Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Harvard Paperbacks) Underlining Edition

by Christopher Alexander (Author)

15 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0674627512

ISBN-10: 0674627512

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"These notes are about the process of design: the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function." This book, opening with these words, presents an entirely new theory of the process of design.

In the first part of the book, Mr. Alexander discusses the process by which a form is adapted to the context of human needs and demands that has called it into being. He shows that such an adaptive process will be successful only if it proceeds piecemeal instead of all at once. It is for this reason that forms from traditional unselfconscious cultures, molded not by designers but by the slow pattern of changes within tradition, are so beautifully organized and adapted. When the designer, in our own self-conscious culture, is called on to create a form that is adapted to its context he is unsuccessful, because the preconceived categories out of which he builds his picture of the problem do not correspond to the inherent components of the problem, and therefore lead only to the arbitrariness, willfulness, and lack of understanding which plague the design of modern buildings and modern cities.

In the second part, Mr. Alexander presents a method by which the designer may bring his full creative imagination into play, and yet avoid the traps of irrelevant preconception. He shows that, whenever a problem is stated, it is possible to ignore existing concepts and to create new concepts, out of the structure of the problem itself, which do correspond correctly to what he calls the subsystems of the adaptive process. By treating each of these subsystems as a separate subproblem, the designer can translate the new concepts into form. The form, because of the process, will be well-adapted to its context, non-arbitrary, and correct.

The mathematics underlying this method, based mainly on set theory, is fully developed in a long appendix. Another appendix demonstrates the application of the method to the design of an Indian village.

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Editorial Reviews

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Christopher Alexander has outlined an ambitious proposal that could revolutionize the approach to architectural design...His method cannot help but become "a very powerful tool indeed" for those who would deal with projects of the complex present and the growing complexity of the future. (Progressive Architecture)

The success or failure of the designed environment will remain, as always, a human responsibility...Alexander's assertions are not only challenging and stimulating but informative. (American Institute of Architects Journal)

One of the most important contemporary books about the art of design, what it is, and how to go about it. (Industrial Design)

An important book for the urban designer and planner... stimulating and certainly controversial...It may one day prove to be a landmark in design methodology. (Journal of the American Institute of Planners)

Series: Harvard Paperbacks
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press; Underlining edition (October 24, 1964)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674627512
ISBN-13: 978-0674627512
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 15 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8 in Books > Arts & Photography > Architecture > Vernacular
- #133 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Reference > Architecture
- #302 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Architecture

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L. Myers

Heaven And Hell Of Design

December 22, 2014

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Anyone who designs things --even little things like where to put the chair by the bed, or slightly larger things like a skyscraper or the internet-- should read this book. It's architecture: the thought processes of moving through the phases of panic/ignorance to discovery/fascination to the magical moment when your design begins to talk back to you, and tell where YOU need to go, and when you've made a mistake, Or when your design shows you a brilliant idea that never would have occurred to you.

I've designed little tools, rooms, houses, musical instruments and gigantic computer networks. It's scary.

There are virtually no books on the joys and angst of the design thought process, so this book is priceless. Peripherally related are Malraux's "Voices of Silence" and Jacques Maritain's "Creative Intuition In Art And Poetry", both about thought processes/aesthetics across multiple disciplines.. Don Norman's "The psychology Of Everyday Things" is a wonderful exploration of the gut-level design disasters we all deal with all the time. Bottom line: IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.

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The first book of design for all designers

August 14, 2005

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Design is a difficult process that is often associated more with art than science. With principles of style, concerns about how design works.

While many wring their hands about this, Alexander breaks the problem down, organizes it and then provides a framework for design that is relatively design neutral. That is a feat in deed.

By thinking about how one structures a problem space and the bias that creates -- Alexander give the practioner a powerful tool for setting up the design process and scope. He then goes on to discuss the design process and he makes important distinctions between concious and unconcious design.

Notes on Synthesis and Form are the foundation for Alexander's work on design patterns. This is the must read book before spending time on these other works.

For the practioner, this book provides a powerful and applicable framework for addressing problems in multiple disciplines.

23 people found this helpful

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Kevin Collins

deep insights, bold suggestions

January 4, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A deep and nuanced analysis of patterns in design failures and successes - the author clearly has astounding comprehension of the modern design situation. I found the "unselfconscious design" vs "selfconscious design" analysis fascinating (although to be politically correct it should be something like "self designer" and "delegated designer" instead). The determination and use of (relatively) independent sub-systems to prune the overall design space is profound.

Part 2 (chapter 6, page 73) is a highly structured "program" for design. I found this section of the book much less compelling, and I'm not sure how it necessarily falls out from Part 1. For me, Alexander's biggest insight is that a good design process involves iterative periods of change and stasis - specifically, designing by modifying single (or small numbers of) factors individually and allowing the design to reach "equilibrium" before making additional changes. From this standpoint, designing a whole village at the beginning (as is started in appendix I) may not ever be a good design approach - even with Alexander's "program"

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Wayne Lobb

A summary

September 14, 2001

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(Below is a series of quotes from the book, some of them slightly modified, plus a small number of "glue" sentences I've added to make transitions smoother. My goal was to distill the key ideas in this exceptional book.)

Every design problem begins with an effort to achieve fitness between two entities: the form in question and its context. The form is the solution to the problem; the context defines the problem. We want to put the context and the form into effortless contact or frictionless coexistence, i.e., we want to find a good fit.

For a good fit to occur in practice, one vital condition must be satisfied. It must have time to happen. In slow-changing, traditional, unselfconscious cultures, a form is adjusted soon after each slight misfit occurs. If there was good fit at some stage in the past, no matter how removed, it will have persisted, because there is an active stability at work. Tradition and taboo dampen and control the rate of change in an unselfconscious culture's designs.

It is important to understand that the individual person in an unselfconscious culture needs no creative strength. He does not need to be able to improve the form, only to make some sort of change when he notices a failure. The changes may not always be for the better; but it is not necessary that they should be, since the operation of the process allows only the improvements to persist. Unselfconscious design is a process of slow adaptation and error reduction.

In the unselfconscious process there is no possibility of misconstruing the situation. Nobody makes a picture of the context, so the picture cannot be wrong. But the modern, selfconscious designer works entirely from a picture in his mind - a conceptualization of the forces at work and their interrelationships - and this picture is always incomplete and sometimes wrong.

To achieve in a few hours at the drawing board what once took centuries of adaptation and development, to invent a form suddenly which clearly fits its context - the extent of invention necessary is beyond the individual designer. A designer who sets out to achieve an adaptive good fit in a single leap is not unlike the child who shakes his glass-topped puzzle fretfully, expecting at one shake to arrange the bits inside correctly. The designer's attempt is hardly as random as the child's is; but the difficulties are the same. His chances of success are small because the number of factors which must fall simultaneously into place is so enormous.

The process of design, even when it has become selfconscious, remains a process of error-reduction. No complex system will succeed in adapting in a reasonable amount of time or effort unless the adaptation can proceed component by component, each component relatively independent of the others. The search for the right components, and the right way to build the form up from these components, is the greatest challenge faced by the modern, selfconscious designer. The culmination of the modern designer's task is to make every unit of design both a component and a system. As a component it will fit into the hierarchy of larger components that are above it; as a system it will specify the hierarchy of smaller components of which it itself is made.

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Kindle Customer

A Must-Read for any Kind of Designer!

May 5, 2017

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CA knows his stuff, and this should be read by any designer in any field for to learn what design is, and how to go about achieving great design.

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jersey girl

excellent

June 11, 2014

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This book is written in a clean, approachable style, absent the usual academic gobbledygoop. It presents concepts that are still relevant across multiple disciplines.

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Nathan Custer

Form described

December 18, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Arriving at a suitable form for a design problem is a challenge even for design professionals. This book provides a clear process to approach this need.

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Most recent customer reviews

alison dorantes-garcia

I'm already in love with the cover (gorgeous) and ideas Christopher Alexander presents

I received my book very quickly! Completely new. I'm already in love with the cover (gorgeous) and ideas Christopher Alexander presents.

Published on May 9, 2015

Mark Radulovich

Not what you think it is

After reading this book, I went back to read the amazon reviews, and was rather confused. This book has a very narrow focus, and is not targeted at the typical person reading...Read more

Published on July 1, 2010

George T. Macknight

There are better books by Alexander

Alexander is better in his later work where the theory is more refined. Read "Timeless Way of Building" and "Pattern Language," which are his best works.Read more

Published on February 17, 2010

Pavel Uvarov

A life-changing book

Certainly, this book has produced a great impact on various fields related to design and architecture.Read more

Published on June 2, 2008

Jonathan Aquino

Read Appendix I first, to see if you need to read the rest of the book

Tip: Start by reading Appendix I. It is an example of the technique that the author spends the whole book explaining.Read more

Published on December 29, 2007

J-P Delaporte

Art anticipates Science?

Alexanders 'Notes' anticipates the paths that major sciences would take decades after its publication.Read more

Published on August 30, 2005

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