the third book in a four book essay
QuotePREFACE: LIVING PROCESSES REPEATED TEN MILLION TIMES
on page 3, in the bottom right hand corner, christopher alexander insists he is not inventing, he is noticing something. i say this a lot. it is not about inventing, it is about noticing. i don't know how much bullshit it is: are we only reframing our inventions as observations? even so, even if so, there are inventions which cannot be reframed as observations, as noticings, as patterns, as revivals, as restorations.
it is meaningful to commit to noticing and not inventing, if you listen to what the words mean.
on page 4, the fundamental process is laid out in steps, in many words, many nice words, unnecessary words, but nice. christopher alexander says that there is only one fundamental process as in only one type of process which is living or smoothly-unfolding or structure-preserving and this describes every process which he believes will, which he believes ever has, lead* to a living world. it goes like this:
first, notice everything. second, notice everything latent, everything which follows effortlessly, everything which is there but not there, everything too weak to be noticed. third, notice what is not only too weak but is good but too weak and make it stronger in all the ways it is already good. fourth, fifth, and sixth, do what is necessary to make its connections and relationships stronger, to make the whole stronger, and because everything is connected, to make it stronger in a whole way, make something larger stronger through it, make something the same size stronger through it, make many smaller things in its wake, as necessary, as obvious. seventh, only seventh, only after we have done all of the above, do it again.
first, notice what is there. second, notice what is there but not there. third, notice what is best for the whole but too weak. fourth, make it stronger by making it support some larger structure. fifth, make it stronger by making it and some similar-sized structure support each other. sixth, make it stronger by noticing what is inside it and by making those stronger. seventh, only seventh, do it all again.
notice the whole and its centers.
notice everything that follows effortlessly.
choose one such effortless center according to what the best for the whole.
strengthen its relationship to a larger center or to the whole,
thus strengthening it,
thus strengthening the larger center,
thus strengthening the whole.
strengthen its relationship to an adjacent center of the same size,
thus strengthening it,
thus strengthening the adjacent center,
thus strengthening the whole.
strengthen its relationship to as many smaller centers as necessary,
thus strengthening it,
thus strengthening the smaller centers,
thus strengthening the whole.
then, only then, do it all again.
* this sentence cannot be read out loud, because lead here must be pronounced two different ways, but it can be written as long as it is not read.
alexander centres human needs and human process, which i find my mind echoing in the conversation around ai.
"What matters is that it has been done by somebody one Saturday afternoon and we see the trace of that imperfect person there." (P.36, quote from 'somebody in a deteriorating neighborhood')
in the context of a neighborhood, of an actual community, this is so important. what of at the global scale?
on the previous page,
a small statement regarding what it is like to live in a particular village in India—
"the public place belongs to the people that are moving through it" (P.35)
the corridors in my condominium do not feel like a place that belongs to the people that are moving through it even though it literally — legally — is the case
this chapter's title is "belonging and not-belonging;" i like to think about ownership in these terms
when he speaks of owning the public place it goes along with belonging in the public place, the public place not belonging TO you but belonging AROUND you
not a hierarchical ownership but a mutual ownership
a possession belongs to its owner
the public place and its people do not belong to each other — they belong with each other; there is a belonging, and there is an ownership, but not in the capitalist or legal sense
i sought, am seeking, to write less in quotes and more in feelings, but alexander's words do give me such feeling themselves
"what is essential is . . . that it belongs to the people who use it most", says the right column on page 40, "not to a faceless agency, not to someone distant, ever."
page 42. appropriate for the page that effectively captures and communicates the meaning of life.
"belonging, that condition of the world that allows us to exist as free beings, to pass our days and hours in a fashion that we know we are in places that belong to us -- so that the world is ours in spirit."
the header above page 42, all of 42, and only 42, is "THE LINK OF HUMAN HAPPINESS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT"
it is curious that he identifies the source of such happiness and belonging as linked to the "morphological" shape of the environment, of its architecture, when to me it is clearly linked to the interactive shape of the environment, of its construction -- and the play that happens with building it -- the agency of its inhabitants to do more than exist
hmm. re-reading, he is not saying that it is only the morphological shape, rather he is describing the shape which must result from the necessary freedom, which i am all for
he was not an architect
no. he was absolutely an architect. but these are not 'architecture books,' they are books written by an architect
more quotes arise, important ones.
many pictures of people relaxing, people at play.
"the only thing I insist on is that what is happening in the picture is happening because of WHERE it is happening."
this is important, this is so important
as a designer i have found it easy to say that the play-spaces i design are of no consequence, and that it is the play itself that is important. but here alexander takes responsibility, calls upon others to do the same, indirectly. the action which you value arises from the result of your work.
do i believe that? there is of course a measure of looseness -- but yes, especially when it comes to examining other games; if a particular form of play is occurring in some existing digital space then it must be understood as something that "is happening because of where it is happening." this is a line of thinking that is so easy to overlook in our imaginations as designers, to suppose that we can build up from there, up from elsewhere, bringing over existing forms of play into a new space
what i mean, concretely, is... suppose we look at other games that are being speedrun. then we design a new game under the assumption that people will speedrun it, and do such design that makes the speedrunning experience in some way actually more interesting than in that other game. we must first ensure that we have properly understood the conditions which lead to the inspiration speedrunning behaviour in the first place.
"what is happening is happening because of where it is happening"
QuoteWe cannot have our OWN belonging to the world if the buildings we make do not belong to the land. Their belonging is essential to our belonging. . .
my username in paradise is
genuine surmounter of obstacles. i find myself often returning to this thought, often reflecting upon this name. there is a depth of truth that i am seeking in my actions - i am not satisfied with playing games, i.e. performing for the sake of what i get out of performance. i want to be surmounting genuine obstacles, doing something real, and also being fully at play while i do so.
when christopher alexander here writes "we cannot have our own belonging . . . if the buildings we [exist in] do not belong to the land" it reminds me of that thought, of that necessary depth. perhaps i could borrow that word,
belonging. i'm not sure.
when i do things, when i make things, i want them to belong to the world. i don't need to be directly connected to the world but i need to be indirectly connected. if i am trying to make something, then that thing i make must belong to the world somehow, belong in the world somewhere, otherwise it is not true belonging, it is play-belonging. it is pretending that there is a reason for doing what i am doing.
that's not acceptable to me. the pretending.
i like to pretend at certain things, at many things, but pretending at belonging rather than pursuing true belonging is not one of them.
pretending that i have something i need is not one of them.
"The temptation to say -- keep the cars out, make it all pedestrian -- is far too harsh. . . . In many places, it is just the cars which create the life . . . But undoubtedly, the pure pedestrian space in which there are no cars is also vital. . .
So, in support of the emergent unfolding of the hulls of public space, we need a specific group of patterns, or generic centers, that tell us how the cars are going to work. . . .
How much parking is there? How visible or invisible is the parking? How is it to be paid for? What density is to be allowed[?]" (77)
i can taste christopher alexander's optimism and clarity of belief: the way to design something that works is simply to ask and then answer every single question perfectly. and i too have this optimism, this clarity. it is infectious, in part because i do not know anything about architecture but also in part because i feel it myself sometimes, the desire to do things in the right order when others, when even i, might insist that we do not have time for this, when there seems to be pressure to move on regardless. it is inspirational to a designer to say that, actually, problems can be solved if you just solve them all in the right way. it is addictive, it is life-affirming. i do not know if it is realistic but perhaps i can let go of that attachment to reality if it produces good results in my life, and at least does not cause too great harm.
i do not think it causes too great harm to think about things first, well, instead of rushing into them, but i also think the way that christopher alexander advocates for thinking about things is very good, is one-step-at-a-time, involves getting your hands dirty and trying things out so that the feeling comes unbidden, comes inevitably, so that you do not become trapped in an imaginary world but become rooted in the real one, just one step at a time, slowly and steadily. commit to decisions early, just one at a time, and in the right order.