The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth – A Struggle Between Two World-Systems

The ninth and last volume of “The Center for Environmental Structure Series” on architecture published by Oxford University Press is the “The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth – A Struggle between Two World-Systems”. The book puts forth a revolutionary vision of the human environment and presents the Eishin Campus project in Japan –the largest project built by the Center for Environmental Structure.
The revolutionary vision postulates that in coming eras, the environment will be conceived, designed, made and widely understood as a necessary part of our emotional and social life. Achieving this vision will require an intensive, lengthy, global battle between two production systems. System-B, the dominant production system today, seeks to profit from development, and produces structures through mechanical procedures that destroy opportunities for joy and human satisfaction. System-A, the alternative, allows meaning to be built up progressively by benign, modest steps in the careful nurturing of our physical world.
Using the example of the construction of the Eishin Campus in Japan, the book demonstrates the comprehensive application of Alexander’s principles and methods to large-scale building projects and communities. It also explains in detail the intertwined design and construction processes, the use of patterns for defining the structure of a place, and the innovative techniques of construction and management that are at the heart of system-A.
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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