May 2002
Open Letter to Teachers and Students of Architecture Around the World
What is Our Future as a Profession?
We have today about 500,000 students of architecture in schools around the world. This means that every year about 120,000 graduate, and every decade sees 1.2 million new architects. Are our schools, curriculum and faculty providing the education that is needed? I think not, hence this open letter to both teachers and students.
It has become commonplace to lament that the professional architect is irrelevant. We all know that more and more construction around the world goes forward without the involvement of a professionally trained architect, and our input is limited to something like 3% of all buildings. We all know that fees are decreasing. I was still shocked recently to hear one project manager working for the Ministry of Defense in England who has recently dropped architectural fees on large military housing projects to 0.3% (yes, one third of one percent) because he feels that is consistent with the contribution. Twenty years ago, the architect on such a project would have received 4-5% of construction cost.
The reasons behind the increasing irrelevance of architects are complex. There are many issues facing us, but one of the more simple ones is that we do not have, as a professional community, adequate platforms, forums, or vocabulary for debating our differences and exchanging information. Ten years ago in an interview published by Progressive Architecture I put on the table my proposal for an agenda for a meaningful debate about current mainstream theory. My agenda hasn't changed much and the debate hasn't taken place.
current mainstream theory only deals with a small fraction of buildings
it does not deal with third world construction or community affairs.
findings in the social sciences are ignored
it does not deal with nature or with ecological issues
it does not deal with money and speculative development in a sensible fashion
it makes no substantive empirical account of human feeling
it does not have any organic connection with the world of construction
there is no coherent explanation of values necessary for good buildings
ordinary people don't like the buildings
no discussion of the value inherent in the built world is possible
the definition of beauty is inadequate, nearly non-existant
Now, I am not disingenuous. Setting agendas is a political activity. My agenda is deeply critical of mainstream theory and teaching and of the buildings of the late twentieth century which, with rare exceptions, are alienating and poorly suited to human needs.
I do feel compelled to speak out. I am a member of a professional community, which is not a community. We have no shared framework for accumulating knowledge. If we go on failing to address the human, technical and environmental issues of the built environment in today's world, our failure will simply lead to our own obsolence as a profession and a built environment that can not sustain itself. There is a lot at stake. And the poor Earth is struggling under the weight of the situation.
Complaining about things is an unproductive path. So, my colleagues and I have rolled up our sleeves and undertaken the heavy task of constructing a website. One of the goals of the website patternlanguage.com is to help shore up our community by using the leveraging potential of the internet for the dissemination and exchange of information.
The website is already quite large and grows daily. There is material for research and classroom discussion. For example, we are posting the archives of The Center for Environmental Structure, unpublished and out-of print materials. The classic text which gives the website its name is now on-line. We are developing generative sequences which are step by step algorithms for design and construction. We wish for these to be "open-source" in that professionals can work with them and give input based on their experience.
It is true that websites are time consuming and expensive to maintain so our work will continue to be done incrementally. We do not finance through advertising but through modest membership fees. Although the site is currently rather one-way, we wish to increase our posting of opinions and papers from teachers, students, and practitioners everywhere. Exchange forums such as chat groups and bulletin boards are costly to administrate, but we want to get there.
If I am going to so much trouble, it is because I am deeply motivated to do so. I am working toward a website that will put my agenda points clearly on the table in a way that can't be ignored. If I ask you to not only read this letter but forward it to others and participate in making the website known and used, it is because I believe many of you share motivations similar to mine. We each have our independent ways of working, different areas of interest and opinions on many points, but the underlying motivations and concerns about the built environment are the same. I am inviting you, as architect, or teacher, or student, to make use of the website, share it with others, give your input, and add connections to a badly needed professional network. We need a future generation of professionals who can tackle the real issues of scale, of humanity in buildings, concern themselves with the bulk of building endeavors on Earth, and regain the respect for our profession that is so badly eroded.
You may be reading this letter in one of two forms:
on the website itself, or
as an email sent to you directly by a colleague.
The letter (whether as an email, or on the site) also provides an opportunity for you to write your own thoughts on these subjects, and include them along with the original text of my letter when you forward it.
I would personally, be delighted to hear from you as well. If you have specific questions or interests in aspects of the site, please make yourself known .With my warm best wishes to all of you.
Chris Alexander
21 de abril de 2010
10 de abril de 2010
The character of nature
"What happens in a world - a building or a town - in which the patterns have the quality without a name, and are alive?
The most important thing which happens is that every part of it, at every level, becomes unique. The patterns which control a portion of the world, are themselves fairly simple. But when they interact, they create slightly different overall configurations at every place. This happens because no two places on earth are perfectly alike in their conditions. And each small difference, itself contributes to the difference in conditions which the other patterns face.
This is the character of nature
"The character of nature" is no mere poetic metaphor. It is a specific morphological character, a geometric character, which happens to be common to all those things in the world which are not man-made.
To make this character of nature clear, let me contrast it with the character of the buildings being built today. One of the most pervasive features of these buildings is the fact that they are "modular". They are full of identical concrete blocks, identical rooms, identical houses, identical apartments in identical apartment buildings. The idea that a building can - and ought - to be made of modular units is one of the most pervasive assumptions of twentieth-century architecture.
Nature is never modular. Nature is full of almost similar units (waves, raindrops, blades of grass) - but though the units of one kind are alike in their broad structure, no two are ever alike in detail.
(...)
Even atoms have this character.
It may surprise you to realize that the same rule even holds for atoms. No two atoms are the same. Each atom is slightly different, according to its immediate environment.
It is particularly crucial to discuss this fact about atoms, because so many people take "modular" construction for granted. If you challenge the builder of a modular environment, he will very likely say that nature itself is built from modular components - namely atoms - and that what is good for nature is good enough for him. In this sense, atoms have become archetypal images of modular construction.
But atoms are all unique, just like raindrops and blades of grass. Because we use the symbol C for every atom of carbon, and because we know that every atom of carbon has the same number of protons and electrons in it, we assume that all atoms of carbon are identical. We think a crystal as an array of identical parts. Yet the fact is that the orbits of the electrons are influenced by the orbits of electrons in nearby atom, and are therefore different in each atom, according to its position in the crystal."
Christopher Alexander, "The Timeless Way of Building", capítulo 8, The Quality Itself
The most important thing which happens is that every part of it, at every level, becomes unique. The patterns which control a portion of the world, are themselves fairly simple. But when they interact, they create slightly different overall configurations at every place. This happens because no two places on earth are perfectly alike in their conditions. And each small difference, itself contributes to the difference in conditions which the other patterns face.
This is the character of nature
"The character of nature" is no mere poetic metaphor. It is a specific morphological character, a geometric character, which happens to be common to all those things in the world which are not man-made.
To make this character of nature clear, let me contrast it with the character of the buildings being built today. One of the most pervasive features of these buildings is the fact that they are "modular". They are full of identical concrete blocks, identical rooms, identical houses, identical apartments in identical apartment buildings. The idea that a building can - and ought - to be made of modular units is one of the most pervasive assumptions of twentieth-century architecture.
Nature is never modular. Nature is full of almost similar units (waves, raindrops, blades of grass) - but though the units of one kind are alike in their broad structure, no two are ever alike in detail.
(...)
Even atoms have this character.
It may surprise you to realize that the same rule even holds for atoms. No two atoms are the same. Each atom is slightly different, according to its immediate environment.
It is particularly crucial to discuss this fact about atoms, because so many people take "modular" construction for granted. If you challenge the builder of a modular environment, he will very likely say that nature itself is built from modular components - namely atoms - and that what is good for nature is good enough for him. In this sense, atoms have become archetypal images of modular construction.
But atoms are all unique, just like raindrops and blades of grass. Because we use the symbol C for every atom of carbon, and because we know that every atom of carbon has the same number of protons and electrons in it, we assume that all atoms of carbon are identical. We think a crystal as an array of identical parts. Yet the fact is that the orbits of the electrons are influenced by the orbits of electrons in nearby atom, and are therefore different in each atom, according to its position in the crystal."
Christopher Alexander, "The Timeless Way of Building", capítulo 8, The Quality Itself
A window with a "window place" helps a person come to life.
Aconselho a todos os que se preocupam com o ambiente, com a existência física do que vos rodeia (sendo ou não estudantes de arquitectura), que leiam este livro do Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building.
"Everyone knows how beautiful a room is when it has a bay window in it, or a window seat, or a special ledge next to the window, or a small alcove which is entirely glassed. The feeling that rooms with these kinds of places in them are specially beautiful is not merely whimsy. It has a fundamental organic reason behind it.
When you are in a living room for any length of time, two of the many forces acting on you are the following:
1. You have a tendency to go towards the light. People are phototropic, biologically, so that it is often comfortable to place yourself where the light is.
2. If you are in the room for any length of time, you probably want to sit down, and make yourself comfortable.
In a room which has at least one window that is a "place" - a window seat, a bay window, a window with a wide low windowsill that invites you to pull your favorite chair over to it because you can see out so easily, a special ledge next to the window, or a small alcove which is entirely glassed - in this room you can give in to both forces: you can resolve the conflict for yourself.
In short, you can be comfortable.
But a room which has no window place, in which the windows are just "holes", sets up a hopeless inner conflict in me which I can't resolve.
If the windows are just holes in the wall, and there are no places where the windows are, one force pulls me towards the window; but another force pulls me toward the natural "places" in the room, where the comfortable chairs and tables are. So long as I am i this room, I am pushed and pulled by these two forces; there is nothing I can do to prevent the inner conflict they create in me.
The instinctive knowledge that a room is beautiful when it has a window place in it, is thus not a aesthetic whim. It is an instinctive expression of the fact that a room without window place is filled with actual, palpable organic tension; and that a room which has one lacks this tension, and is, from a simple organic point of view, a better place to live."
Christopher Alexander, "The Timeless Way of Building", capítulo 6, Patterns Which Are Alive.
"Everyone knows how beautiful a room is when it has a bay window in it, or a window seat, or a special ledge next to the window, or a small alcove which is entirely glassed. The feeling that rooms with these kinds of places in them are specially beautiful is not merely whimsy. It has a fundamental organic reason behind it.
When you are in a living room for any length of time, two of the many forces acting on you are the following:
1. You have a tendency to go towards the light. People are phototropic, biologically, so that it is often comfortable to place yourself where the light is.
2. If you are in the room for any length of time, you probably want to sit down, and make yourself comfortable.
In a room which has at least one window that is a "place" - a window seat, a bay window, a window with a wide low windowsill that invites you to pull your favorite chair over to it because you can see out so easily, a special ledge next to the window, or a small alcove which is entirely glassed - in this room you can give in to both forces: you can resolve the conflict for yourself.
In short, you can be comfortable.
But a room which has no window place, in which the windows are just "holes", sets up a hopeless inner conflict in me which I can't resolve.
If the windows are just holes in the wall, and there are no places where the windows are, one force pulls me towards the window; but another force pulls me toward the natural "places" in the room, where the comfortable chairs and tables are. So long as I am i this room, I am pushed and pulled by these two forces; there is nothing I can do to prevent the inner conflict they create in me.
The instinctive knowledge that a room is beautiful when it has a window place in it, is thus not a aesthetic whim. It is an instinctive expression of the fact that a room without window place is filled with actual, palpable organic tension; and that a room which has one lacks this tension, and is, from a simple organic point of view, a better place to live."
Christopher Alexander, "The Timeless Way of Building", capítulo 6, Patterns Which Are Alive.
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