Article

The Theory and Invention of Form

01/04/1965

Article

Authors:

Christopher Alexander

Published in:

Architectural Record, Vol. 137, pp. 177-186

Publisher:

McGraw Hill Inc., New York, NY, U.S.A.

References

Scientific Research

Good Fit between Form & Context

Areas of focus:

Quality and Values

Guiding idea:

Goodness of Fit

Christopher Alexander states in the "Notes on the Synthesis of Form" that the object of design is form, and consequently the problem of design is to fit the form with its context. Form is the part of the world which ...
Decomposition Process and the Diagrams

Areas of focus:

Structure of Space

Guiding idea:

Early Mathematical Approach

The prevailing idea being the search for goodness of fit between form and its context, Alexander postulated that in today's selfconscious design process, in order to attain a good design there must be an underlying correspondence between the structure of ...

Published Books

Notes on the Synthesis of Form 01/01/1964

Publication, Original Book

Authors:

Christopher Alexander

Publisher:

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.

“These notes are about the process of design: the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function.” This book, opening with these words, presents an entirely new theory of the process of design. In ...