Go BackThe Nature of Order – An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Two – The Process of Creating Life
“The Process of Creating Life”, the second volume of “The Nature of Order” series presents a dynamic theory of living structure. It begins with an analysis of transformations, which occur in nature, and the distinction between structure-preserving transformations, responsible for the living quality of traditional towns and villages, and the structure destroying transformations that dominate the construction of the modern world. The first part ends with an analysis of living structure as it has occurred in the 20th-century world.
The second part offers a detailed analysis of living process. It introduces a fundamental operation, seen to be the necessary atomic component of all life-creating processes. Most of part 2 shows the way in which a new profession of architecture, and a new society, may be built on the repeated use of living processes. The book ends with a vision of a society that is dominated by living process, and with examination of the way in which social change, towards living process, can be made to happen piecemeal.
The book was exhibited at Locus Manifesto-exposition “Re-enchant the World: Architecture and the City facing society´s transitions”, together with others in Science Cabinet #1.
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The Process of Urban Design and the Formation of Larger Urban Wholes
Theoretical basis and key assumptions for the process of urban growth, tested initially in the San Francisco Waterfront experimental project in 1979, in which the formation of larger urban wholes was highlighted as an overriding rule. This process was further ...
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Geometry and Fifteen Fundamental Properties
Christopher Alexander recognized the importance of the geometry of centers and for years he was looking for the common structural features among buildings, paintings, streets, carpets, doors, windows, etc. which have "life" and "wholeness". He identified fifteen structural features which ...
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Design and Construction is one Integrated Making Process
The design process of a project and its construction process are united into one continuous and intertwined making process, unfolding in a step-by-step sequence. Design ends together with the completion of the construction process. "Making" is a conception of the ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book One - The Phenomenon of Life
2002
“The Phenomenon of Life”, the first volume of “The Nature of Order” series proposes a scientific view of the world in which all space-matter has perceptible degrees of life and sets this understanding of order as an intellectual basis for ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Four - The Luminous Ground
2004
“The Luminous Ground” is the fourth and last volume of “The Nature of Order” series. In this volume, Alexander attempts to show the cosmological underpinning of the nature of order. The book has two goals. First, to show that the ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Three - A Vision of a Living World
2005
“A Vision of a Living World”, the third volume of “The Nature of Order” series, presents, for the first time, a full spectrum of Alexander’s and CES built and unbuilt works. The book describes hundreds of buildings, plans, neighborhoods, drawings, ...
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Peru Project - Low Cost Housing for the United Nations
1969 to
1970
Master plan for a community of 1500 houses, submitted as one out of twelve other competition entries for the United Nations sponsored international housing competition PREVI (Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda). The Center for Environmental Structure was chosen as the ...
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Low Cost Houses for Mexicali
1975 to
1977
A cluster of houses for large families, with a builders yard, built by the families themselves with the help of students from the Universidad Autonoma of Mexico, and a team of builders from the Center for Environmental Structure. Each house ...
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Linz Café
1980
Built as part of the international exposition "Forum Design" and designed to be "portable". Wooden building overlooking the Danube, with the first floor of the building raised to clear the ten-foot-high river embarkment. Yellow and red exterior, three stories, 2,300 ...
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Linz Café: "Aperiodic" grid of the timber post and beam structural frame
1980
Post and beam structural system which fits the structure of the spaces initially conceived, and is based on a structural grid with differentiated spacing of the grid lines in both directions, long and short, keeping the variations regular. The use ...
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Sapporo Apartment Building: Structural order in the concrete-encased steel load bearing structure
1982
This innovative structural scheme arose from the careful unfolding of the design with respect to user requirements, the impact of surrounding buildings, coupled with the fact that there was an untouchable small clinic on the site which had to be ...
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Eishin Campus - High School: Homeroom buildings wall mockups for testing ornaments
1983
Wall mockups with concrete block, white plaster, black plaster, green plaster, wood, stone in different proportions.
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Advanced Graduate Seminar on Theory of Urban Design
1979
Focus on the Centering Process, Visions, Financing problems, etc.
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Advanced Topics on Geometry and Wholeness
1980
Topics studied: 1) How to generate and attain wholeness; 2) Definiton of “whole”; 3) Centering process; 4) Simplicity seeking process and not-separateness; 5) Geometric properties.
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Advanced Topics on Geometry - Special Problems
1980
On Unbroken Wholeness: eleven week seminar on the Centering Process and the Geometric Properties.