Footnote
Last updated on February 24, 2021
I remain continuously and exclusively occupied with the problem of creating living structure. There is no additional agenda, no psychic, religious, or spiritual agenda. There is only the desire to create living structure and to create it well. But this means, as we shall find out, creating relatedness. And it is my desire that we may actually succeed in this, do it successfully — and, therefore, do everything that must be done to achieve it.
From the study of history, I have become convinced that we cannot successfully create living structure in full degree without paying attention to the ground of all things — whatever that may be. We cannot do it, therefore, without allowing the formation of centers to be guided by the principle that (as far as possible) all living centers do make a connection with the ground.
(Page 47)
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A foundation for all of architecture A more general class of tests for life A new view of nature A world which enhances human life About the nature of the universe About the Nature of Order Alexander and Cybernetics Alexander and Lakoff Christopher Alexander and Religion Alexander in context Alexander's foreword to Patterns of Software Alternating repetition Always look one level above and below your current... An empirical test for comparing the degree of life... Andre Kertesz’s Paris Are peoples’ wishes really universal? Arrangement in space (and time) is fundamental to... Attempt of a summary of Alexander’s theory Authentic architecture with deep feeling has... The mirror of the self A dynamic view of order Order as becoming Our mechanized process Possibility of a new view of architectural process Process, the key to making life in things The concept of living structure The necessary role of process A final comment on architecture A principle of unfolding wholeness Appearance of the fifteen properties Creation of structure as it occurs in nature Emergence of living structure Note for the scientific reader Previously offered explanations of emergence from... The fifteen properties emerge directly from the... The need for a general explanation of the way that... The principle of unfolding wholeness in nature A power station made to help a valley A snow block in an igloo An operational basis: How each center, as it is... Differentiation of an imaginary building... Emergence of strong centers at fine scale in the... Emergence of the fifteen properties Emerging centers which help the whole Successful adaptation The Julian street inn The pervasive generality of the center-making... The playful core of the matter Why is it so difficult to form centers by... A generative sequence for apartment buildings in... Conclusion Example of a larger generative sequence: a... Further insight into the real nature of living... Generative sequences are the key to the success of... Generative sequences in traditional society Sequences of unfolding in architecture The mathematical scarcity of good sequences The mental change needed to allow yourself the... The role of sequence in preserving structure The vital interplay of form and sequence Uniqueness of different apartment buildings... Vital importance of the “right” sequence Every living process is — at its core — a process... Geometry: uniqueness, regularity, differentiation Regularity: fact and fiction Respect for what exists The surprising character of what unfolds Uniqueness arises naturally from sequence from... A new language for houses in Peru Discovering new pattern-languages: how to draw a... Essential centers not gimmicks Generic rules for making centers or “making life... Human culture as a part of physics Looking for glimpses of eternal life Pattern languages Patterns as generic centers and the evolution of... Structure-preserving transformations as the origin... The deep nature of patterns and pattern languages The Eishin school pattern language The process of finding a good center The system of patterns emanates as a whole The type of observation which leads to discovery... A new whole emerges: life v. mechanism — the... A panel of yellow blossoms Appendix: the hard work of creating an engine that... Choosing among doors according to degree of... Classrooms in the rain Deep feeling must be the core of living process Designing a music cabinet Feeling as the origin of the artistic whole Grasping the feeling of a fishpond as a whole The aim of every living process is, at each step,... The black columns The formless but specific feeling of the whole Wholeness and feeling Will deep feeling really be possible? In... A further structural example A generative process for middle-range order in the... A glimpse of the idea of a generating sequence for... Formation of brutal and massive chunks in the... Geometric order Outward simplicity of form and packing of form Reasons for brutal geometric order to evolve The aperiodic grid The Sapporo building What is really happening in such a case What seems like an imposition of geometry is... Building a form-language from theory Ensor’s masks: the form language of an ultramodern... Historically, what kind of thing did a form... How can human beings implement a geometrical... Possibility of a form language for all future time The form of future buildings — sketches to... The format of our art The modern theory of language The style needed for unfolded, living form Twentieth-century struggles to invent a... Why twentieth-century form languages were not... All there is At each step get rid of everything that is not... Doing the simplest thing: the basis of all... Final section on simplicity How is the simple to be achieved? A spiritual... Japanese asymmetries Natural symmetries Nothingness Symmetry, simplicity, and just what is required The drive to simplicity The idea of a natural system of symmetries What is simple? Improving computer-aided design (CAD) processes Improving processes Improving streets to enhance neighborhoods Improving zoning rules Introduction: What do processes actually look like... Morphogenetic processes Slow improvement of *all* social processes The breadth of processes that can be improved The primary function of society Difficulties of sequence caused by separating... Difficulties of sequence which originate in... Elements of society in which changes must be made Excessive rigidity of rules Further difficulties of inappropriate sequence:... Further difficulties of sequence caused by the... Inappropriate sequence caused by administrative... Intentional rigidity of rules — the influence of... Long-in-tooth difficulties of insufficient freedom... The biggest source of monsters — profit-based... The death of beauty: a huge system effect which... The footsteps of Thomas Kuhn — A vital need to... The generation of monsters The need for a true shift of paradigm A new view of the natural world Fifteen transformations How the fifteen properties appear in nature from... In buildings, too, all living structure grows... Minimum symmetry breaking Repeated application of structure-preserving... Structure-preserving transformations further... Structure-preserving transformations The objectivity of structure-preserving... Criteria for evolution — Sequences as a medium of... Forty thousand morphogenetic processes Interdependence of sequences More on the length of sequences More snippable short sequences — Construction... Morphogenetic processes — a piecemeal approach to... Other recent steps in the evolution of society... Snippable genes — the optimum size of sequences... The emergence of sequences that consecrate our... The gene pool: further process of improvement and... The Grameen bank sequence: a single sniffable gene... The linkages stimulate evolution of further... The network evolves The network of sequences The spread of one, small, “snippable” gene which... What is it that will allow this sequence to be... A new definition of architecture A vision of the future First major problem: the very large — How to... Larger and deeper My assumption about our profession Second major problem: the very small — How to... The architect The architect’s dream What place, then, for us architects? Deep feeling as the guiding principle Repairing the whole The biology of our future world The far-distant future A deeper conception of the living room A first sketch A radical new process Analysis of cost Checking the neighbors’ views Common sense: an overview of the process Concrete wall details Deeper questions about the feeling of the plan Establishing rooms Extension of the lot: the little plum tree Finding a site First analysis of the site with rough twisted... First emergence of an interior plan Full-size tests of volume and position on the site Laying the house out on the land Management agreement that feeling must guide even... Plasterwork experiments Setting the main-floor level Start of construction Starting to get a general idea of construction The retaining wall Upstairs rooms Love of life Smooth unfolding as the origin of life in... Smooth unfolding in the traditional world of... Inspiring modern cases where unfolding did occur Conclusion Examples of structure-destroying transformations... Interior structure of buildings Mass-produced building and city form Other examples of structure-destroying... Some sympathy for the architects who made these... The advent of structure-destroying transformations... The thrall of images Why all processes do not create life A wide range of structure-preserving processes and... Living processes The underlying processes whose traces we hav seen The wondrous character of life in modern times A thousand trillion possible mistakes in a human... Analysis of a few generated structures by means of... Complexity Conclusion of the discussion on generated... Creating highly complex objects Differentiation How to count mistakes In individual buildings, too, we may ask what is... One million possible mistakes in a community Structures that have unfolded in time The complexity that was generated in Shilnath The five-thousand possible mistakes in a typical... The geometry of complexity The greek marble horse The significance of generated structure The social and monetary cost of the one million... A process of creating meadows Definition Differentiation Emergence of beautiful geometry Extreme generality of the concept of living... Necessary features of all living process Overview: The fundamental differentiating process Practical manifestations of living process Summary so far The class of living processes The fundamental differentiating process The fundamental process The hierarchy of individual and accretive... The naturalness of living process The secret Architectural implications Back to generated structure once again Feedback Getting things right Gradual progress toward living structure Overall implications Step-by-step adaptation The result must be unpredictable Unfolding of a painting by Matisse At each step decide only what you know with... Common sense Each step is always helping to enhance the whole In summary Microcosm of a process which is guided by the... The modern problem of design The process of capturing the whole The whole then emerges from these transformations The whole To be guided by the whole, we must pay attention... Living processes How many possible living structures are there? Freshness and deep adaptation — the class of... My intention in book 3 Repeated application of living process in city and... A historical example of a living process Examples of life-creating processes from our era The continuous flow of creation in a region of the... Widely spread life-creating processes Conclusion 1 Who, today, can truly enjoy belonging to the... 2 The uniqueness of individuals, families, and... 3 The living room of society 4 Interlock of private and public, and continuous... 5 The impact of living process on belonging 6 An invariant morphology which will be generated... 1 A question 2 A vital comment about people’s wishes 3 A direct sequence of logical steps leading from... 4 Shiratori: a new form of high-density housing at... 5 Chikusasai: 40 families per acre 6 Evaluation of the Shiratori and Chikusadai plans 7 A possible world-wide archetype 8 Some invariants for high-density housing Important note: simulation and reality 1 The stuff of life 2 The essential reason for dynamic thinking 3 Santa Rosa de Cabal, Columbia 4 Feedback, diagnosis and repair 5 Laying out a larger neighborhood by a dynamic... 6 Moshav Shorashim in the Galilee 7 The Fort Mason bench 8 Doing work together 9 Some morphological invariants that will... 1 Every place will be unique 10 Office layout process 11 Mass-housing where each family make their own... 12 How symmetries and asymmetries get created 13 Morphological invariants likely to appear in... 2 Three houses by telephone 3 A house for Geoffrey and Linda Gioja 4 A house for Jim and Sylvia Heisey 5 A house for Mike and Patricia Goddu 6 Overview of the unfolding process for the three... 7 A paradox about uniqueness 8 Mass-housing with unique apartments 9 A factory and its individual workspaces A few invariants of rooms that have been shaped by... 1 What makes a good room? 10 Tranquility even in the huge 2 Position: How living process may be used to... 3 Position: Starting with the most important room 4 Position: The living room of the Medlock House 5 The main centers of a room: internal elements... 6 The main centers of the carpet gallery at the... 7 Fine structure which determines the internal... 8 Fine structure: the Berryessa staircase 9 Tranquility 1 The most decisive, most telling aspect 2 Physical substance itself 3 Microstructure of a building 4 Microstructure as a necessary part of all... 5 Mirrors of the self in every building detail 6 Unfolding building details from the fundamental... 7 For living elements like these, a new form of... 8 A letter to the reader 9 Some invariants which will emerge when the... 1 A personal note 10 Working on integrated wholes 11 Matura as an example 12 Wabi-to-sabi: the balance of rough and smooth 13 Summary 14 Morphological invariants created when making... 2 Making 3 Technical definition of “making” 4 The most basic feature of living structure 5 The technology of making 6 The social philosophy of making 7 The nearest tenth of an inch 8 Detailed shape and size of capitals at... 9 Money and contracts 1 The search for new materials 10 The paradigm of smooth unfolding as a target... 11 Monocoque construction — new forms of hollow,... 12 Concrete monocoque construction — a currently... 13 Features of new building methods that are... 2 Green materials and adaptation 3 What matters is that we have techniques of... 4 An innovation for village construction — stacked... 5 Cheap and beautiful ways of forming concrete 5A Wood and concrete combinations 6 Heavy wood construction 7 New forms of brick and block construction 8 Sophisticated may mean advanced or it may mean... 9 Smooth unfolding of construction 1 How may we approach truly gigantic construction... 10 Fabrication of luminous glass ceilings 11 Extension of ultra-modern techniques to all... 2 High-speed adaptive production: technical... 3 Slowly created harmony in a massive project: the... 4 The core of the solution: a combination of large... 5 Adaptive design emerging within the whole 6 The water-jet cutter 7 Prefabrication of marble on fiberglass mats... 8 Repetition and variation 9 Human beings and technology: personal feeling... 1 Ornament as products of unfolding 10 In a living building, everything is ultimately... 11 Everything is joyful ornament 2 Ornament as detail which emerges directly from... 3 Black-and-white marble floors and surfaces 4 Making a colored, ornamented, floor 5 Other kinds of ornament 6 Hand-glazed tilework 7 Making lifelike animals and plants in the fabric... 8 Simplicity of ornamental human figures 9 Structural qualities created by the fundamental... 1 The unfolding which produces inner light 2 The painted kitchen 3 Paint and color materials 4 The surprising nature of the color that unfolds 5 The blue of the Kaiser house 6 Another case of the surprising nature of color... 7 How can it really be that color and design come... 8 Color is so effortless 9 Morphological invariants which appear as living... 1 The link of human happiness with the environment 10 Paintings and photographs of the blissful state 11 Geometrical consequences: structural effects of... 12 Conclusion 2 Belonging and true comfort 3 The fifteen properties 4 Dependence of the blissful state of our... 5 The sense of belonging 6 More on the blissful state 8 The true landscape of architecture 9 Attaining the blissful state 1 Emergence of an archetypal core 2 A collection of examples 3 Process and geometry: the origin of archetypal... 4 Centers and symmetries 5 The feeling-symmetry principle within these... 6 The archetype underlying all 7 Weak archetype, strong archetype 8 A last remark 1 Architecture as the continuation and completion... 2 All urban building viewed as part of nature 3 The world originating from its people 4 Our birthright 1 The unfolding of public space 10 Summary of the effects 11 Morphological features of public space created... 2 Positive space 3 How hulls of public space come naturally from... 4 Shaped public space forming living centers 5 The spine structure of the Eishin campus 6 The hulls of public space for a community of... 7 Shaping the hulls for part of a new town in... 8 A new approach to urban space: first forming a... 9 Implementation 1 How large buildings may be created by the... 10 Emergence of new multi-level contracts for... 11 The intricacy of detail in a living process —... 12 Conceptual vision of a still larger process 13 Setting up a design management construction... 14 Conclusion — Geometric features which follow... 2 The Great Hall: a multitude of living centers 3 Intimacy of design within the huge 4 Mountain View Civic Center: differentiation of a... 5 Tokyo Forum: unfolding of a massive building 6 Eurostar 7 Introduction to discussion of process for a... 8 Even in the biggest building, people must be the... 9 The contracting problem 1 The all-important relationship between buildings... 10 The most vital step in any building process 11 Remember that each building exists mainly to... 2 Every building is placed and shaped to form a... 3 A lock-and-key process 4 The Millennium Church 5 Emergence of complex space and volume on a small... 6 Building a five-story building in Tokyo to make... 7 Laying out a very large building complex: the... 7a Completion of design and construction of the... 8 A secondary structure-enhancing process which... 9 Emergence of building volumes in a more... 1 Beauty of structure and positive space 10 Each step uses the fundamental process to... 11 Appropriate structural order for a large... 12 Morphological invariants that are likely to... 2 Interlocking elements of mass and elements of... 3 Positive space and positive structure — a... 4 The seeming miracle: why beauty of space and... 5 Three-dimensional formation of positive and... 6 The great hall at Eishin 7 A new kind of engineering design process based... 8 Using the fundamental process to get the design... 9 Going on with the unfolding process for the... 1 The partial, built shell that lets a garden grow 10 Small and large centers contribute to unfolding 11 Centers in your own garden, created by your... 12 The wild and cultivated garden 13 Splendor in ordinariness 14 I don’t care kind of caring 15 The structure likely to appear in gardens... 2 A sequence of adaptive acts 3 Thus the living aspect of gardens comes about,... 4 It unfolds directly from people’s ordinary... 5 A comment from the heart of zen 6 The built support that natural gardens need 7 Twenty percent of the construction money for... 8 Positive space in gardens 9 Preserve the structure of what is there 1 A shared vision 10 The vital need for a collective vision 11 The archetypal character of the collective... 12 Bologna 13 The special character of each community created... 2 The psychiatrists of Letterman Hospital 3 Unfolding as a source of unanimity 4 Start of a collective vision in Fort Lauderdale 5 Design charettes 6 A collective vision growing in Chikusadai 7 The visionary process 8 A collective vision achieved at Eishin 9 We created: they created 1 A growing city 10 Yellow: growing the pedestrian hull 11 Gray: Splitting lots and multiplication of... 12 Green: the growth of positive green space 13 Red: cars are given last place 14 Overview of all four processes together 15 Structure-preserving unfolding of the four-fold... 16 Repairing blight 17 Highly complex order — the key invariants in a... 2 Addressing the problem of blight 3 A new kind of zoning law, helping to generate... 4 A profound contrast between two very different... 5 The pattern of yellow, green, gray, and red 6 What should be the pattern of yellow, green,... 7 Making a start in the existing Progresso... 8 Density interactions and the density threshold 9 The key idea: within an optimum density... Part 1 Part 2 Author’s note Preface — Introduction Preface — Background Preface — The personal Changes in our idea of matter That exists in me, and before me, and after me Cosmology A fusion of self and matter The effort it took to get the stark geometry of... The strength of the present scientific... The weakness of the present world-picture The needs of architecture Scientific efforts to build an improved... The continuing lack of a unifying cosmology Ten tacit assumptions which underlie our present... Inspiration for a future physics The confrontation of art and science Introduction Emil Nolde's sunset and Paul Gauguin's cow A significantly large structure Being modern and being true The childlike There is nothing greater Pure innocence and deep order — the message of St.... Recapitulation of books 1 to 4 as "pleasing... Veronica's blue chair The heart-stopping quality The thought police Not pleasing yourself A group of architecture students who were not... A Mexicali story about the thought police Pleasing yourself This is God Spirit made manifest The practical results of this knowledge A necessary state of mind The world beyond a given thing Not-separateness Making a gift for God The face of God Introduction A new method of observation at the core of the... The nature of space and matter Enduring skepticism as a source of certainty Wholeness as a physical structure in the universe Consciousness as a physical feature of the... A modified physics Summary of the modified physics A new picture of the world A physical basis for religious awe Essential awe An extension of the scientific idea of what can be... Introduction An observation Relatedness A possible explanation A connection to the self What of our modern works? More on the problem of our era The black plaster Footnote A dewdrop The I of our experience originating with the I in... A Hypothesis Mobilizing the storm Relatedness The mirror-of-the-self experiments The real relatedness existing underneath the skin The ancient and eternal truth of the relatedness The numinous experience True meaning of relatedness A jump to speaking about the existence of an I An experiment to determine the extension of the I Introduction The fundamental process The difficulty of the task Innocence The vision of Matisse and Bonnard In our own era A new vision of building — making living structure... The life of the environment Consider the possibility of viewing all living... The jewel net of Indra What it means for a center to be being-like A corner of a farmer’s field A shipyard Looking at Chartres Each living center is a being Pure unity Intensifying shape Unity achieved in a great blossom Emergence of a being from the field of centers Beings in arches, spaces, and columns: the example... Emergence of the arches Detailed design of the structural columns A wall Catching a being in color The haunting melody Introduction The possibility of a coherent verifiable theory The argument from verifiable details The argument from coherence The unity that speaks of I The faintly glowing quality which can be seen in a... A psychological explanation Possible existence of a single underlying... The blazing one What, then, is a center? Though a strange model, it provides a viable... Which I-hypothesis is true? A non-material view of matter Introduction: A direct glimpse of the I Sequence of linked color pairs Boundaries and hairlines Families of color Color variation Intensity and clarity of individual colors Subdued brilliance Color depends on geometry Color and the field of centers Inner light as a glimpse of the I which lies... The hint of a transcendent unity Color as an essential feature of reality Transcendent wholeness as a kind of light Conclusion Inner light The unfolding which produces inner light The eleven color properties Hierarchy of colors Colors create light together Contrast of dark and light Mutual embedding Why unity and sadness are connected Sadness Getting sadness in the flesh of the building Sadness of color and geometry Unity and sadness in a group of buildings Unity and sadness of life in a back yard The ground Concluding section Introduction Do not ask for whom the bell tolls The impact of making beauty on the maker's life The healing process Making wholeness heals the maker Life made creates life in the maker The source of the healing effect Human growth: the movement of the self towards its... Towards full knowledge of the self which can arise... Drawing sadness from your most vulnerable self Book 4 — Part 1 Beauty in code Beyond cognition Beyond preserving natural life towards creating it Book 2 Cliff Notes Book 3 Cliff Notes Book 4 cliff notes Boundaries Building is an essential order-creation process Can we talk about “feeling”…? Center Centers and design Centers help one another Character vs. features Comparisons Consequences of the mechanistic view Contemporary architecture avoids the 15 properties Contrast Creating life Cultural variation of wholeness Deep interlock and ambiguity 🛠 Development tools for this digital garden Where software and architecture are different Digital Garden Digital gardening is a living process Each center has its life Echoes Eleatic philosophers Emergence of this new form of observation from... Experiments in our time Feeling as the inward aspect of life Feeling life 15 fundamental properties Freedom and loss of freedom Freedom of the spirit Binary vs. gradual perspectives — from boundaries... From ecology to a broader conception of life Function arising out of ornament Function vs. ornament Functional Completeness And Ergodicity General and repurposable tools Geometry in music Geometry in software Good shape Gradients Growing a LISP with structure-preserving... Growing this site Helpful foundational ideas How a chisel works How a living room works How centers work together How does the world have its effect on us? Human feeling is 90% the same across people Dichotomy between process and structure In software we avoid requiring proper order in a... Increasing the number and speed of iteration by... Ideas inspired by The Nature of Order Inspiring threads from Unfold Chat Interplay of the properties An introduction to The Nature of Order Judgement and the pursuit of architecture Key concepts in The Nature of Order Learning to recognize and apply the 15 properties Levels of scale Life and imperfection Life as an attribute of space and matter Life and living structure Liking something from the heart Local symmetries Loosing the sense of true connection Make God appear in the middle of a field Maps of Matter Math and programming Mathematical and physical existence of centers Mechanical-rationalist world view Mechanism vs. harmony Mechanization in architecture and software Metaphorical structure in the two arches example Metaphors we believe by Not-separateness Now Objective vs. subjective — a new worldview Ontology as grammar Order is difficult to describe Order Ordinary reality Ornament and function Successively adding detail — over-specification... Interactive places discussing Christopher... Pluralist view of value Positive space Project Objectives Recursion and towers of abstraction Recursive definition of a center Roughness Rules for identifying centers Search for real beauty Seeing centers Send a program, not a data structure Separation from reality Shared understanding is needed to have meaningful... Simplicity and inner calm Space itself carries the attribute of life Strong centers Structure of the books Symmetry and recursion as repetition 1. What is true, is only the body of those facts... 10. The instinct that there is some kind of deeper... 2. Matters of value in architecture are... 3. Modern conceptions of human liberty require... 4. The basic matter of the world is neutral with... 5. Matter and mind, the objective outer world and... 6. Art is an intense and powerful social... 7. Ornament and function in a building are... 8. At a profound level, architecture is... 9. The intuition that something profound is... Techniques of measurement Telegram Group The appeal to shared experience The Architecture of Complexity The awakening of space The concept of living structure The core of the new method of observation The expanding and contracting of our humanity The fundamental process The hypothesis of Denis Diderot The Long Path that Leads from the Making of Our... The mirror of the self The recursive character of life The relation to Descartes The stress reservoir The unity of ornament and function The void Throw out all functional explanations in your mind... Todo Top-down vs. bottom-up — whole vs. parts Unfolding a LISP Unfolding the Nature of Order What does it mean for something to be personal? Wholeness and feeling Wholeness and real liking Wholeness changes over time Wholeness in physics Wholeness Why 15 fundamental properties? Why do the 15 properties occur in nature?