4 ms·
Some architects do. There is an old BBC (I think) broadcast showing Christopher Alexander building a house. He goes to the site with the people who will live in
by gruseom 17y ago
Some architects do. There is an old BBC (I think) broadcast showing Christopher Alexander building a house. He goes to the site with the people who will live in the house, asks them what they have in mind. He has a scaffolding built, then asks the people to sit on the scaffolding in different places and talk about how it feels. Based on that, the rooms are decided, and so on. The house is built incrementally using feedback; there is no up-front plan. Admittedly, Alexander is far beyond the pale of mainstream architecture, but this is way cool.
- aprrrr 17y agoThat was in the BBC adaptation of "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand. Both the book and the miniseries (which is on Youtube in segments) are excellent. I heard about Christopher Alexander from his renown in programming circles. I wonder how he is viewed in the architectural mainstream?
- gruseom 17y agoI believe he's largely held in contempt, either ignored or dismissed as a loon. Unfortunately, Alexander has done a few things to paint himself into this corner. He seems to have a need to be regarded as a world-historical genius, which isolated him and turned his work into something a bit cultish. That's a great pity because his core ideas are so vital.
- tempest67 17y agoThat's correct, in the USA, at least -- although they seem to think better of him in Germany (at least, they did a decade ago). He did pioneering work on using computers for design at MIT in the sixties -- but it never really took off, or even worked terribly well. "Pattern Language" is seen as naive and ridiculous in the "top" schools -- but I agree with gruseom that there's a lot of wisdom there. We'll come back to it, as the cycles make their slow turn away from mannerism.