Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

An absolute classic. Everything you ever wanted to know about design with human well-being at the core. I continually use it for reference. If only our architects and planners used this as their bible!!

This resource book is a somewhat obscure but very useful tome on the use of space by people across cultural and generational bounds. For the practicing planning and design professional it offers useful insights that are sometimes obvious, but not always reduced to ths succinct perspective that the investigators bring to their study. It is a worthwhile addition to the library of reference books.

This book provided very valuable insight into the type of home that we wanted to build. We ultimately bought a home that we did not design, but this book helped us to develop values that would assist us in finding a home that would nurture us and our environment.

An excellent book to peruse before sleeping, as its great wellspring of clear and concise ideas and examples consistently inspire dreams about how - in concrete, practical terms - we can improve the tenor of our daily lives at home and in community.

Christopher Alexander and his team went around the world looking at what worked in terms of spaces and buildings, and analyzing that into "patterns". I have read this book cover to cover and love it. Excellent architectural concepts laid out in a readable, skimable format.It covers concepts all the way from the design of a town, down to details of what makes a house or home comfortable and liveable. I would highly recommend this book to anyone considering building or designing. I think it should be a must read for all architects.

i first learned about alexander through my study of software engineering. i'm an artist working on generative/evolutionary digital art, both visual and sonic, and i'm also in the process of studying to build a house. alexander's books have been an inspiration to me in all of these fields. i won't expound on the positives, as others have already done so, and my five stars give you an idea of how i feel about these books. there are quite a few negatives though:

a) the price of these books is outrageous, why are they not available in a cheap paperback edition. if mr. alexander really wants to change the world he would do well to look at the open source software movement, specifically the ideal of open documentation. mr. alexander has a website on which he talks about freedom and idealism, etc... however, the book is not free, instead, it is very expensive, but more importantly, is not free to copy and redistribute. one gets the feeling that there is an element of the california guru in all of this. that he is peddling utopia to the hyper-comfortable. ok that sounds really harsh, but it makes me very angry that such a resource is not distributed freely, especially in the developing world. mr. alexander if you read this, please consider establishing an open on-line repository of your patterns, perhaps in wiki format, so that other patterns can be added, and so that your existing patterns can be amended through time and translated to other languages. i realize that most people in the developing world do not have access to the internet btw, but at least it would allow the people or organizations who do to print and distribute copies freely.

b) there is quite a stark difference between the more rigorous and engineering oriented 'notes on the synthesis of form' and the later work. i think in the later work he correctly ditched the engineering jargon because he deemed it unnecessarily cumbersome, and also realized that it is not necessary to build a house. peasants with no engineering or mathematical background have been building beautiful buildings for ages, however in NOTSOF he spends considerable time espousing the idea of a generative grammar as a way of managing the immense complexity of most engineering/design tasks. for instance when he gets into the problem of manufacturing a tea kettle which solves both manufacturing and design constraints. i'd really like to see more patterns dealing directly with issues of energy management and ecological well being, which by definition would have to be more technical, but not by a great margin if explained in simple language. this way a house could be organically "grown", but with energy efficiency there as a morphological force from the outset.

c) in general the books could be shorter and less repetitive. there is a bit too much advocacy, and they often read like a some kind of new age self help manual, on the surface that is. these books can survive the new age surface feel precisely because they are so deep, but i think that less self-advocacy would significantly lighten them and would probably also manage to shave off most of the new age baggage.

and finally, my advice to the software engineer, is to first read 'a timeless way of building', which will give you a strong idea about how patterns work. i also highly recommend 'notes on the synthesis of form' to anybody designing anything. i don't think that 'a pattern language' is that necessary to read, unless you want to build houses, or are just a big fan of alexander's (of which i am both).

i based this review on 'the timeless way of building', 'a pattern language', 'notes on the synthesis of form', and 'the production of houses'.

i can't wait to read 'the nature of order'

thanks mr. alexander!!

A Pattern Language was probably ground-breaking for its time, it is certainly spoken about in some circles with reverence. I found that it contains many fascinating ideas and many that I thoroughly agree with, however is based on very slender or no evidence and a distinct world view, that tends towards the didactic. If your personal philosophy is in alignment with Alexander et al then you may be a very willing consumer of these ideas, however I do not think they area as universal and timeless as claimed. Several of them have been invalidated by the passage of time, for example, being based on (US) society in the 70s.

Still, it all certainly makes you think, and willl definitely infuence the way I look at places, and how I design my next house. I don't regret buying the book, I just don't care to agree with a good proportion of it.

While ostensibly a book about city planning, architecture and building construction, A Pattern Language is a treasure chest offering so much more:
Academics will respect this 1171-page treatise for its thoroughly researched (eight years' work by six co-authors during the 1970s) and eminently logical (mathematically motivated) analysis, arriving at an optimal hierarchical configuration of our living space (253 self-consistent "patterns"), based on the simple premise that social function should determine physical form.
Idealists will praise the book for its wonderfully comprehensive utopian prescription specifying how our society--cities, neighborhoods, houses, rooms, alcoves and even trim and chairs--should be designed and built.
Curious types will marvel at the richness of this book as a launching pad for exploring new realms--for example: Land usage (how countryside in England differs from public parks and private farms in the U.S.), transitional space (how outdoor-indoor and public-private boundaries are as important as the buildings and rooms themselves), small window panes (how large pane windows paradoxically do not bring us closer to nature), etc.
Romantics will be moved by the contrasting luminescence in Tapestry of Light and Dark, the warmth of The Fire, and the retelling in Marriage Bed of how Odysseus was reunited with his wife, Penelope, after 20 years of separation.
Pragmatists will take the best ideas from the collection--The Flow Through Rooms, Light on Two Sides of Every Room, Alcoves--and use them with abandon in the most opportunistic way in designing, building and remodeling homes.

Members of the status quo will see this book as the underground manifesto of a threatening movement, an attempt by Berkeley anti-architect radicals to apply social engineering to thrust their liberal values (e.g., communal bathing, composting of human waste, banning of skyscrapers and chain stores) on our present society that is "just fine the way it is, thank you!"
And realists will criticize this book for falling short, failing to tell us in any truly practical sense how to fix the problems inherent in our convenient, automobile-centric, impersonal, profit-oriented social structure of today.

The attention that this book has received from many quarters is well deserved. Although formally a work on architecture, it is really a handbook for anyone concerned with the development of healthy and humane social environments.
Alexander and his colleagues are successful because they take an empirical approach to architecture. Instead of beginning with abstract geometries, they go out into the world and study buildings and social spaces that do in fact work well. From these observations they generalize a set of "patterns" -- common structural and spatial elements -- that support living communities. These pattern elements range in scale from city-wide features to the placement of furniture in rooms.
I am an advocate of decentralized residential colleges within large universities as a way to improve the quality of campus life. I was pleased to find most of the specific structures that I have been trying to promote within universities included among Alexander's patterns, and to find many of them refined and improved upon. For example, the patterns "Zen View," "Activity Pockets," "Sleeping in Public," "Child Caves," "Pools of Light," and "Half-private Office" are all ones I have used in trying to establish strong educational communities. Indeed, the idea of a residential college itself corresponds to the pattern "Identifiable Neighborhood" with its limit of 400-500 people. And every university that built high-rise dormitories during the period of architectural insanity that was the 1960s should study and act upon, preferably with a wrecking ball, the implications of the pattern "Four-story Limit." ("There is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy.")
Like many great books, A Pattern Language a bit idiosyncratic. But it is such a rich mine of ideas that you shouldn't let, for example, the occasionally illegible figures bother you needlessly. For a book this influential, however, and one that has already gone through more than twenty printings, the publisher (Oxford University Press) really ought to invest in the preparation of an index.
Buy this book and turn to it often, and compare the ideals that it presents with the real world that less enlightened people have built around you.

I originally learned of this book in The New Cottage Home, a beautiful account of small homes that epitomize coziness, comfort, beauty, and in some cases, sustainability. At the end of The New Cottage Home, the author discussed some of the qualities that make a cottage a cottage, and in doing so presented some very interesting ideas. For example, people are subconsciously comforted by the thickened edges that often surround windows and doors. The authors of A Pattern Language believe that this is because we recognize this feature in one another...in the thickness of our lips, the boldness of the skin surrounding our eyes...and thus expect it in places like a home. With good reason, too. Lips and eyelids are no accident! Openings without thickened edges are prone to breakage and defectiveness.
Most of the "patterns" described in A Pattern Language are similar in that people expect them and are comforted by them. In fact, Alexander refers to them as archetypes, which is a word that always interested me. To think that there are universally appealing features in the built environment that people never even consider throughout the building process is staggering. Have you ever seen or entered a place that felt cold and unwelcoming? Read this book and you'll be able to understand why.
It's the universal appeal of these archetypal patterns, as well as the timeless principles on which this book is based, that make this a classic in the architectural field. While A Pattern Language has withstood the test of time, I still have to file a complaint for just that reason. Here and there you'll read statements that make you think "Huh? Things aren't like that anymore..." Nevertheless, Christopher Alexander was a man ahead of his time, and I can't say his ideas are any less interesting, sensible, or true since the year that he published this book. One of the most striking principles he touched on that still applies today is as follows:
"If we always build on that part of the land which is the most healthy, we can be virtually certain that a great deal of the land will always be less than healthy. If we want the land to be healthy all over--all of it--then we must do the opposite. We must treat every new act of building as an opportunity to mend some rent in the existing cloth; each act of building gives us a chance to make one of the ugliest and least healthy parts of the environment more healthy--as for those parts which are already healthy and beautiful--they of course need no attention. And in fact, we must discipline ourselves most strictly to leave them alone, so that our energy actually goes to the places which need it. This is the principle of site repair." (p.510)
Though a little outdated, and a little expensive, this is a book you can hold on to and refer to again and again.

This book is a wonderful collection of design elements for architecture. Each pattern dissects a basic architectural element ranging from a metropolitan plan down to the design of the flow through an individual home. Each pattern is placed in the context of a problem or activity, and shows how that particular solution is realized via some architectural device.
For example, the pattern for Levels of Intimacy describes the problem that each house must accommodate different levels of familiarity and intimacy. We need spaces in our home to allow guests to enter and yet not be admitted to our most personal spaces. The design of a home must therefore allow for different levels of intimacy begining with the least intimate/more formal at the home entryway, and becoming more casual and intimate as you proceeded into family living, eating, and sleeping spaces.
This book also influenced software designers to produce analagous collections of design patterns for the software design field.

I'm a layperson -- not a designer or urban planner or architect -- and just checked out this book because the architect we hired to renovate our house suggested it. I thought I would just glance at it, and ended up going through every single page (which is saying something -- it's huge). It's incredibly thought-provoking. It points out a lot of assumptions we make without realizing we make them, and all the ways the interiors and exteriors of our buildings affect the way we live and interact with each other on the micro and macro level -- and it's very readable and well-organized. I've since learned that it's a classic, and I completely understand why.

I always knew that I felt comfortable and relaxed in some places (houses, rooms, neighborhoods), but it was often hard to put my finger on why. After reading this book, I know. It's a bit hard to explain, but after Alexander explains the importance of, say, an entrance transition, you'll know why even though you feel completely relaxed around Bill, you're never relaxed at his house, which opens straight onto the street. Few books have changed my perceptions of my everyday world as much as this one.

The vogue for Sarah Susanka's "Not so big house" books utterly escapes me when Alexander's book is more helpful, informative and thought-provoking in every respect.

My fascination with Christopher Alexander's work began with "The Timeless Way of Building," but increased tenfold upon discovering his inexhaustible classic, "A Pattern Language." At over a thousand pages (I think,) "A Pattern Language" is an encyclopedic study of what makes buildings, streets, and communities work -- indeed, what makes environments human.
Alexander and his co-authors present us with over two hundred (roughly 250) "patterns" that they believe must be present in order for an environment to be pleasing, comfortable, or in their words, "alive." The patterns start at the most general level -- the first pattern, "Independent Regions," describes the ideal political entity, while another of my favorite patterns, "Mosaic of Subcultures," described the proper distribution of different groups within a city. The patterns gradually become more specific -- you'll read arguments about how universities should relate to the community, the proper placement of parks, the role of cafes in a city's life. If you wonder about the best design for a home, the authors will describe everything from how roofs and walls should be built, down to how light should fall within the home, where your windows should be placed, and even the most pleasant variety of chairs in the home. An underlying theme of all the patterns is that architecture, at its best, can be used to foster meaningful human interaction, and the authors urge us to be aware of how the houses we build can help us balance needs for intimacy and privacy.
They admit that they are uncertain about some of the patterns -- they indicate their degree of certainty using a code of asterisks placed before the pattern. For each pattern, the authors summarize the pattern in a brief statement printed in boldface, and then describe it at length, drawing upon a variety of sources to give us a full sense of what they mean: these "supporting sources" include an excerpt from a Samuel Beckett novel, papers in scholarly journals, newspaper clippings, etc. Most patterns are accompanied by a photograph (many of them beautiful and fascinating in their own right) and all are illustrated by small, casual hand-drawings. Taken together, "A Pattern Language" is an extraordinarily rich text, visually and conceptually.
As I said in the header of this review, "A Pattern Language" has changed the way I look at buildings and neighborhoods -- I feel like this book has made me attuned to what works, and what doesn't work, in the human environment. I'm constantly realizing things about buildings and streets that this book helped me see -- things that make people feel at home, or feel "alive," in their surroundings, or conversely, things that make people uncomfortable. And the book makes me think differently about life because it showed me how our well-being depends so much upon the way our buildings fit, or don't fit, us as UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS.

As opposed to people who have written more detailed reviews of this book, I'm not an architect, but a software engineer. Nevertheless, I found this book fascinating. Its form lends itself very well to casual reading, as each of the patterns is only a few pages long.
Some of the patterns give great explanations of why some of the structures I live in every day don't work all that well (in Silicon Valley, you can find more or less every pattern in the book violated, some of them pervasively so). Other patterns exmplain why some of the structures *do* work. Yet other patterns are thought provoking, even though I don't agree with them (Would I want to have an outhouse instead of a bathroom and compost its products myself? I don't think so. Does Alexander have an outhouse for his own house?).
I recommend this book highly.

There are certain design principles that are self-evident truths, commonsense but uncommonly applied to modern towns and buildings, painfully evident in characterless and cheerless houses. Most of us have these evolved truths deep within us but we rarely think of them. Given here are 253 patterns, each consisting of a design challenge, discussion, illustration, and solution. Your knowledge of these patterns can help you to create a home that is a pleasure to live in, one that is imaginative, inspiring, healthful, and psychologically satisfying as well as fully functional. I cannot imagine designing any building without refreshing my memory of these wonderful patterns. First published in 1977, this book has already attained the status of classic.

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Constructions is a book for people who are sensitive to their environment. This does not mean the rainforest or garbage dumps, but the world around us: Our homes, the sun, our green spaces, our rooms, our "nests", our streets, our towns, and our cities. You will say "hey, I knew that!" many times as you discover truths and more truths among the interlinked patterns in this book. A guide that will help you plan your environment for healthier, more fulling day-to-day living. Discover the "patterns" you instinctively knew existed in your world!
- Paul Kurucz

Okay, the title implies another book by this author, "A Timeless Way of Building," but personally I think Pattern Language is a far superior book. I admit I was a bit skeptical when I picked up this book (about 10 years ago) and thought, "What could the 70's possibly offer about modern building concepts?" Probably not much, but what makes this book work so well is not the study of building types per se, but rather the study of human beings and how they interact with spaces. I think this is a must own book for anyone in the architecture profession.

This is my bible. I call it "American Feng-Shui." I gifted this copy to a renovator, and he has already used some of the patterns to change his designs to those that will be even more nourishing to the families who will live in the homes. Fantastic book, deep with insights. So much fun to recognize the patterns all around me. It truly is a language that you can learn to speak.

A Pattern Language presents a compelling case for the influence of space, buildings, and landscape on human endeavors. We often overlook this force, accustomed as we are to accommodating spatial limitations and design flaws. But try entering any room and ignoring the cues of memory and social constraints-you will doubtless be drawn to the window in the room.
Alexander and his contributing editors present a series of patterns that operate universally on the mood and activities of people using spaces. "Light on Two Sides," for example, is a pattern describing the impact of light entering a room from two directions. Functionally, this arrangement softens light by cancelling the harsh shadows that arise from a single light direction. Emotionally, this makes a room more pleasant to live and work in, and may of its own accord encourage certain activities.
Alexander's huge study of over 200 patterns is at once modest and sweeping. He details patterns with care, and offers sketches and photographs to illustrate them, along with an unassuming voice. Above all, he demystifies architecture itself, calling upon any reader to assume a role in the design process. Despite this humility, the significance of Alexander's vision is always present. In the end, he is constructing a formula for social utopia-an architectural prescription for living well and wisely. From integrating children and senior citizens into the daily life of a community to revealing the advantages of mixed use commercial and residential zoning, Alexander proposes ideas that can successfully animate any town's master planning efforts.
Read this book if you're designing house, working with an architect, looking for a new house, or contributing to your city's planning commission. You will doubtless come away with a heightened appreciation for the influence of space on your choices and activities.

I will not add to the enthusiastic recommendations of others except to say I thoroughly endorse them. But readers who have not encountered the book should be aware of serious deficiencies in its structure that make it difficult to use.

In some respects, this book is like a thesaurus of ideas for arranging built space. As such, each pattern description also contains cross-references to subpatterns and related patterns.

Well and good. But it desperately needs an index. For example, there is a "stairs as seats" pattern and a "stairs as a stage" pattern. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to look up these index entries (dots inserted to ensure correct indenting):

seats

...stairs as

stages

...stairs as

stairs

...as seats

...as stages

This is a massive book similar in length to the one-volume edition of "The Lord of the Rings" which has been reprinted steadily without any updates since 1977. (The copy I saw was the 27th printing.) Surely in all that time, Oxford could have afforded for it to be revised and indexed. Since the patterns form a web of related ideas, somebody could come up with a beautiful foldout wall chart that shows all the interconnections between patterns, with colours indicating closely related pattern groups. And the nodes on this chart could give the page number in the book.

This is my bible. I call it "American Feng-Shui." I gifted this copy to a renovator, and he has already used some of the patterns to change his designs to those that will be even more nourishing to the families who will live in the homes. Fantastic book, deep with insights. So much fun to recognize the patterns all around me. It truly is a language that you can learn to speak.

A Pattern Language presents a compelling case for the influence of space, buildings, and landscape on human endeavors. We often overlook this force, accustomed as we are to accommodating spatial limitations and design flaws. But try entering any room and ignoring the cues of memory and social constraints-you will doubtless be drawn to the window in the room.
Alexander and his contributing editors present a series of patterns that operate universally on the mood and activities of people using spaces. "Light on Two Sides," for example, is a pattern describing the impact of light entering a room from two directions. Functionally, this arrangement softens light by cancelling the harsh shadows that arise from a single light direction. Emotionally, this makes a room more pleasant to live and work in, and may of its own accord encourage certain activities.
Alexander's huge study of over 200 patterns is at once modest and sweeping. He details patterns with care, and offers sketches and photographs to illustrate them, along with an unassuming voice. Above all, he demystifies architecture itself, calling upon any reader to assume a role in the design process. Despite this humility, the significance of Alexander's vision is always present. In the end, he is constructing a formula for social utopia-an architectural prescription for living well and wisely. From integrating children and senior citizens into the daily life of a community to revealing the advantages of mixed use commercial and residential zoning, Alexander proposes ideas that can successfully animate any town's master planning efforts.
Read this book if you're designing house, working with an architect, looking for a new house, or contributing to your city's planning commission. You will doubtless come away with a heightened appreciation for the influence of space on your choices and activities.

I will not add to the enthusiastic recommendations of others except to say I thoroughly endorse them. But readers who have not encountered the book should be aware of serious deficiencies in its structure that make it difficult to use.

In some respects, this book is like a thesaurus of ideas for arranging built space. As such, each pattern description also contains cross-references to subpatterns and related patterns.

Well and good. But it desperately needs an index. For example, there is a "stairs as seats" pattern and a "stairs as a stage" pattern. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to look up these index entries (dots inserted to ensure correct indenting):

seats

...stairs as

stages

...stairs as

stairs

...as seats

...as stages

This is a massive book similar in length to the one-volume edition of "The Lord of the Rings" which has been reprinted steadily without any updates since 1977. (The copy I saw was the 27th printing.) Surely in all that time, Oxford could have afforded for it to be revised and indexed. Since the patterns form a web of related ideas, somebody could come up with a beautiful foldout wall chart that shows all the interconnections between patterns, with colours indicating closely related pattern groups. And the nodes on this chart could give the page number in the book.

I was so excited when I stumbled across this book in 1986-87. The first house I owned has two rooms with lights from two walls and a third room with one window. It's so true, we almost never go to that room, even though it has a very large window that looks out to the beautiful backyard. Indeed, the light is not balanced and it creates uncomfortable shadow.
After reading the book, we started building our own house in 1988 incorporating many of the ideas from the book. We could not afford a contractor, so we became owner-builder even though we had no knowledge in construction. We bought other books to teach us building foundation and framing. The house was completed about 1 1/2 years later. It has a south facing bright kitchen and family room. Four bedrooms have lights from two walls. Two of them have eastern exposure that gives that gentle morning sunlights. There's a separate living quarter for guest or renting out. Our yard has paths that lead to discoveries. ......
Looking back, we achieved something that seemed impossible among our friends and relatives. This book has changed our lives and given us confidence in everything else we do.

This book talks specifically about what works and doesn't work when building cities and towns and how to take the human element into consideration when doing so. However, I found its conclusions and most of its patterns applicable to software engineering. There are good books on software design patterns such as "Head First Design Patterns", and there are some good books on user interface design such as "Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design", but this book really helped me merge the idea of software design patterns with the user perspective in a way that other books I have read have not.

If you are a software designer, read the book all the way through, make notes as you go, and see if it doesn't help you write better organized code that is more responsive and coherent to a user who walks up to your user interface completely uninitiated in your method of design. I know it helped me.

Contemplate "Wings of Light?" Yeah, "Wings of Light." Most houses are boring boxes because most builders are architecturally ignorant as are the bureaucrats who prescribe building codes. In contrast, mathematician and architect Christopher Alexander serves us a plan for intertwining indoor and outdoor space into seamless harmony, including "Positive Outdoor Space" and "Wings of Light." No fads here. The principles in this book are timeless themes that are related in truly inspiring ways.

The reader is delightfully informed about a multitude of Patterns that, when combined, transform the idea of a house into a living home. Mr. Alexander ET AL describe these Patterns in short, concise, illustrative chapters that forever influence one's understanding of living space.

You may not be able to change the world, but you can change your own little world. "A Pattern Language" is the quintessential road map. In all of Architecture, there is no other book rivaling its importance. By far and away it is the most often referenced book by real architects, but it is written for ordinary people. This is the Bible of Architecture, read it, then put it to practice; that's what Mr. Alexander implores.

This book's strength is in the first 2 sections, Town and Buildings. Use them to find a decent site, and to design your house. The last section on Construction weak. The book essentially complete without it.

I am a voracious reader of non-fiction, as well as a life-long student of science. I can say, without hesitation, that this is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK I HAVE EVER READ.

It's now 8 years down the road since I originally devoured this book and wrote my review (above). Using "A Pattern Language" I designed my own house and build it entirely by myself, including doors, windows, stucco, etc. It was a 5 minute dream that took me 5 years and 12,000 hours to realize. Now I'm a real live disciple of Mr. Alexander. You can see my home, "Sierra Paradiso" at my face book page - Steve Perreira.

I have just this past month completed the total renovation or remodel of a 1952 California tract home. Three years ago as the process was beginning a friend gifted us with "A Pattern Language". The impact of this book on our project and the enduring benefit we'll receive over the years is beyond calculation. The depth to which the authors understand the issues is clear from the simple and graceful way in which they have sorted out the critical factors. Space, light, air, traffic, common and private spaces are explained in a simple manner that makes the concepts applicable and appreciable in all types of buildings. In addition, they capture the more primitive factors such as our fondness of being able to see the ground when seated at a window or being uncomfortable lying in bed below a high ceiling. The way they make sense out of those components aided us in every choice from entryway to backyard secret garden. The typical reaction of those who enter our humble little dwelling for the first time is a sharp intake of breath and a quick exclamation "Oh, I LOVE your home!" Using A Pattern Language as our guide we got $400,000 value from a $100,000 remodel.

Alexander tried to show that architecture connects people to their surroundings in an infinite number of ways, most of which are subconscious. For this reason, it was important to discover what works; what feels pleasant; what is psychologically nourishing; what attracts rather than repels. These solutions, found in much of vernacular architecture, were abstracted and synthesized into the "Pattern Language" about 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, although he did not say it then, it was obvious that contemporary architecture was pursuing design goals that are almost the opposite of what was discovered in the pattern language. For this reason, anyone could immediately see that Alexander's findings invalidated most of what practicing architects were doing at that time. The Pattern Language was identified as a serious threat to the architectural community. It was consequently suppressed. Attacking it in public would only give it more publicity, so it was carefully and off-handedly dismissed as irrelevant in architecture schools, professional conferences and publications.
Now, 20 years later, computer scientists have discovered that the connections underlying the Pattern Language are indeed universal, as Alexander had originally claimed. His work has achieved the highest esteem in computer science. Alexander himself has spent the last twenty years in providing scientific support for his findings, in a way that silences all criticism. He will publish this in the forthcoming four-volume work entitled "The Nature of Order". His new results draw support from complexity theory, fractals, neural networks, and many other disciplines on the cutting edge of science.
After the publication of this new work, our civilization has to seriously question why it has ignored the Pattern Language for so long, and to face the blame for the damage that it has done to our cities, neighborhoods, buildings, and psyche by doing so.

In California, mall developers finally used a different floor plan. They built an outside mall with a porch-like cafe, looking out over a meandering shopping area below. A reporter interviewed a dozen people, all of whom said they found themselves spending all day at the mall. "Why", he asked,"is it the shops? The stuff? And why this mall?" "We just like hanging out especially over there on the porch", they said - pointing to the porch-like cafe, where there were no shops.
Yeah, 'hippie-type' architecture, like the Romans built a couple thousand years ago! A 'touchy-feely' book about architecture, about spaces that people gravitate to. Alexander points out that there are places that humans naturally gravitate towards, and designs based on these places are repeated in many cultures and many eras. When we try to ignore our feelings and live in an economical box shell, we start to wonder why all our knickknacks don't make us feel at home. When they try to make an antiseptic mall- or city- that way, developers wonder why no one hangs out there.
Read this before you move into a mistake that no "feng shwee" mirror can fix!

My interest in this book was strictly for the design of homes and the surrounding gardens. I am a professional designer and I now consider "A Pattern Language" to be one of the most important design books that I own. In my opinion, no other writing on architecture and building design makes the creative process easier to understand. It cuts through the seemingly overwhelming task of good design and boils it down to a series of step-by-step decisions-each one influencing and naturally flowing into the next.

I put this book to the ultimate test when I used it to design and build my own home (the construction of which is documented in the DVD video "Building With Awareness: The Construction of a Hybrid Home", which is available from the store.com). I attribute much of the success of my home's design, which has now been toured by over 1,000 people, to this book. It has given me a way to evaluate why something is not working properly in a building's design and how to make it right. Good design still takes time. The principles of this book do require discipline. However, if you thoughtfully work with the patterns presented, I believe that even the layman can design a beautiful and functional home.

This book is a masterpiece. If you want to design your own home (as in my case), this book is indispensible. I am amazed how Christopher and company came up with such an amazing amount of design information. As one example, Christopher explains the "Zen View". In general, this is a small view that you are able to look through onto a different scene. Thinking this through, I absolutely agree! They explain this design quality, why it works, and how you can use it. This is just one gem of 100s.

I first heard about this book in the excellent Building Green: A how-to guide to alternative building methods... I really enjoyed reading it in a meditative way, a few design patterns each evening, as elements of refections of how I experience the places I live in. But, as a green builder, I also use the wisdom of this book in a very practicle way, in making sure I ask myself "how it feels" when I design and build places.