The Timeless Way of Building A Book by Christopher Alexander www.patternlanguage.com Mind of no mindThe quality without a nameAn objective matterBitternessThe most precious thing we ever have+27 More Some emptiness in usDeliberate actsNo kindpatternsof.designA Pattern LanguageNon-architectsThe Side View #17: Susan Ingham & Chris AndrewsThe usages of life architecturemakingbuildingurbanismbeautyconstructionzen
A Pattern Language A Book by Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein & Sara Ishikawa www.goodreads.com Its place in the web of nature9. Scattered Work21. Four-Story Limit51. Green Streets53. Main Gateways+27 More Deliberate actspatternsof.design125 Best Architecture BooksThe Timeless Way of BuildingThe design systems between usCollaborative Information Architecture at Scale architectureurbanismlifeconstruction
A City Is Not a Tree An Essay by Christopher Alexander www.patternlanguage.com Strands of lifeImpending destructionThe right overlapThe difficulty of designing complexityPolitical chains of influence+8 More Trees and graphsThe dishonest mask of pretended orderThe problem with treesBoth practical and aesthetic concerns citiesurbanismdesignarchitecturemath
Notes on the Synthesis of Form A Book by Christopher Alexander www.hup.harvard.edu I could do better than thatThis small internal quaverTheir wrongness is somehow more immediate mathdesignarchitectureformproblems
The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth A Book by Christopher Alexander www.goodreads.com Two generating systemsTwo types of building productionSystem ASystem BThis has harmed modern society greatly+24 More What the prototype tells youOn the "Building" of Software and WebsitesBack to the Drawing BoardReading the landscape architectureurbanismbeautyconstruction
The Nature of Order A Book by Christopher Alexander www.natureoforder.com Levels of ScaleStrong CentersBoundariesAlternating RepetitionPositive Space+10 More Strength from both mass and form architectureurbanismgoodnessbeauty
Contrasting Concepts of Harmony in Architecture A Dialogue by Christopher Alexander & Peter Eisenman www.katarxis3.com The realm of feelingPanicThe pitched roofThe trick of little machinesMerely a building+2 More
The drop press The virtue of thin sheet metal in giving the greatest glitter for a grain of gold was exploited in the earliest days of metallurgy. However, before the days of rolled sheet and drawn wire, most metal objects were made by hammering and were basically three-dimensional in form. [In contrast] look at the simple drop press — it’s unmodulated blow striking in a single direction symbolizes much of nineteenth-century mechanized production. To make multiple stampings, stacks of very thin metal sheets were superimposed under the hammer, and the final profile with moderately high relief was gradually achieved as finished sheets were removed from the bottom and new ones added at the top. When the drop press was used to shape large areas of thin sheet metal, the aesthetic qualities of the surface became divorced from the underlying substance, and decoration became independent of the body needed to support it. In any object there is a natural relationship between the surface and the bulk, that is, between its one-, two-, and three-dimensional aspects. The fakery involved in applying gold or silver playing on a solid copper object is quite different from the deception of an ornately stamped piece of thin sheet brass. Compare a magnificent ormolu furniture fitting or even a gilded plaster picture frame with a cheap lamp base embossed in thin sheet brass. In the former, the surface is simply and honestly applied for its optical effect alone; in the latter the fakery is fundamental for it is dimensionally misleading. Cyril Stanley Smith, A Search for Structure Separation of surface and structure