Architectural design theory

Following up with David Ing's blog and publications at coevolving.com , with partly unrelated concern (social 1 2 ), has resurfaced the relation of pattern languages to the area from which they originate: architecture.

In Systems generating systems — architectural design theory by Christopher Alexander (1968) (annotated ) the author argues for focussing on the human relations and interpretative acts that are involved in upkeeping living systems. They suggest to use pattern languages as stabilising grammars to care for and interact with self-propagating systems.

At its margins, the text touches on several adjacent subjects, which could be unfolded on interest.

The way in which systems are initially presented in the text marks a fold, one between the holistic system and its generating systems. The way how such folds operate in the upkeep of systems for human-machine-interaction has been described well in ACM Queue (link ).

While the excerpt focusses on the active aspects present in generating patterns, many examples were skipped for brevity. One such example remains notable: whenever Alexander makes reference to the genetic code as a generative pattern, it is useful to reconsider his remarks with light on recent work in biology (link ).

In every place where rules and rule sets are mentioned, we can also learn from our understanding of law, natural laws or also cellular automata.

Additional keywords scribbled during reading into the margins are: positionality, self-propagation, accretion, graphs, actants, signals, recursion, relationality, intention, temporality, process, encoding, cataloging, indirection, arrangements, cause, effect, condition, locality, topology, distance, care, maintenance, instability, phase change, vulnerability, sufficiency, events, work, equilibrium, presence

Systems Changes Learning also interests us here for explaining the unfolding aspects of emergent behaviours.

Molly Wright Steenson also has earlier literature on "Problems before patterns: a different look at Christopher Alexander and pattern languages" (pdf 1 2 ) from 2009.

# References

Steenson, Molly Wright (2014): Architectures of Information: Christopher Alexander, Cedric Price, and Nicholas Negroponte & MIT's Architecture Machine Group (10' video , pdf )