Dear Molly,
Fantastic. Thanks very much for posting and thank you for providing the
background history on Alexander's early work. I didn't know about this
deeper background in architectural theory although I knew parallel studies
in engineering design theory and systems design at that time. If you have
anything you would feel happy to send me I'd be very interested in reading
it.
Can you say whether Alexander's thinking was shaped by the patterns in
Design Theory in Mathematics as well as sets, graphs and topology, and how
much he relied on the prior work in systems theory?
Best wishes,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of molly
wright steenson
Sent: Friday, 12 December 2008 7:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: What undergirds Christopher Alexander?
Hi all, This is my first post to the list. By way of introduction,
I'm Molly Wright Steenson. I'm a 2nd year PhD student at Princeton
University in the School of Architecture, but have been a design
researcher and interaction designer for 15 years., Christopher
Alexander's interest in set and graph theory, linguistic and literary
structuralism and computer analysis structured his interest in both
patterns and languages -- though the notion of the pattern does not
really appear until ~1965. "Notes on the Synthesis of Form" emerged
out of the same framework as Marvin Minsky's work on artificial
intelligence (he cites him), on social network theory (see his 1962
work on HIDECS: a Fortran computer program for analyzing highway
design problems), mathematics, especially set and graph theory (see
the appendix to "Notes on the Synthesis of Form). While he pursued his
PhD at Harvard in the early 1960s -- his dissertation is essentially
"Notes on..." -- he had worked collaboratively across the Boston area
in a variety of groups that addressed all of these issues.
It is also worth pointing out that he emerged from Cambridge (where he
did his undergraduate study) at a vital moment in design and its
relationship to nascent computing technology. For more on this
connection, please see Sean Keller's article "Fenland Tech:
Architectural Science in Postwar Cambridge." (PDF:
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey.2006.1.23.40
).
I think the key to what underscored his thinking on patterns and
systems is better visible in some lesser known work: his Patterns
Manual (unpublished, 1967) and "Systems Generating Systems, "
published in Architectural Design in 1968. In interactions magazine,
published by the ACM, I have an article coming out on the former in
March 2009; I'm working on a paper about the 1962-8 period that I
would be happy to share when it is complete.
Best regards,
Molly Wright Steenson
http://activesocialplastic.com
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