How to Judge a Building: Does it Make you Feel More, Or Less Alive"
This extract was originally published on Common Edge as "The Legacy of Christopher Alexander: Criteria for an Intelligent Architecture."
via Wikimedia. ImageSelgas Cano's Pavilion at the 2018 Brugge Triennale
This extract was originally published on Common Edge as "The Legacy of Christopher Alexander: Criteria for an Intelligent Architecture."In his monumental four-volume book, The Nature of Order, Christopher Alexander talks about an intelligent architecture, responsive to human needs and sensibilities through adaptation to existing buildings and nature. This is a new way of viewing the world?a way of connecting to it, and to ourselves?yet it is very much the same as the most ancient ways of connecting.Intelligent criteria provide a way of judging whether a building, or piece of urban environment, is good or bad for our emotional health. Yes, a building can be either good or bad to different degrees. People don?t need experts to tell them whether a building is good or bad; they are fully capable of judging for themselves [one of several ways of judging is to use Alexander?s ?Mirror of the Self? Test]. Here?s the method?just ask yourself this question:?Does this building make me feel more alive, or less alive"?Note the specific nature of the question. It does not ask: ?Do you like this building"? or ?Does this building make you feel excited"? since those answers lead to ambiguous conclusions. Likes and dislikes are due to...
via Wikimedia. ImageSelgas Cano's Pavilion at the 2018 Brugge Triennale
This extract was originally published on Common Edge as "The Legacy of Christopher Alexander: Criteria for an Intelligent Architecture."In his monumental four-volume book, The Nature of Order, Christopher Alexander talks about an intelligent architecture, responsive to human needs and sensibilities through adaptation to existing buildings and nature. This is a new way of viewing the world?a way of connecting to it, and to ourselves?yet it is very much the same as the most ancient ways of connecting.Intelligent criteria provide a way of judging whether a building, or piece of urban environment, is good or bad for our emotional health. Yes, a building can be either good or bad to different degrees. People don?t need experts to tell them whether a building is good or bad; they are fully capable of judging for themselves [one of several ways of judging is to use Alexander?s ?Mirror of the Self? Test]. Here?s the method?just ask yourself this question:?Does this building make me feel more alive, or less alive"?Note the specific nature of the question. It does not ask: ?Do you like this building"? or ?Does this building make you feel excited"? since those answers lead to ambiguous conclusions. Likes and dislikes are due to...
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