Christopher Alexander

Christopher Alexander (1936–2022) was an architect and design theorist who asked: why do some places feel alive while others feel dead? His answer became A Pattern Language (1977) — 253 patterns from “Independent Regions” down to “Things from Your Life.”

Each pattern names a recurring problem and describes a solution that can be adapted endlessly. Light on Two Sides of Every Room. Staircase as a Stage. Intimacy Gradient. The patterns form a generative grammar for making places that work.

His influence extends beyond architecture. Software engineers adopted pattern languages for code. His later work, The Nature of Order, argued that life in buildings comes from specific geometric properties — a more mystical turn that divided his audience.

Related: [[pattern-language]], [[constraints]], [[emergence]]