Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

Nikos Salingaros, Christopher Alexander and Ken Foster, Austin, 1998

Unified ArchitectUrAl theory:
form, lAngUAge, complexity
A Companion to Christopher Alexander’s
“The Phenomenon of Life — The Nature of Order, Book 1”

Nikos A. Salingaros

With contributions by Christopher Alexander, Zaheer Allam,

Michael Carey, Peter Eisenman, Léon Krier, Kenneth G. Masden II,
Michael W. Mehaffy, and Edward O. Wilson.

Sustasis Foundation
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

CC BY-SA Nikos A. Salingaros, 2012, 2013.

Published by:
Sustasis Foundation
Portland, Oregon (USA)

Formatted by Yulia Kryazheva,

Yulia Ink, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Printed in Europe (by MijnBestseller.nl)

All works in this volume except for those previously published and copyrighted
(as noted in each such chapter) are available under a Creative Commons License
Attribution–ShareAlike 3.0 License, CC BY-SA. (See https://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.)
Christopher Alexander and Peter Eisenman, “The 1982 Alexander-Eisenman
Debate”, Katarxis No. 3, September 2004. This version © Katarxis Publishing,
2004. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the editors of Katarxis3
(Lucien Steil, Nikos Salingaros, Brian Hanson, and Michael Mehaffy), and by
permission of one of the authors (C.A.).
Christopher Alexander, “Some Sober Reflections on the Nature of Architecture
in Our Time”, Katarxis No. 3, September 2004. © Katarxis Publishing, 2004. All
rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the editors of Katarxis3 (Lucien Steil,
Nikos Salingaros, Brian Hanson, and Michael Mehaffy), and by permission of the
author.
Léon Krier, “Building Civil Cities”, Traditional Building, 2005. © Clem Labine’s
Traditional Building, Restore Media LLC. All rights reserved. This version taken
from and reprinted by permission of the Léon Krier website.
Articles published on Metropolismag.com CC BY-SA by Michael W. Mehaffy &
Nikos A. Salingaros, 2011, 2012. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.
Nikos A. Salingaros, “A Biological Understanding of Architecture and
Urbanism”, extract from an essay in Katarxis No. 3, September 2004. © Katarxis
Publishing, 2004. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the editors of
Katarxis3 (Lucien Steil, Nikos Salingaros, Brian Hanson, and Michael Mehaffy).
Nikos A. Salingaros, “Fractal Art and Architecture Reduce Physiological
Stress”, JBU — Journal of Biourbanism, No. 3, March 2013. Reprinted by permission
of the International Society of Biourbanism.
Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden, extract from pages 61-70 of
“Neuroscience, the Natural Environment, and Building Design”, Chapter 5
of: Biophilic Design: the Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to
Life, edited by Stephen R. Kellert, Judith Heerwagen, and Martin Mador (John

4
Wiley, New York, 2008), pages 59-83. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008. All rights
reserved. This material is reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden, “Architecture: Biological Form and
Artificial Intelligence”, The Structurist, No. 45/46 (2006), pages 54-61. Reprinted
by permission of The Structurist, University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Edward O. Wilson, “Integrated Science and the Coming Century of the
Environment”, Science, Volume 279, No. 5359 (27 March 1998), pages 2048-2049.
© Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1998. All
rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from AAAS, and by permission of the
author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Unified Architectural Theory: Form, Language, Complexity
By Nikos A. Salingaros

ISBN 978-9-4638639-8-8

Christopher Alexander and Nikos Salingaros, Los Angeles, 1985

5
 Table of Contents

1. PREFACE | p.11

2. A Biological Understanding of Architecture | p.15

Extract from an essay in Katarxis No. 3, September 2004.

PART ONE
THE COURSE LECTURES AND READINGS

3. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE | p.18

4. LECTURE NOTES FIRST WEEK | p.21

The Structure of Architectural Theories

5. Architectural Theory | p.26

Extracts from Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction (Umbau-Verlag, Solingen,
2008)

6. Integrated Science and the Coming Century of the Environment

| p.34
Edward O. Wilson, Science, Volume 279, No. 5359 (27 March 1998), pages 2048-2049

7. LECTURE NOTES SECOND WEEK | p.40

Form Languages and their vocabulary

8. LECTURE NOTES THIRD WEEK | p.45

Complexity and Form Languages. Ecophobia

9. Kolmogorov-Chaitin Complexity | p.51

Meandering Through Mathematics, 23 September 2012

10. Against Ecophobia | p.56

Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden, Philadelphia Society, 8 October 2011.

7
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

11. LECTURE NOTES FOURTH WEEK | p.63

Degree of complexity measures a form language’s adaptivity

12. Building Civil Cities | p.68

Léon Krier, Traditional Building, 2005

13. Politics, Philosophy, Critical Theory | p.75

Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden, Philadelphia Society, 8 October 2011

14. LECTURE NOTES FIFTH WEEK | p.81

Human physiology and evidence-based design

15. Evidence-Based Design | p.86

Michael W. Mehaffy & Nikos A. Salingaros, Metropolis, 14 November 2011

16. LECTURE NOTES SIXTH WEEK | p.93

Biophilia: our evolved kinship to biological forms

17. Biophilia | p.99

Michael W. Mehaffy & Nikos A. Salingaros, Metropolis, 29 November 2011

18. Extract from “Neuroscience, the Natural Environment, and

Building Design” | p.106
Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden, Chapter 5 of Biophilic Design: the Theory,
Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life, edited by Stephen R. Kellert,
Judith Heerwagen, and Martin Mador (John Wiley, New York, 2008)

19. LECTURE NOTES SEVENTH WEEK | p.125

Alexander’s 15 Fundamental Properties

20. LECTURE NOTES EIGHTH WEEK | p.131

Fractals and hierarchical scaling

21. LECTURE NOTES NINTH WEEK | p.136

Organized complexity and a model that estimates life in
architecture

22. LECTURE NOTES TENTH WEEK | p.142

Wholeness and geometrical coherence

8
23. The Transformation of Wholes | p.147
Michael W. Mehaffy & Nikos A. Salingaros, Metropolis, 13 April 2012

24. LECTURE NOTES ELEVENTH WEEK | p.156

Recursion and stress reduction through fractals

25. Scaling and Fractals | p.161

Michael W. Mehaffy & Nikos A. Salingaros, Metropolis, 28 May 2012

26. Fractal Art and Architecture Reduce Physiological Stress | p.170

JBU — Journal of Biourbanism, No. 3, March 2013

27. LECTURE NOTES TWELFTH WEEK | p.191

Ornament and human intelligence

28. Intelligence and the Information Environment | p.196

Michael W. Mehaffy & Nikos A. Salingaros, Metropolis, 25 February 2012

29. LECTURE NOTES THIRTEENTH WEEK | p.203

Architecture itself as a biological system

30. Complex Adaptive Systems | p.208

Michael W. Mehaffy & Nikos A. Salingaros, Metropolis, 6 August 2012

31. Architecture: Biological Form and Artificial Intelligence | p.217

Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden, The Structurist, No. 45/46 (2006), pages
54-61

32. LECTURE NOTES FOURTEENTH WEEK | p.231

Natural and unnatural form languages

33. The 1982 Alexander-Eisenman Debate | p.236

Christopher Alexander & Peter Eisenman, Katarxis No. 3, September 2004

34. Some Sober Reflections on the Nature of Architecture in Our

Time | p.250
Christopher Alexander, Katarxis No. 3, September 2004

9
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

35. CONCLUSION | p.261

PART TWO
COURSE ORGANIZATION AND PROJECTS

36. Discovering Theory from Measurements | p.264

37. First Class Project | p.267

Documenting a form language and estimating its complexity. The Kolmogorov-
Chaitin complexity of each form language correlates to an estimate of its regional
adaptation

38. Form Language Checklist | p.269

39. Architectural Regionalism Correlates with Design Complexity

| p.271
The results of plotting all the class projects together indicate a direct correlation
between regionalism and the complexity of the form language used

40. Second Class Project | p.274

Evaluation and classification of form languages according to their geographical and
human adaptations

41. Quantitative Measures for Regionalism and Complexity | p.276

Numerical estimates according to their regional/global and natural/unnatural
characteristics provide a more sophisticated model that correlates regionalism
with design complexity

42. Notes for students on the framework of this course | p.281

43. COURSE SYLLABUS | p.284

44. POSTSCRIPT | p.288

Letter from Zaheer Allam

INDEX | p.291

10
 1. prefAce

In the Fall Semester of 2012 I taught a course on architectural theory

for the Architecture School at the University of Texas at San Antonio. It
was organized so that external students could follow much of it online
from wherever they were located. They only needed to find and read our
two textbooks, supplemented by my lecture notes and external readings
(which are collected here). Even those students who had no access to
the textbooks could still learn a great deal about the basic concepts
from my notes summarizing the reading material. I’m now offering
here my lecture notes from this course, together with the extra reading
material, which complement but do not substitute for the two textbooks
we used:
• Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of
Building and the Nature of the Universe, Book 1 — The Phenomenon of
Life, Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, 2001.
• Nikos A. Salingaros, A Theory of Architecture, Umbau-Verlag,
Solingen, 2006. (This book is also available in Chinese and in
Persian).
Altogether, this material represents a new and ultimately more
intelligent approach to understanding architecture. By the end of
the semester, students had covered and hopefully absorbed all of
Alexander’s book and Chapters 1 to 7 & 11 of my book, which are directly
relevant to The Nature of Order. My Weekly Lecture Notes included here
summarize and comment on the principal arguments from the reading
assignments, which were revised after the class discussed the content in
a roundtable manner. (Since neither Alexander’s Volume 1 nor my own
textbook were written explicitly for the precise course I had in mind
to offer, it was necessary to skip around the order of the book chapters
somewhat, and this sequence is important.)
The focus was on a Unified Architectural Theory, which includes
and describes all of architecture, from traditional buildings to the
latest design trends currently in fashion. More importantly, this
comprehensive theoretical framework is based upon science and
not on personal opinion. The theory is testable and has predictive
value. Many architects drawn to study Alexander’s work have resisted
applying his ideas to their own current work because they have been
under the mistaken belief that Alexander deals with only a particular

11
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

(“Eurocentric” or “nostalgic”) type of building. Our course dispelled

this false impression. The unified theoretical framework is practical,
original, entirely general, and applies directly to cutting-edge design.
Students by the end of the course could judge what makes a “good”
building, not only for its adaptation to human use, but also from the
point of view of being able to learn something from it. Is it functional
and emotionally satisfying, and does it contribute to elevating the
quality of life of its users? A separate but related criterion is whether a
building is a helpful model that teaches us techniques of design which
can be used directly in practice. Our analysis provides a tool that reveals
design errors in building on many different conceptual levels, or at least
things one would do differently with hindsight. A “good” building can
teach us tectonic solutions to admire and repeat in our own projects;
other buildings teach us what to avoid.
Both Alexander and I have continued to publish relevant research on
how architecture interacts with human nature, after our books (used
here as the two textbooks) were finished. New articles I wrote with
Kenneth Masden and with Michael Mehaffy are included as readings
for this course. From outside writings, I included an interview by the
distinguished classical architect Léon Krier. Biologist Edward O. Wilson
(one of our age’s greatest scientists, and founder of Biophilia) kindly
gave me permission to use his essay, which is directly pertinent to
this course. Finally, as one of the four editors of the online publication
Katarxis 3 (along with Lucien Steil, Brian Hanson, and Michael Mehaffy),
I used the 1982 Alexander-Eisenman debate (which I had originally
prepared for the web), an additional essay by Alexander, and a portion
of one of my own essays from there.
A major component of this course is contained in the two student
projects. Both have to do with documenting and using a particular
architectural form language. The first project required each student
to choose and document a form language, then design a new building
using it (only a very rough conceptual sketch). An estimate of its
regional adaptation was correlated to a measure of its complexity. This
exercise introduces quantitative methods in architectural theory. The
second project went much deeper into relating the adaptability and
complexity of the form language, using a much more sophisticated
model for geometrical complexity and regional adaptation. More
precise measures were used to search for possible correlations. The
general outline of these projects is included here in the appendices.
The experience obtained from the readings and projects taught
students how to distinguish those parts of a building that work well
— the places we connect with the most — from parts that are poorly
designed for human connection. Successful form and space are based on

12
1. PrefAce

respecting emotions and not at all on intellectual and formal concerns

that can lead to cold or chaotic forms. In this way, current design
priorities are reversed. A successful user-specific building happens to
appeal to the greatest number of people. That’s because it has been
adapted to human sensibilities. Correcting an old misunderstanding, we
don’t need to make a building bland or generic to achieve this universal
appeal, but rather the opposite. Adaptation to region and user connects
true regionalism to meaning triggered by complex form.
Having a theoretical basis available with objective measurements
helped to explain why a building’s immediate intuitive appeal actually
works. At the same time, our theoretical understanding distinguished
between an impression of “liking” something at first glance because it is
provocative or flashy, and the deeper connection that reveals it to be a
good or poor working and living environment. This second state is more
like the perceived serenity of a natural environment, and we found
the mathematical and biological reasons why this analogy is correct.
Also, many students always felt uneasy about particular buildings but
could not pinpoint their flaws — now they could find them through
analysis based on objective criteria. All in all, the theory changed one’s
perspective of how to evaluate structures.
The revolutionary nature of this course becomes apparent only
after someone compares the readings with the projects. The students
were allowed to choose any architectural form language of their liking,
and more than half of them chose from among the buildings and
styles of contemporary Starchitects. Most of the rest chose a famous
Modernist architect from the early 20th century, which means that only
a few students chose traditional form languages. Despite this bias in
selection, the students learned of the adaptive advantages of traditional
form languages, and declared they would revise their own future
designs towards that end. We provided objective criteria for judging the
suitability of a particular form language for use today. It was possible
to do this, and very successfully indeed, using as a basis a theoretical
framework that supports human-oriented architecture.
Architecture schools could eventually adopt this course as a regular
requirement, although that requires a faculty member who wishes
to teach this material. An instructor is essential to lead the in-class
discussions, to direct the two projects, and to evaluate the students’
work. Even without an instructor, however, interested students can
learn a great deal from the framework of the course by working on their
own, as was evidenced by the positive feedback received from students
who read the Weekly Lecture Notes online. The important thing is the
synthesis of ideas represented here.

13
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

At the end of the present book, some practical details of how the
course was organized are documented. The experience from the course
might come in useful to a colleague who is considering presenting this
or a similar course in the future. Of course, every instructor will have an
individual idea of how to handle the syllabus and reading material, and
how to structure any projects that might be included.
 2. A BiologicAl UnderstAnding of
ArchitectUre
Extract from one of my essays in Katarxis No. 3, September 2004.
Reprinted by permission.

Architecture is indeed linked to biology. This observation is

intuitively true from a structural perspective, since human beings
perceive a kinship between the different processes — natural and
artificial — that generate form. Nevertheless, the broadness of the claim
might appear surprising, considering that it comes from architects
holding radically different ideas about what buildings ought to look
like. The idea of a biological connection has been used in turn by
traditional architects, modernists, postmodernists, deconstructivists,
and naturally, the “organic form” architects. One might say that
architecture’s proposed link to biology is used to support any
architectural style whatsoever. When it is applied so generally, then the
biological connection loses its value, or at least becomes so confused as
to be meaningless. Is there a way to clear up the resulting contradiction
and confusion?
Up until now, architects and those scientists interested in architecture
have focused on the morphological imitation of nature. Sometimes
explicitly, more often implicitly, natural forms, including biological
forms, have inspired the constructions of human beings. Nevertheless, I
believe that an understanding of the biological roots of architecture and
urbanism requires another component that is independent of structural
imitation. This more elusive aspect of the problem is concerned with
how we connect and perceive form to begin with. As such, it has more
to do with our own internal structure as human beings than with more
general biological structures. The answers are to be found in cognitive
processes, perception, and neurophysiology.
In order to begin a search for how biology influences architecture and
urbanism, we must establish some overall map of the problem. Because
this is a vast subject, it is useful to divide it into a series of questions
like the following. This is not meant to be a complete set of questions,
only a starting point for an investigation.
1. Why do some built forms resemble biological forms?
2. What types of built forms correspond more closely to biological
prototypes?

15
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

3. Are human beings predisposed to like and feel comfortable with

certain types of forms?
4. Are human beings also predisposed to build certain types of forms?
5. Is it worthwhile mimicking biological forms in what we build?
6. Do we gain more than just aesthetic pleasure — such as physical
and psychological benefits, for example — from an environment that
captures the essence of biological structure?
7. Can we damage ourselves by living in and around forms that
contradict biological forms?
8. Do we really understand biological structure well enough to mimic
anything other than its superficial appearance?
These questions can hopefully provide researchers with an impetus
to resolve long-standing problems in how humankind relates to its
natural and built environments. I would like to focus here on the
connection between architecture and urbanism, on the one hand, and
inherited structures in the human brain that influence the function of
“mind”, on the other. A group of innovative architects and thinkers are
beginning to formulate the basis for a new architecture that arises out
of human needs, and which is supported by an improved understanding
of biological structure. Our cognition makes us human; it is certainly
responsible for how we perceive structure. Human neurophysiology is
therefore essential for answering at least some of the above questions.
 pArt one
the coUrse lectUres
And reAdings
“When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is
bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be bro-
ken, to everything in the Universe.” — John Muir.
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

3. introdUction to the coUrse

This course is designed to provide students with the theoretical

foundation necessary to succeed in architectural practice. The
theoretical motivation behind different styles of buildings is explored
in depth. We also analyze the scientific background that defines and
justifies architectural development in the experience of architecture
and the tectonics of structure. Examining ideas and processes that
give shape to built form, we then go further to judge those forms in an
objective manner. This approach is totally innovative. A course that
explores the theoretical foundation of places and buildings occupies
an important place in the curriculum, as no other courses deal with the
subject. The format of the class consists of lecture, design and analysis
projects, and discussion.
Students need to have an idea of what to expect in this course. At
present, architectural theory consists of rather disparate writings
by architects, critics, architectural historians, and philosophers. The
philosophy behind the present course assumes that the present state of
affairs is confusing and not really helpful for design, and that a novel
unified theory of architecture is possible using recent, predominantly
scientific results. A student should note that the discipline itself is
barely emerging, with ongoing contradictions and polemics among the
experts. The categories of subjects covered are meant to bring clarity
and a coherent form of categorization to this issue.
Firstly, the presentation depends upon a significant broadening
of what is currently used as the philosophical underpinning of
architecture. There exist several, very distinct, philosophical currents
in contemporary society, each of which supposes a particular
interpretation of the structure of matter and humankind’s place in the
universe. The most visible and discussed examples of contemporary
architecture are consistent with only one of those philosophical
currents. They disagree, often violently, with the other philosophical
interpretations. Nevertheless, architecture students are not normally
exposed to any philosophy other than that which supports what is
currently in fashion. This is a totally subjective state of affairs.
Secondly, this question goes to the core of what is architectural
theory. I define it, following scientific practice, as an explanatory
framework for architecture and for its interaction with both human
beings as users, and with the earth’s environment. The discipline of
architecture consists of two complementary portions: the buildings

18
3. introdUction to the coUrse

themselves, and a theoretical framework for explaining and evaluating

those buildings. Theory without explanatory value is useless. Even
better is when a theory has predictive value that can be verified by
experiment. Contemporary architectural discourse is strangely removed
from any tangible connection to buildings, however. Yes, architects offer
theoretical explanations for their buildings’ form, but often it is difficult
to draw the connection. What many people regard as architectural
theory today is a very narrow sub-branch of philosophy.
Thirdly, a student might be surprised to hear me dismiss other
authors who are now accepted as prominent architectural theorists.
Since I happen to write and publish architectural theory, I naturally
find myself arguing and disagreeing with other presumed architectural
theorists. All of our ideas are competing against each other for
legitimacy. If someone’s discourse disagrees fundamentally with what I
am proposing, then I consider it my right to declare that those writings
are at best not useful to understanding architecture, or, at worst, flawed
or even meaningless.
This attitude will alarm architectural academics. A teacher in an
architecture school is seldom also an architectural theorist. A faculty
member might have a practice on the side, but even this is not always
true, and it is does not imply that he or she contributes to theory.
Furthermore, the academic environment accepts all architectural
discourse as valid, especially if it comes from famous names, and so
an instructor would normally present writings of well-known authors
to students without judgment. The available textbooks for teaching
a course in architectural theory consist of collected readings from
a variety of authors. The instructor assumes that the editors of those
books have validated the content of every essay included, but that
assumption is false. The task of an editor is to include authors that
are somehow known names, itself no guarantee of the validity of their
ideas.
All of this has consequences that might be most disturbing to
an architecture student. Setting up of what I believe is a genuine
architectural theory leads to predictions and a basis for judgment. If we
have been careful enough in laying the groundwork for the theory in an
accurate and honest manner, then we have to live with its predictions.
If the theory leads me to criticize buildings by famous starchitects, this
might shock a student used to accepting those buildings as noteworthy
examples of contemporary architecture. The shock is even more severe
if other architectural theorists praise the same buildings that we are
criticizing. Students are not used to such contradictions. How does
one judge who is ultimately right? What are the different criteria

19
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

for judgment? Here we enter the subjective realm of opinion that is

validated by political and media predominance.
It is the purpose of this course to open up the discipline in such
a way that these tensions lead to a better understanding of what
architecture is.
 4. lectUre notes, first Week.
the strUctUre of ArchitectUrAl theories

Readings for the First Week:

• Alexander, The Phenomenon of Life, Prologue & Chapter 1, “The

Phenomenon of Life”.
• Salingaros, “Architectural Theory”, extracts from Anti-Architecture
and Deconstruction (Umbau-Verlag, Solingen, 2008), also available in
Chinese, French, Italian, and Russian.
• Edward O. Wilson, “Integrated Science and the Coming Century of
the Environment”, Science, Volume 279, No. 5359 (March 27, 1998),
pages 2048-2049.

Architecture is a human act that invades and displaces the natural

ecosystem. Biological order is destroyed every time we clear native plant
growth and erect buildings and infrastructure. The goal of architecture
is to create structures to house humans and their activities. Humans are
parts of the earth’s ecosystem, even though we tend to forget that.
Logically, architecture has to have a theoretical basis that begins
with the natural ecosystem. The act of building orders materials in
very specific ways, and humans generate an artificial ordering out of
materials they have extracted from nature and transformed to various
degrees. Some of today’s most widely-used materials, such as plate glass
and steel, require energy-intensive processes, and thus contain high
embodied energy costs. Those cannot be the basis for any sustainable
solution, despite all the industry hype.
Resource depletion and a looming ecological catastrophe are
consequences of detachment from nature, and a blind faith in
technology to solve the problems it creates.
Architectural theory, in the sense understood in this course, is a
framework that studies architectural phenomena using scientific logic
and methods of experimentation. Many experiments have been done by

21
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

others, and we are going to apply them to architecture. Theory provides

a model that explains investigations and observations about form and
structure.
A successful theory will help us interpret what an architect does,
even though each architect will likely have his/her own motivation and
explanation. Nevertheless, the theory will allow us to compare among
different types of buildings, and to evaluate how well those connect to
users and with nature. We can understand how a building came about,
and how it connects and interacts with its surroundings.
It will also be good if common people, not just architects, can
understand architectural theory, and thus it should be formulated with
that goal in mind. The advantages are that it is ordinary people who are
going to inhabit those buildings, whereas architects can choose to live
and work wherever they like. Another crucial point is that the majority
of building activity is, and has always been, the erection of self-built
informal settlements. People, not architects, build these structures.
Christopher Alexander has pioneered a theory of human-made order.
It is based directly upon natural order, so there is neither contradiction
nor confusion between the two types.
Alexander made five key assumptions that permitted him to pursue
his work.
(1) Natural and artificial order rely upon the same mechanisms for
their working.
(2) Natural order is self-organizing and self-correcting. What we
observe is there because it works.
(3) Artificial order is not necessarily self-correcting, or maybe it is on
a generational timescale so individuals are not going to notice it. As
a result, human beings can do things to the natural environment and
build buildings and structures that damage the world. It is not easy to
diagnose what is good and distinguish it from what is bad.
(4) It is possible to use science to create diagnostic tools for what is
good and bad in human creations — in how they affect the natural
environment, including us humans.
(5) We can use the human body as a sensing instrument for what is
good and bad in architecture. Basic assumption: human feeling is
universal, and people share 90% of their responses, even if individuals
come from different cultures or backgrounds.
To make good buildings, we need a worldview, a conception of the
world that is healthy and that enables us to understand things deeply.
A healthy worldview is based upon connectivity to the world: direct

22
4. the strUctUre of ArchitectUrAl theories

connection to the order of the universe and to natural processes as they

are continuously occurring.
The opposite — detachment — leads to a dangerous condition where
people analyze a situation as a mechanism isolated from the world.
This is the model of a building or a city as a machine. Modern science is
guilty of contributing to this disconnection from nature, since scientific
models are necessarily self-contained and limited in scope — otherwise
they would be useless.
Science gives us an excellent model of how something works as a
mechanical system. Nevertheless, this is not a complete description
even of the cases we do understand well. And there are a vast number
of instances where we ignore any mechanical description at all of an
observed phenomenon.
What is completely missing from a strictly mechanistic worldview
is human consciousness, our personal and emotional connection
to the universe. This might not matter when investigating some
technical problems, but it’s all-important for things that affect us, like
architecture. Another significant consequence is the lack of value in
a mechanistic worldview. A human connected to the universe knows
the distinction between good and bad, true and false, beautiful and
ugly. These qualities are not relative, and are not matters of opinion.
A consumer disconnected from natural values, by contrast, can be fed
toxic products and be made to believe they are good.
The way out of the present, highly restricted view of the universe is
to develop an immensely more connected state between humans and
their environment. Attention is given to what affects us reciprocally
with the world, when we are tightly connected.
Following this reasoning, people have a shared basis for judgment,
and can intuitively judge whether something has order or life, and
expect their gut reaction to be 90% shared across cultures and distances.
In this new worldview, ornament plays a critical role to connect humans
with the order of the world. Ornament is thus intimately related to
function in the non-mechanistic sense.
We wish to consider architecture and the production of human
artifacts also as essential components of natural ecosystems. Order and
life are related. Natural things have an intrinsic order, and life as we
usually know it and understand it is simply an extension of that order.
For this reason, human constructions should not damage or contradict
natural order.
The earth’s ecosystems (many of which are connected to each
other) contain, and are contained by other components that

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neither metabolize, nor replicate. But every layer of the system is

interdependent. This property of life in inanimate objects and situations
arises out of their degree of natural order, and the human body has
evolved mechanisms to sense that order. Thus, it is not surprising to
feel that something is “alive”, because of its geometrical properties,
even though that object is not biological.
Biological organisms have the additional features of metabolism and
replication. A very simple consequence of thinking of a building as a
“living” entity is that it requires repair and restoration. This analogy
with metabolism takes us away from a central tenet of 20th Century
industrial architecture: the quest for absolutely permanent and
weather-resisting materials. This search has become very expensive. But
worse of all, it denies living qualities. Materials that do weather in fact
produce buildings that are more in keeping with biological organisms.
For example, the Ise Shrine Complex in Japan is re-built every 20 years.
Buildings also engage in replication: if a form language is adopted
by other builders, then the original prototype building is replicated in
more copies, not exactly the same, but containing the same “genetic”
information.
Since the perception of something as being “alive” is due to a very
strong connection with our mind and body, there is a reciprocal effect:
that object, place, or configuration makes us feel more alive. It is
possible to find myriads of artifacts, buildings, urban spaces that feel
“alive” and that in turn make us feel “alive”. They invariably come from
vernacular traditions and hardly ever from design.
The perceived living quality comes from specific geometrical
configurations, and it is possible to discover the rules that generate a
living quality. Even in non-traditional 20th-century examples of objects
and places having perceived “life”, the life comes from their geometry.
It is not based on concepts, or images, or fashions. By connecting to
the thing, we feel that we are connecting directly with its maker, who
therefore doesn’t hide behind any notions or ideas that contaminate its
genuine character.
To get at a genuine understanding of architecture, it is useful to use
the approach that scientists employ to discover nature’s secrets.
Edward Wilson outlines what science achieves:
(1) Systematic gathering of knowledge about the world, which is
organized and condensed into basic principles as far as possible.
(2) Results must pass the test of independent and repeated verification.
(3) It helps to quantify information, for then, principles can use

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4. the strUctUre of ArchitectUrAl theories

mathematical models.
(4) Condensation of information via systematization and classification
helps in storage.
(5 ) A safeguard for truth comes from consilience: the horizontal
links across diverse disciplines.
Consilience acts as a test for the soundness of a theory. Within itself,
a theory might look good even when it contains fundamental flaws.
Internal consistency can be misleading, since it could relate several
false assumptions, but in a very convincing manner. We normally should
be able to transition from one sound theory into another one that acts
on a distinct domain. If there is a contradiction, then something is
wrong. It could be that there is no barrier but a large gap, in which case
that needs to be filled in.
Architectural theory can be formulated and verified by employing
two mechanisms: internal hypotheses that are repeatedly verified, and
external consilient links to other disciplines that have a verifiable basis.
These include the hard sciences.
Good architecture is less of a reductionist discipline and must
necessarily be a synthetic discipline. If it is applied in a reductionist
manner, then it probably contains serious errors that damage the
environment. To be adaptive means to synthesize many distinct
responses to human needs and natural order.
Most important is for architecture to be directly linked to human
evolution, the physical needs of the organism, and to use information
according to evolved culture. Neglecting the biological origins of
human needs and behavior detaches architecture from the world and
from humanity. The architect should design a building that makes
common people feel comfortable, and not to be liked just by architects.
It should also adapt to its locality, not designed for somewhere else, or
for no place in particular.
 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

5. ArchitectUrAl theory
By Nikos A. Salingaros
Extracts from: Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction (AAAD),
Third Edition (Umbau-Verlag, Solingen, 2008). Reprinted by
permission.

Architectural Theory (AAAD, pages 149-150)

In order to discuss any supposed contributions to architectural
theory, it is necessary to define what architectural theory is. A theory in
any discipline is a general framework that:
(1) explains observed phenomena;
(2) predicts effects that appear under specific circumstances; and
(3) enables one to create new situations that perform in a way
predicted by the theory.
In architecture, a theoretical framework ought to explain why
buildings affect human beings in certain ways, and why some buildings
are more successful than others, both in practical as well as in
psychological and aesthetic terms. One important requirement of an
architectural theory is to coordinate and make sense of scattered and
apparently unrelated observations of how human beings interact with
built form. Another is to formalize those observations into an easy-to-
apply framework that can be used for design.
Sadly, architecture is only now embarking on a long-overdue
formulation of its theoretical basis. It is not an exaggeration to say
that up until now, the field has been driven by personal whim and
fashion rather than being supported by any theoretical foundation.
As a result of a serious misunderstanding (due to scientific ignorance
by three generations of architects), a voluminous body of writings has
been mistaken for “architectural theory”, even though it is nothing of
the sort. This material is taught to architecture students, and is studied
by practicing architects; nevertheless, it merely serves to promote
certain stylistic fashions and dogmas rather than an understanding of
architectural form. Enough genuine architectural theory now exists to
form a nucleus from which the topic can be built. This nucleus consists
of the writings of Christopher Alexander (Alexander, 2001; Alexander et
al., 1977), Léon Krier (1998), the present author (Salingaros, 2006), and
a few others.

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5. ArchitectUrAl theory

Genuine architectural theory has developed into two parallel strands.

The first is the approach based on solutions that work historically.
Not surprisingly, this strand turns to traditional architecture, using its
typologies in an innovative manner. Architects ignorant of this strand
of architectural theory misjudge it, falsely thinking that it merely copies
older models, whereas in fact, it is using a well-developed vocabulary
to generate novel solutions. The second strand of genuine architectural
theory is based on science.
Here, models from biology, physics, and computer science are used
to explain how architectonic form emerges, and why human beings
react in certain predictable ways to different structures. The scientific
approach is in many ways complementary to the traditional approach
to design. The main difference in practice is that, since the scientific
approach is not tied to any specific typology, it leads to a much broader
design vocabulary than does the traditional approach.
Architects have difficulties in appreciating the scientific strand
of genuine architectural theory, because of certain misstatements
in the body of existing architectural texts. Authors claiming to
explain architectural form using scientific theories and their
vocabulary are invariably confused, and so confuse the reader. Much
of this architectural literature is plainly incorrect, but architects
have insufficient scientific knowledge to realize this. Well-respected
architectural commentators write misleading statements that are
taken as meaningful explanations by architects and students, who then
become so bewildered that they cannot appreciate genuine scientific
explanations. They confuse spurious explanations for the real thing.
This regrettably happens because in architecture, there is as yet no
basis for judging between a true and a false theory. Other fields were
able to develop their theoretical basis only after they instituted such a
criterion, putting in place a mechanism for distinguishing sense from
nonsense. Architects erroneously believe that such a set of criteria can
exist only in an experimental subject such as physics, without realizing
that architecture is itself an experimental field. The problem is that
the observational, experimental side of architecture has been willfully
neglected for several decades, to the point where its practitioners have
forgotten this fundamental quality of their discipline.

The Necessity for Theory (AAAD, pages 164-166)

I pointed out which contemporary authors have in my opinion
actually contributed to creating a theoretical foundation for
architecture. I also argued that what is currently accepted by many
architects as architectural theory is not theory at all, but rather a clever

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 Unified ArchitectUrAl theory

means to propagate a particular design style. Outsiders (which includes

most people) naively assume that contemporary architecture possesses
a theoretical basis, like for example chemistry and neuroscience, which
explains why buildings ought to look the way they do. However, a mass
of writings mislabeled as architectural theory only helps to generate
and support certain images; those images are then copied, and used
as templates for buildings in an alien style. That is not a theoretical
foundation. Those writings fail to satisfy any of the accepted criteria for
a theory in any field.
Every discipline has a store of knowledge accumulated over time,
which explains a huge range of phenomena. (Architecture has been
collecting information for millennia). Some of this knowledge is
codified into a compact theoretical framework; other parts are strictly
phenomenological but tested by observation and experiment. Facts and
ideas combine in a particular manner, common to all proper disciplines.
The crucial characteristic of a valid theoretical framework is a
transparent internal complexity coupled with external connectivity.
This arises from the way explanatory networks develop in time:
(1) More recent knowledge about a topic builds upon existing
knowledge.
(2) Older knowledge is replaced only by a better explanation of
the same phenomenon, never because a fashion has changed — this
process creates multiple, connected layers of knowledge.
(3) A theory in one discipline must transition sensibly to other
disciplines.
This means that there ought to be some interface where one
discipline merges into another, all the way around its periphery. Any
theory that isolates itself because it is incomprehensible to others is
automatically suspect. A tightly-knit internal connectivity, along with a
looser external connectivity, provides the foundations for a mechanism
of self-correction and maintenance. This holds true for any complex
system.
Architecture as a profession has repeatedly disconnected itself
both from its knowledge base, and from other disciplines in an effort
to remain eternally “contemporary” (the much-publicized recent
connections to philosophy, linguistics, and science notwithstanding,
since they are now exposed as deceptions). This is, of course, the
defining characteristic of a fashion; the opposite of a proper discipline.
Again and again, architecture has ignored derived knowledge about
buildings and cities, and has embraced nonsensical slogans and
influences.

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5. ArchitectUrAl theory

Those who profit from the instability and superficiality of the

fashion industry are deathly afraid of facing genuine knowledge about
the world. It would put them out of business. Architects and critics
periodically change the reigning fashion so as to keep the market
stimulated. They have to devote an enormous amount of resources to
promoting whatever ephemeral style is in vogue. In order to sell their
fashion, they are obliged to suppress any application of accumulated
architectural knowledge. This prevents a theoretical basis from ever
developing. Ever-changing fashion is parasitic on timeless processes.
Critics dismiss neo-traditional buildings as facile copies of classical
prototypes, even though those need not resemble anything built in the
previous two millennia. The architectural media declare that “a classical
column represents tyranny”, and that by confessing to an attraction
to classical architecture, we somehow support totalitarianism. At the
same time, a liking for non-classical vernacular architecture of any
kind is ridiculed. In this instance, we are branded as being ignorant
and “sentimental” (which, in contemporary architectural values, is an
unforgivable offense). Novel buildings with human qualities, which
nevertheless have nothing to do with the classical typology, are also
forbidden.
People are now misled to believe that the “architecture of the future”
is necessarily broken and twisted, and made out of glass and polished
metal. Any doubt is dispelled by awarding their architects the most
prestigious prizes. Some of those who participate in disseminating
this style act from an almost religious conviction. They fervently
believe that they are doing civilization a favor, promoting the future
and protecting us from backwardness and retrogression. Architectural
schools are steeped in righteousness. Ever since the Bauhaus of the
1920s, many schools’ aim has been to restructure society for the
betterment of all people; whether those welcome this or not. If ordinary
people are sentimental about past methods of design, and crave
buildings that appeal to the human scale, that is only an indication of
human weakness.
We stand of the threshold of a historic architectural reckoning. A new
architecture mixes exuberant curved forms and fractal scaling with the
broken forms of deconstruction. Let me suggest that architects who
wish to be contemporary ought to drop their deconstructive baggage.
They should instead extend a hand to those whom they have formerly
disdained and slandered — I mean the traditionalists, and those
innovative architects who respect human scale and sensibilities. By
mixing novel forms with typologies that have undergone a competitive
selection during historical time, we can define a new architecture that
is fit for human beings instead of remaining forever alien. Younger

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practitioners have been duped into identifying novelty with the

essential “alien look” of deconstruction. Nevertheless, a new generation
of architects is intelligent enough to realize what is going on, and to
snap out of an unfortunate deception.

The Traditional Patrimony (AAAD, pages 112-115)

Some traditions are anachronistic and misguided, but as reservoirs
of traditional solutions against which to check new proposals they are
of immense importance. A new solution may at some point replace
a traditional solution, but it must succeed in reestablishing the
connections to the rest of knowledge. In the context of social patterns,
architecture, and urbanism, new solutions are useful if they connect to
traditional social, architectural, and urban patterns (i.e., all those before
the 1920s). If there is an obvious gap where nothing in a discipline
refers to anything outside, then there could be a serious problem.
Recently, Edward Wilson has introduced the notion of “consilience”
as “the interlocking of causal explanations across disciplines” (Wilson,
1998a). Consilience claims that all explanations in nature are
connected; there are no totally isolated phenomena. Wilson focuses
on incomplete pieces of knowledge: the wide region separating the
sciences from the humanities. He is happy to see it being slowly filled
in by evolutionary biologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and researchers
in artificial intelligence. At the same time, he is alarmed by people in
the humanities who are erasing parts of the existing body of knowledge.
These include deconstructive philosophers. Wilson characterizes their
efforts as based on ignorance. On Derrida’s work, he writes: “It … is
the opposite of science, rendered in fragments with the incoherence of a
dream, at once banal and fantastical. It is innocent of the science of mind
and language developed elsewhere in the civilized world, rather like the
pronouncements of a faith healer unaware of the location of the pancreas.”
(Wilson, 1998b: p. 41).
Unfortunately, most of the humanities today subscribe to belief
systems that damage the web of consilient knowledge. Although never
directly expressed, the goal of deconstruction is to erase institutions of
knowledge. What Derrida has said is alarming enough: “Deconstruction
goes through certain social and political structures, meeting with resistance
and displacing institutions as it does so … effectively, you have to displace, I
would say ‘solid’ structures, not only in the sense of material structures, but
‘solid’ in the sense of cultural, pedagogical, political, economic structures.”
(Norris, 1989: p. 8).
Many people crave novelty without regard for possible consequences.
This craving is often manipulated by unscrupulous individuals. Not

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