Christopher Alexander

Architect and theorist (1936–2022). Author of A Pattern Language, The Timeless Way of Building and The Nature of Order. His pattern languages became the root of software design patterns.

In this wiki

• Tree vs Semilattice: living systems overlap, and minds and planners flatten them into trees (Alexander — A City Is Not a Tree).
• Pattern Language and Living Structure: generative sequences, centers, and structure-preserving unfolding (Alexander — The Origins of Pattern Theory (OOPSLA 1996)).
• One of three foundations of the front door (Legibility in the Lens, Not the Land), and a critic of the wiki's maxim-list method (T1 in Method Reflection).

Reading leads

• The Nature of Order, Book 1 (the fifteen properties) and A Pattern Language: the primary texts behind the keynote. Not freely available.

Sources

• Alexander — A City Is Not a Tree
• Alexander — The Origins of Pattern Theory (OOPSLA 1996)