The Nature of Order: A Vision Of A Living World
In Book 3 Alexander presents hundreds of his own buildings and those of his contemporaries who have used similar methods consistent with the theory of living process.
Belonging as a fundamental dignity of the human.
Looseness and well adapted, individual and unique structure.
But living process, insofar as it affects be-longing, also works because it generates a very particular kind of morphological structure, a graininess, a quality that is far, far removed from the shiny image-driven slickness of contemporary architecture and design. (pg. 63)
A new type of contract:
- The price is fixed.
- What is agreed is only the building outline and the rough plan.
- Modifications unfold as the construction of the building goes forward. Changes in plan, section, interior space, exterior construction, details and ornaments are made continuously throughout construction by the architect and builder, without change orders.
- The object is to build the best possible building for the given sum.
- This is made possible by holding price fixed, by giving the architect-builder the right to redistribute the funds continuously within the building operations and changing designs as the building construction and its evolving changes go forward.
- The construction is run under a fixed percentage management contract with open books.
- Since the builder’s money is fixed, there is no incentive to reduce quality in order to gain profit.
- The builder has obligation and discretion to discuss with the client as the building unfolds, but the builder’s decision is final. (Pg. 126)
Alexander lays out the footprint of building on site with poles, physically locating each building in its place on the land, informed by the land.
REMEMBER THAT EACH BUILDING EXISTS MAINLY TO ACTIVATE THE LAND (Pg. 188)
At each moment, as the work went forward, we were thinking primarily of making a system of centers which contributed to the emerging whole. (Pg. 207)
Living structures and spaces can only be achieved through a process of unfolding through time.
In your own garden, too, the fundamental process has an enormous role, and true unfolding is possible, as it emerges from the combination of your feeling for the land, and your egoless imagination. (Pg. 247)
Chapter 8 is an incredible description of community governance when it comes to building a shared structure for their life.
True belonging, the feeling that the Earth is ours and that the community is ours, comes - and must come, I think - at least in part according to the degree to which we have a shared vision of our community. The community is ours because we share it; and to share it, we must have an agreed-on understanding of life there, what life means, how life is embodied in that place. This means that to have true belonging in a place, people must share a vision of the place where they belong. (Pg. 260)
Alexander posits that ordinary people are likely to have a sense of what needs to be done as ordinary and unremarkable. Their feelings will not be identical, but there will be room for agreement and compromise. Special economic interests undermine this of course.
I simply asked them what was in their mind as a way forward, what issues were most vivid in their thinking, and which generic patterns were (in their eyes) most important to the future life of that community. (Pg. 263)
Alexander than trashes “design by committee” and charettes as a charade meant to perform participation while undermining it.
The professionals create a pattern language for the application at hand, but it is written in collaboration with the deep feeling and dreams of the community. This becomes collective and collaborative. It becomes a statement of the communities vision.
A large structure can be laid out over time by focusing on the created pattern language of what is individually important to the system, then growing the system. Each addition responds to what is present, works to enhance the whole, and flows towards what is individually important in of itself.
Moving on the more process, Alexander maintains the every part of a structure should be alive, unique, adapted, and beautiful.
The process must be shaped by human feeling and governed by the whole.
The essence of a successful construction pro-cess-1 have discovered over the years - is that the team working on a given part of a building have the satisfaction of working on a psychologi cal whole and making it complete. When they are finished with a particular phase of work, they have created a visible, palpable whole. (Pg. 506)
Money is central to the creation of a useful whole.
The spirit is essential. It is in the nature of spirit to make a beautiful and special thing where a beautiful and special thing is required, and to offset it with a simple inexpensive thing. That is the most humble way to make it, and the beauty then shines out because of it. And, of course, this has its counterpart in money, too. You cannot afford to make careful, expensive things everywhere. It is necessary to choose, to divide up the money in the best way, to make one part glorious, and make another part humble to pay for it. (Pg. 512)
This is translated through to attention:
In our era, many of us have been taught to strive for a meaningless perfection. To get wholeness, you must try instead to strive for a perfection where the things which matter less are left more rough, and the things which matter more are given deep attention. (Pg. 513)
And in summary:
They spent their effort in the way which made the most difference, and they produced a wonderful quality, this harmony, simply because that is what they paid attention to and what they tried to do. (Pg. 514)
Understanding the economic reality of the current situation is incredibly important.
… if you cannot afford to build a stone wall now in a house of ordinary price, it is wasteful and foolish to dream too much about stone walls.(pg. 522)
When it comes to large, complex systems:
But beyond the need to cope with production and speed, there is a far more complex problem: the scale and complexity of the design problem itself, and of the needed adaptations to reach harmony. (Pg. 567)
I did not want to produce something which was inherently so expensive that it could only be a luxury. (Pg. 586)