Category: Architecture
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Stephen Harrod Buhner on deeper attunement
The following is from Michael Barticel’s interview with Stephen Harrod Buhner. Buhner talks about developing a deeper attunement with ourselves and the world. He says (paraphrasing): My work is the movement from dissociated mentation to engaged sensory experience, in particular the response of the heart to what’s presented to the senses.3 Descartes said, “Cogito, ergo…
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Christopher Alexander on the Personal Nature of Deeper Order
Christopher Alexander laid a foundation for order to be understood as living structure.1 Living structure, furthermore, cannot be understood as something separate from ourselves. It is both structure and personal. It is related to the geometry of space and to how things work. And it is related to the human person, deeply attached to something…
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Centers suffer from the same deficiency as patterns
Christopher Alexander came to believe that patterns themselves are not enough to generate life in buildings. After many years of thinking, Christopher Alexander came up with the idea that any part of space is defined by centers. They are focal points in a larger unbroken whole. It is important to remember that the centers are…
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Wholeness is not breakable into parts
Wholeness is not breakable into parts. —Skye Hirst Skye Hirst said in a conversation that “wholeness is not breakable into parts”.1 It caught my attention. I saw it in relation to what Christopher Alexander has been trying to do with patterns. Christopher Alexander attempted to formulate the principles that lead to a good built environment…
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Organizing reflection 17
This is a post in my series on organizing ”between and beyond.” Other posts are here. The purpose of this post is to reflect on subjects occupying my mind. I make no claim to fully believe what I write. Neither do I pretend that others have not already thought or written about the same subject.…
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Bonnitta Roy on an open architecture for self-organization
Bonnitta Roy describes in An Open Architecture for Self-Organization how to “to distribute management responsibilities into self-organizing teams, without losing strategic performance“. She calls this “The Open Participatory Organization“, or OPO for short. The governance of an OPO is CriSP, or “continually regenerating it’s starting position“. This means that the form of the organization “takes…
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Japanese aesthetic ideals
Aesthetics in Japan is seen as an integral part of daily life and include ancient ideals like: Yūgen (幽玄), an awareness of the Universe that triggers emotional responses too deep and powerful for words; 1 Wabi, transient and stark beauty; Sabi, the beauty of natural aging. In Zen philosophy there are seven principles for achieving…
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Christopher Alexander on living structure
Here is a presentation on Patterns in Architecture by Christopher Alexander at the 1996 ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programs, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA). And here is a full transcript of this talk. Christopher Alexander says that there is something we objectively can call ‘living structure.’ We know it when we are in its presence.…
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Christopher Alexander
För mig är Christopher Alexander en stor inspirationskälla. Han har genom sina böcker The Nature of Order för alltid förändrat hur jag ser på mig själv och min omvärld. Relaterade inlägg (på engelska): Book Review: The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth Christopher Alexander on living structure Christopher Alexander on real beauty