Christopher Alexander was an architect and professor of architecture, born in Vienna 1936. He died in March 2022 in England. His family left Vienna when he was two years old because of takeover of the nazi regime and went to Oxford were his parents worked as german teachers. He went to Cambridge and after that went to architecture school at Harvard, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1963. In the same year he became professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley until 1998. [1]
His book “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction” (1977) inspired the upcoming software community. He wrote an introduction for Richard Gabriel’s book “Patterns of Software”. In 1996 he was invited to give a speech at a software conference in San Jose, California at the ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programs, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA). [2] In his speech he provided an overview of his former studies and approaches the question of the connection between his work and the computer science. From the very beginning of his studies he searched for the soul of buildings. Today we would call it human-centered architecture. His ideas are similar also to the UX process. He wanted to bring more live into buildings and also include normal people to design their houses, not leave everything to the architect. [3]
He used the term “living structure” a lot, which meant to him the feeling a building evokes in people. Back then the modern structure of the buildings were functional but for many people the buildings didn´t feel comfortable. One of the characteristics of any good environment is that every part of the environment works as a whole. In his first book he tried to find the features which makes the building and its surroundings positive and create a good and health feeling. He wanted a more hands-on handbook which collects all the information to get a good result even for non-architects. He studied generative schemes or instructions of traditional cultures. One of the things he researched on was to find the impact on our life and get an holistic approach. In his book he explained things which are good for people – like warm colours, improving the daylight, entrances etc. and finding the ideal proportions for houses. What was the method to find out if the one design of a chair has a more living structure than the other design? He and his team did simple empirical experiments by asking people if they feel more whole with this or that object or in this or that building. The asked questions like: “Do you feel more whole? Do you feel more alive in the presence of this thing? Do you feel that this one is more of a picture of your own true self than this thing you know whatever?”[4] A lot of architects dismissed the findings because they said there is no objectivity about life or quality but Alexander could prove an 80-90% agreement on what a living structure is. The conclusion was that what people find more living and what makes them more whole is not just a personal question and can lead to certain pattern which have a highly approach to be good design. His book should lead to better architecture which makes people feel good.
But not only following the advices written in the book but also the process is important for creating a good result. There is a good way to do things and a bad one, according to this the result of the things will be good or bad. When it comes to software there is no sense in asking if this or that object in the code has more live or if a program makes you feel more whole by observing the code. In Software Development they could use the concept as a format. Also the idea with the process is an important aspect. A process can help produce good code an therefore good programms. [5]
Everything we see in our surroundings raises our spirits a bit or lowers them a bit.
Christopher Alexander, 1994 [6]
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/arts/christopher-alexander-dead.html (22.01.2023)
- The origins of pattern theory, C. Alexander, “The origins of pattern theory: the future of the theory, and the generation of a living world,” in IEEE Software, vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 71-82, Sept.-Oct. 1999, doi: 10.1109/52.795104.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/arts/christopher-alexander-dead.html (22.01.2023)
- Christopher Alexander in: The origins of pattern theory, C. Alexander, “The origins of pattern theory: the future of the theory, and the generation of a living world,” in IEEE Software, vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 71-82, Sept.-Oct. 1999, doi: 10.1109/52.795104.
- The origins of pattern theory, C. Alexander, “The origins of pattern theory: the future of the theory, and the generation of a living world,” in IEEE Software, vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 71-82, Sept.-Oct. 1999, doi: 10.1109/52.795104.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/arts/christopher-alexander-dead.html)
