The Nature of Order

"The architectural environment has a significant influence on the quality of life of its users. The relationship between architecture and the vitality of those it surrounds has been explored theoretically by various authors. However, the comprehensive four-volume work by the Austrian-born American architect Christopher Alexander, The Principles of Order, remains an unsurpassed classic, particularly its first volume, The Phenomenon of Life. The author seeks to grasp the fundamental principles of traditional architecture and offers an understanding of what creates life, beauty and functionality in buildings, cities and the landscape, as well as in rooms, nooks and crannies, and the details of the objects we use. He describes the geometric principles by which individual architectural elements are assembled into wholes that evoke a positive and beneficial response. These principles reflect the creative processes within organisms and ecosystems, which remarkably balance the constant emergence of the new with the maintenance of harmony. The book promotes architectural environments that foster vitality - that is, those which positively influence the natural human capacity to live, grow and develop in harmony with our innate affinity for nature."