which were introduced, with the advent of modern bureaucratic society, with almost total ignorance as to their unintentional consequences."
"An unfolding process [respect, freedom] by its nature, produces things that are alive (deeply beautiful). The imagine driven process [control, force] by its nature, produces things which are dead (ugly)." [Read this again as parenting advice!]
"Many of us architects, perhaps without even realizing it, lived in a world of fake, taught by fake, worked by fake, and transmitted the fake as an essential part of what we did."
"But even more fundamental, it came about because the idea of creativity which became the norm assumed that it is creative to make things that are unrelated (sometimes disoriented and disconnected just in order to be new), and that this is valuable--where in fact it is merely stupid, and represents a misunderstanding, a deep misapprehension of how things are."
"It comes about, this life, because no one has controlled it. The generative process is free, popular, with no rules or regulations--there is no image, no desire for control, by anyone."
"In every case, the process is straightforward, simple, and above all it is free: it allows the reality of the situation, the human needs, human joys, to find expression."
"Generative processes tell us what to DO, what actions to take, step by step... rather than detailed drawings which tell us what the END-result is supposed to be."
"A center being made more coherent, stronger, by the creation of a boundary."
"Do one small good thing; then do another small good thing, then do another good thing."
"To make the feedback meaningful in a step-by-step process, the process must be open-ended, hence partly unpredictable."
"We must reject the statist conception in which the future is planned now, and embrace a new world of architectural design in which the future of each building is not known, remains open to experiment and chance, and above all to success."
"The first few strokes, which create the form, carry within them the destiny of the rest."
"I am just trying to make that thing, which... will honestly make me feel a tremor, make me feel that my life is (if only slightly) illuminated by the existence of this thing."
"Being afraid of such magnificence is only the sad underside of our too mundane late 20th century."
"On the surface, we were lead to believe that this kind of modular repetition had to be introduced by architects for reasons of efficiency, speed, and so on. But more deeply, I believe, it was an aesthetic idea, a philosophical ideal, an intellectual extension of the ideas of mechanism."
"The main thing is that you have to pay attention, work hard, look at each case as unique. That is the most important part." [Reread this in regards to why laws don't work.]
"The production of a work which has feeling, may be imagined as the creation of an engine which makes this certain kind of feeling."
"Freedom of the kind necessary to create profound wholeness (beauty) is hampered by our institutional norms and by the normal process of our society."
"We have come to believe in the freedom of our society, and we look with intellectual detachment (touched with a smug feeling of superiority) at the great literature of Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, Zamyatin's We, as if these works describe caricatures of something which may have occurred in other societies--in Communism, in Totalitarianism, in Fascism--but never in our own. Rarely have we understood that our own society, too, our own democracy, though originating in the ideal of freedom, has nevertheless created a system of thought and action, in the sphere of architecture, which makes living (beautiful) structure all but unattainable."
"The mystification of professional expertise causes further difficulties. In order to achieve local adaptation of the millions of centers in a living structure, it is necessary that decision-making control over these centers is decentralized as far as possible, placed in the hands of the people who are closest to it. Yet in modern society an extraordinary number of men, women, and children are convinced that they do not know enough to lay out a house or an office or a road--that it is an arcane matter for professionals which only professionals can do. This deep-seated and wrong-headed belief has been inculcated by the heavy-handed tone and legal character of design and engineering professions, leaving people as impotent recipients of the designs handed to them by their more competent "betters."
"It requires a system of social arrangements which Allow people to have control over these parts of their environment, which touch them so deeply."
September 7, 2018
The Poetry of Design
In Book 1 (The Phenomenon of Life) of this series, architectural theorist and practitioner Christopher Alexander introduced a highly organic view of a natural process of architectural design based on 15 principles that played off against each other. Book 2 continues the conversation by discussing examples of how each of these principles can be correctly applied, and what happens if they are not. It's a somewhat mystical approach that evolves not from abstract geometry but from a profound sense of place, one that completely negates cookie-cutter replication that characterizes suburbia and most of modern planned urban development.
One begins with terrain, climate and the character of the surrounding structures, coaxing out the centres of interests, delineating boundaries and introducing strong focal centers and utilizing irregular almost fractal symmetries (fractals have infinite depth, and there are limits as to what can be done) who's effect echoes on different scales. Rather than have an architect draft a building, then pass it on to the builder, the architect and client and contractors work together throughout the building process to dynamically evolve not just a machine for living, but spaces that are evoke life, a fundamental change in the way that buildings and communities are made. Unlike contemporary design, the technique integrates feedback between the stakeholders throughout, down to the placement of individual elements, allowing for experimentation and changing of mind. Alexander's design process is highly explorative where each step transforms into the possibilities of the next.
The approach is not without problems, and IMV requires a leap of faith on the part of the client in an extremely high level of competence in the designer, because one might just as easily design oneself into a dead end. However to counter this, in my own experience, I've observed the evolution of these "little boxes on the hillside" , and through additions, landscaping, furnishings and decoration, one eventually can arrive at the similar effect creating liveable homes. Yet the end result is somewhat narcissistic as the suburban streets themselves are largely empty of life as life enhancing principles are not considered at the outset. The design of buildings has to give life to the community as well. This can highly evident in the design of office and public space - if it's dead it's probably because cost and manageability overrode the need to create liveable centres. For Alexander, rustic peasant society naturally adapted to communal living which 20th century architecture with its emphasis on Tayloristic deconstruction destroyed.
On one level the key to Alexander are the 15 transformation rules which are the basis of what he calls a "pattern language" and one evolves one's design from these. On another there are observable local cultural norms which one documents and builds on in order to create an aesthetic in tune with community, social cohesion and intended use. His critique of mid century American homes (pp355) with is excess formality of living and dining rooms turned them into dead spaces most of the day and the isolation of the kitchen from dens or playrooms discourages interaction and participation in food preparation, drives home the point that bad design fails to bring people together. Yet I note that his own web site patternlanguage.com, while having some open content is mostly paid subscription based, misses the pattern of the of the internet - the free exchange of information encourages aggregation and development of the same.
Throughout Alexander's theorizing is highly enjoyable and one emerges with a better eye for understanding how buildings can be altered to better serve our needs. He often repeats the same points in different ways , but the images he uses to illustrate are both beautiful and well chosen. I found treating the book as a poem (or paen) to organic design as opposed to a textbook made it all the more enjoyable and eminently rereadable.
In Book 1 (The Phenomenon of Life) of this series, architectural theorist and practitioner Christopher Alexander introduced a highly organic view of a natural process of architectural design based on 15 principles that played off against each other. Book 2 continues the conversation by discussing examples of how each of these principles can be correctly applied, and what happens if they are not. It's a somewhat mystical approach that evolves not from abstract geometry but from a profound sense of place, one that completely negates cookie-cutter replication that characterizes suburbia and most of modern planned urban development.
One begins with terrain, climate and the character of the surrounding structures, coaxing out the centres of interests, delineating boundaries and introducing strong focal centers and utilizing irregular almost fractal symmetries (fractals have infinite depth, and there are limits as to what can be done) who's effect echoes on different scales. Rather than have an architect draft a building, then pass it on to the builder, the architect and client and contractors work together throughout the building process to dynamically evolve not just a machine for living, but spaces that are evoke life, a fundamental change in the way that buildings and communities are made. Unlike contemporary design, the technique integrates feedback between the stakeholders throughout, down to the placement of individual elements, allowing for experimentation and changing of mind. Alexander's design process is highly explorative where each step transforms into the possibilities of the next.
The approach is not without problems, and IMV requires a leap of faith on the part of the client in an extremely high level of competence in the designer, because one might just as easily design oneself into a dead end. However to counter this, in my own experience, I've observed the evolution of these "little boxes on the hillside" , and through additions, landscaping, furnishings and decoration, one eventually can arrive at the similar effect creating liveable homes. Yet the end result is somewhat narcissistic as the suburban streets themselves are largely empty of life as life enhancing principles are not considered at the outset. The design of buildings has to give life to the community as well. This can highly evident in the design of office and public space - if it's dead it's probably because cost and manageability overrode the need to create liveable centres. For Alexander, rustic peasant society naturally adapted to communal living which 20th century architecture with its emphasis on Tayloristic deconstruction destroyed.
On one level the key to Alexander are the 15 transformation rules which are the basis of what he calls a "pattern language" and one evolves one's design from these. On another there are observable local cultural norms which one documents and builds on in order to create an aesthetic in tune with community, social cohesion and intended use. His critique of mid century American homes (pp355) with is excess formality of living and dining rooms turned them into dead spaces most of the day and the isolation of the kitchen from dens or playrooms discourages interaction and participation in food preparation, drives home the point that bad design fails to bring people together. Yet I note that his own web site patternlanguage.com, while having some open content is mostly paid subscription based, misses the pattern of the of the internet - the free exchange of information encourages aggregation and development of the same.
Throughout Alexander's theorizing is highly enjoyable and one emerges with a better eye for understanding how buildings can be altered to better serve our needs. He often repeats the same points in different ways , but the images he uses to illustrate are both beautiful and well chosen. I found treating the book as a poem (or paen) to organic design as opposed to a textbook made it all the more enjoyable and eminently rereadable.
October 14, 2023
Unlike the previous book in the series, this one is great
Having read four other Christopher Alexander books, I bought "The Nature of Order" set. After the first book, I thought "Oh, no" and had a terrible sinking feeling about my investment. The first book was, while not without the occasional good idea, really annoying. But this volume develops and expands these rough materials into a vastly more interesting and worthwhile formulation: one suprisingly full of contradiction and internal tension. But, before we get there...
Not only spatial relationships, but spatial metaphors
Before we get there, let me share a concept outside of the book that has made it more valuable for me. This book series talks about literal spatial relationships and transformations as though perceptual spatial factors rule one's total experience, priviledging a narrow part of the built environment as architecture. What I'd like to suggest is that it's not only literal space that matters in the ways he's talking about, but spatial metaphors.
So, when we talk about articulating a strong boundary with deep interlock, it's not just the trim around a door or window, or a picture frame, or these kind of things. Instead, we're also talking about the richness of an ecotone transitioning between biomes. We're talking about collaboration between different teams in a business. We're talking about the layer that transitions from one set of concerns to another in software. The transition to a stronger boundary with deeper interlock and local symmetry is a broadly applicable idea.
So, only in reading the second volume allows me to articulate what was so annoying about the first volume: the idea that this psychological geometry of relationships is only the geometry of physical environments is really blinkered. If you let yourself read the book with the expansiveness of metaphor, you may have room for broader insights.
Summarization is a kind of brevity
So, this is a long book, but one of the nicest aspects about it is that its structure leads to a few pages with the key ideas listed out. The form of the book is three parts, where
* part one - gives a set of structure preserving transformations and a variety of examples in which they are used (and counter-examples in which they are not used)
* part two gives the fundamental process of differentiation, the "process of creating life" so named in the title
* part three expresses some of the challenges of actually trying to work with the process
In other words, part one is preparing for part two, part two is about explicating the process it describes, and part three is about unpacking the challenges of undertaking the process and preparing for the next book, which imagines the consequences of what it would be. So, the entire book leads and follows from two lists: the fundemental differentiating process (pg. 216) and the necessary features of all living processes (pg. 225).
So, what are they?
To summarize even these summaries, the fundamental differentiating process is:
1. At any given time, the structure under consideration has some partially-evolved state with relationships of varying cohesiveness between its parts and to its surroundings; pay attention to all of these and their effect as a whole
2. Identify where the structure is weakest in coherence or feeling
3. In these weaknesses, identify any undeveloped characteristic which could be strengthend
4. Make a transformation which brings out this characteristics while preserving all other aspects of the whole; prefer to choose the simplest one among candidates
5. See that the whole is actually improved; if so, keep it and repeat until there are no improveable weaknesses; otherwise, undo it and try something else
Their necesary features include:
* Every step proceeds as an adaptive small increment, with opportunities for feedback and correction
* When considering each step, the whole should be the focus of attention and steps are made in reference to it
* Steps must be made in a sequence appropriate to the subject being transformed; the quality of the results will be highly dependent on the sequence being appropriate
* Parts created by this process are locally unique, adapted to the specificity of their unique position within the whole
* We can take some assurance in undertaking steps corresponding to patterns, which are pre-identified transformations appropriate to a particular relational setting
* Every step should improve the overall feeling the work generates for it's participants
* At particular steps in the sequence, the logic for the step undertaken will not come from considering the system in its environment but will come from some kind of formal knowledge pertaining to structures like it
* In addition to having patterns for resolving particular relational conditions, there will also be languages for the form the structures take, offering legible guidance to their participants merely by structural considerations.
* Steps will often undertake their improvement of the whole through some sort of pruning as to generate simpicity
The Apparent Tension of Technical Knowledge
In this book, the necessary feature "At particular steps in the sequence, the logic for the step undertaken will not come from considering the system in its environment but will come from some kind of formal knowledge pertaining to structures like it" is not stated this way, but as a much narrower concept that, basically, occasionally you just need to put some grids in your buildings without any particular guidance from context.
Honestly, I think this a bit of a dodge. The fundamental process is listed as being about always paying attention to the whole, but this area is about definitely turning your back to it. What's going on here?
The way I think about this is that it comes down to a certain kind of technical expertise that exert themselves on design. As a computer programmer, this shows up when the domain shows itself amenable to certain abstractions, such as when there suddenly is a route planning problem deserving of graph algorithms. There is an abstract core of the structure worth attending to.
The challenge then becomes "if certain formal moves are justified by technical expertise, where is the line? When are we making arbitrary design interventions independent of context and when is context-independence correct?" The book basically pretends the problem isn't there as far as fundamental problems are concerned.
In the terms of the book, the right answer would have probably been when that technical gesture actually adds simplicity that improves instead of weakens the whole.
In Conclusion
I found this book was definitely worth my reading; it was really generative and cross-disciplinary if you read it that way. I'm now actually looking forward to volume 3.
Having read four other Christopher Alexander books, I bought "The Nature of Order" set. After the first book, I thought "Oh, no" and had a terrible sinking feeling about my investment. The first book was, while not without the occasional good idea, really annoying. But this volume develops and expands these rough materials into a vastly more interesting and worthwhile formulation: one suprisingly full of contradiction and internal tension. But, before we get there...
Not only spatial relationships, but spatial metaphors
Before we get there, let me share a concept outside of the book that has made it more valuable for me. This book series talks about literal spatial relationships and transformations as though perceptual spatial factors rule one's total experience, priviledging a narrow part of the built environment as architecture. What I'd like to suggest is that it's not only literal space that matters in the ways he's talking about, but spatial metaphors.
So, when we talk about articulating a strong boundary with deep interlock, it's not just the trim around a door or window, or a picture frame, or these kind of things. Instead, we're also talking about the richness of an ecotone transitioning between biomes. We're talking about collaboration between different teams in a business. We're talking about the layer that transitions from one set of concerns to another in software. The transition to a stronger boundary with deeper interlock and local symmetry is a broadly applicable idea.
So, only in reading the second volume allows me to articulate what was so annoying about the first volume: the idea that this psychological geometry of relationships is only the geometry of physical environments is really blinkered. If you let yourself read the book with the expansiveness of metaphor, you may have room for broader insights.
Summarization is a kind of brevity
So, this is a long book, but one of the nicest aspects about it is that its structure leads to a few pages with the key ideas listed out. The form of the book is three parts, where
* part one - gives a set of structure preserving transformations and a variety of examples in which they are used (and counter-examples in which they are not used)
* part two gives the fundamental process of differentiation, the "process of creating life" so named in the title
* part three expresses some of the challenges of actually trying to work with the process
In other words, part one is preparing for part two, part two is about explicating the process it describes, and part three is about unpacking the challenges of undertaking the process and preparing for the next book, which imagines the consequences of what it would be. So, the entire book leads and follows from two lists: the fundemental differentiating process (pg. 216) and the necessary features of all living processes (pg. 225).
So, what are they?
To summarize even these summaries, the fundamental differentiating process is:
1. At any given time, the structure under consideration has some partially-evolved state with relationships of varying cohesiveness between its parts and to its surroundings; pay attention to all of these and their effect as a whole
2. Identify where the structure is weakest in coherence or feeling
3. In these weaknesses, identify any undeveloped characteristic which could be strengthend
4. Make a transformation which brings out this characteristics while preserving all other aspects of the whole; prefer to choose the simplest one among candidates
5. See that the whole is actually improved; if so, keep it and repeat until there are no improveable weaknesses; otherwise, undo it and try something else
Their necesary features include:
* Every step proceeds as an adaptive small increment, with opportunities for feedback and correction
* When considering each step, the whole should be the focus of attention and steps are made in reference to it
* Steps must be made in a sequence appropriate to the subject being transformed; the quality of the results will be highly dependent on the sequence being appropriate
* Parts created by this process are locally unique, adapted to the specificity of their unique position within the whole
* We can take some assurance in undertaking steps corresponding to patterns, which are pre-identified transformations appropriate to a particular relational setting
* Every step should improve the overall feeling the work generates for it's participants
* At particular steps in the sequence, the logic for the step undertaken will not come from considering the system in its environment but will come from some kind of formal knowledge pertaining to structures like it
* In addition to having patterns for resolving particular relational conditions, there will also be languages for the form the structures take, offering legible guidance to their participants merely by structural considerations.
* Steps will often undertake their improvement of the whole through some sort of pruning as to generate simpicity
The Apparent Tension of Technical Knowledge
In this book, the necessary feature "At particular steps in the sequence, the logic for the step undertaken will not come from considering the system in its environment but will come from some kind of formal knowledge pertaining to structures like it" is not stated this way, but as a much narrower concept that, basically, occasionally you just need to put some grids in your buildings without any particular guidance from context.
Honestly, I think this a bit of a dodge. The fundamental process is listed as being about always paying attention to the whole, but this area is about definitely turning your back to it. What's going on here?
The way I think about this is that it comes down to a certain kind of technical expertise that exert themselves on design. As a computer programmer, this shows up when the domain shows itself amenable to certain abstractions, such as when there suddenly is a route planning problem deserving of graph algorithms. There is an abstract core of the structure worth attending to.
The challenge then becomes "if certain formal moves are justified by technical expertise, where is the line? When are we making arbitrary design interventions independent of context and when is context-independence correct?" The book basically pretends the problem isn't there as far as fundamental problems are concerned.
In the terms of the book, the right answer would have probably been when that technical gesture actually adds simplicity that improves instead of weakens the whole.
In Conclusion
I found this book was definitely worth my reading; it was really generative and cross-disciplinary if you read it that way. I'm now actually looking forward to volume 3.
January 21, 2023
Studying Architecture has been my dream since I was 15 years old. The reason why was that I wanted to be able to create a suitable surrounding environment and learn how to enhance my cityscapes and empower its culture. I thought that dream come true when I got accepted into the Architecture faculty, but I was wrong. Architectural education has turned from a truth-directed into a power-directed system of thought. It promotes architecture as a sculptural art never meant for human occupation. The modern architecture industry (process) is manufactured in a way that is destroying our capacity to create living structures in the world.
I consider this book and all the other 4 in this series. To be the best contribution to the science of Architecture, in the 20th century. From Christopher W. Alexander, I have learned the true meaning of Architecture and what being an Architect mean.
I consider this series the best reference for all architects who are looking for the true methods and possibilities for creating a living structure that could make a difference in creating a nourishing world.
I consider this book and all the other 4 in this series. To be the best contribution to the science of Architecture, in the 20th century. From Christopher W. Alexander, I have learned the true meaning of Architecture and what being an Architect mean.
I consider this series the best reference for all architects who are looking for the true methods and possibilities for creating a living structure that could make a difference in creating a nourishing world.
June 12, 2022
This is another amazing book in this series that explores how architectural design can be used to create a living space. What I found most interesting was how the author wove in multiple disciplines and schools of thought into this work. I read this book over the course of a couple years because it really requires some digestion and perspective, especially if you’re not an architect, which I am now. I nonetheless find the insights are relevant to my own practices and am thankful for this book.
October 3, 2016
Mình không nghĩ còn có quyển sách nào nói về cái Đẹp với một tư tưởng đẹp, đáng chiêm nghiệm và có tiềm năng ảnh hưởng sâu sắc như quyển này. Cẩn thận khéo đọc xong nhìn mọi thứ không bao giờ như trước nữa (nhưng bạn sẽ ko hối hận vì điều đó).
Mình có giới thiệu tóm tắt, dĩ nhiên là toàn spoilers, ở đây.
Phần 1: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 2: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 3: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 4: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 5: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 6: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 7: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Mình có giới thiệu tóm tắt, dĩ nhiên là toàn spoilers, ở đây.
Phần 1: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 2: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 3: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 4: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 5: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 6: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
Phần 7: http://lacde.blogspot.com/2016/09/chr...
March 18, 2023
I started this series very excited about his ideas, and gradually became more and more disillusioned by them. I like the idea of applying morphogenetic processes to buildings, but the idea that every natural process in the universe leads to the creation of more and more powerful centers is absurd. When a star explodes, it results in the destruction of a very powerful center, and we are left with amorphous clouds that lack the wholeness of the star. When natural erosion destroys a beach or a hill, or turns a once majestic mountain into a flat featureless plain, nature is not creating more powerful centers but weakening and destroying them.
His ideas about how to design buildings using structure-preserving processes are interesting and deserve more attention, but his greater philosophy comes off as panglossian dribble.
His ideas about how to design buildings using structure-preserving processes are interesting and deserve more attention, but his greater philosophy comes off as panglossian dribble.
March 15, 2015
I have to give a high rating to Alexander for his unbelievable accomplishments in regards to volume alone! thousands of pages of brilliance in this series. This book again looks at what we mean when we say 'living' and gives us direction on how to create 'living' spaces.
January 31, 2013
Part of a 4 part series that I value the most of all the books I own
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