I referenced Christopher Alexander in the design notes. Dr. Alexander was originally a mathematician. He and his cohorts at the University of California had come to the conclusion that buildings were not “alive”. More often than not, designers were producing facsimiles of the latest trends. They proceeded to
develop hundreds of design patterns and then tick off those that applied to any particular project. This worked very well with large projects including designing entire villages in South America. Seeing deficiencies in this approach to individual houses, my former partners in their undergraduate thesis’ came up with a way to create new patterns with each client. I further developed this process in my Master’s thesis in the early 80’s entitled “Participation in Design” . My advisor was Murray Silverstein, one of the authors along with Alexander of
“A Pattern Language”
develop hundreds of design patterns and then tick off those that applied to any particular project. This worked very well with large projects including designing entire villages in South America. Seeing deficiencies in this approach to individual houses, my former partners in their undergraduate thesis’ came up with a way to create new patterns with each client. I further developed this process in my Master’s thesis in the early 80’s entitled “Participation in Design” . My advisor was Murray Silverstein, one of the authors along with Alexander of
“A Pattern Language”
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