11–20 of 24 posts
I return to this book every year or so but it hasn't aged well as an utopian text. Balkanization at the world, nation, and local levels isn't the slam dunk he seems to think it is.
Not all of the patterns are winners, but some of them are really out there. I still love it for how many hit the mark.
My daughter goes to UO, where Alexander had a hand in applying some of his ideas. If you go to the campus today, though, it's overwhelmingly Uncle Phil who shapes the look and feel, sadly.
I bought a hard-copy back when SW patterns came in vogue, just to have it. It's pretty interesting even though I know nothing about architecture. My daughter goes to UO, where Alexander had a hand in applying some of his ideas. If you go to the campus today, though, it's overwhelmingly Uncle Phil who shapes the look and feel, sadly.
I feel like A Pattern Language is overrated standing on it's own. Too much people are extrapolating based on this book only instead of diving deeper into Christopher Alexander's other works. The patterns becomes a small thing in the mindset of working from a whole, piece by piece, and iterating with real world feedback instead of planning everything to the minute detail.
I feel like A Pattern Language is overrated standing on it's own. Too much people are extrapolating based on this book only instead of diving deeper into Christopher Alexander's other works. The patterns becomes a small thing in the mindset of working from a whole, piece by piece, and iterating with real world feedback instead of planning everything to the minute detail.
A Pattern Language is applicable when putting lines on paper or nails in wood, i.e. actually designing and/or building. Though interesting, A Timeless Way of Building tends to be mostly useful for complaining about the way something has been built. Nobody talks about the third book in the trilogy The Oregon Experiment because the resulting buildings don't look like what people want to be the result of A Timeless Way…
I bought a hard-copy back when SW patterns came in vogue, just to have it. It's pretty interesting even though I know nothing about architecture. My daughter goes to UO, where Alexander had a hand in applying some of his ideas. If you go to the campus today, though, it's overwhelmingly Uncle Phil who shapes the look and feel, sadly.
Uncle Phil?
I feel like A Pattern Language is overrated standing on it's own. Too much people are extrapolating based on this book only instead of diving deeper into Christopher Alexander's other works. The patterns becomes a small thing in the mindset of working from a whole, piece by piece, and iterating with real world feedback instead of planning everything to the minute detail.
Reading A Pattern Language without reading The Timeless Way of Building makes no sense at all. We do it, I think, because many technologists stumble on A Pattern Language through its relationship to Gang of Four and other “pattern” approaches. The book I always return to, more and more as I get older, is The Timeless Way of Building.
I was aware that there was a trilogy, chose to dig into “Pattern” first, and got a lot out of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Pattern Language is applicable when putting lines on paper or nails in wood, i.e. actually designing and/or building. Though interesting, A Timeless Way of Building tends to be mostly useful for complaining about the way something has been built. Nobody talks about the third book in the trilogy The Oregon Experiment because the resulting buildings don't look like what people want to be the result of A Timeless Way…
I couldn't find a book named The Timeless Way of Seeing . Is there another name? Who is the author? It sounds interesting.
I bought a hard-copy back when SW patterns came in vogue, just to have it. It's pretty interesting even though I know nothing about architecture. My daughter goes to UO, where Alexander had a hand in applying some of his ideas. If you go to the campus today, though, it's overwhelmingly Uncle Phil who shapes the look and feel, sadly.
I have have been introduced to many of Alexander’s ideas through this series of lectures on architecture and urbanism by Nikos Salingaros [1]. Mind bending stuff. [1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLre1SQJb-jSXex1MlLFlGrsRj...
He also simplifies an explanation of why algorithmic design vs "all at once" may be preferable: an algorithm offers opportunities for discovery beyond intuition and memory. In other words, trust the process.