skip to main content
research-article

Agile anthropology and Alexander's architecture: an essay in three voices

Published:25 October 2009Publication History
Skip Abstract Section

Abstract

During its formative decades the software community looked twice to the theories of Christopher Alexander for inspiration, both times failing to completely master the architect's most useful insights. Now a third opportunity presents itself with Alexander's recent publication, The Nature of Order. Serious apprenticeship, however, imposes a prerequisite of sober self-reflection and evaluation. What, really, is the nature of the developer's tasks? Under what philosophical umbrella has the software community matured until now? Do other philosophical traditions offer alternative and perhaps more pertinent epistemologies? What voices, besides Alexander's, might contribute to the community's evolution? We address these questions along with theory building, ethnography, weak links, design heuristics, agility, and complex systems, all of which combine with Alexander's new theories to suggest different ways of doing what we do, better.

References

  1. Alexander, Christopher. Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Cambridge: Harvard Paperback, 1964. {The book version of Alexander's Ph.D. thesis. Certainly the most formalistic of his writings. A major theme is understanding the nature of the architect's task and how to make it manageable.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. Alexander, Christopher, Murray Silverstein, Shlomo Angle. Sarah Ishikawa, Denny Abrams. The Oregon Experiment, New York: OUP, 1975. {A detailed account of working with the University of Oregon to develop a planning process of piecemeal growth and involvement of the end-users.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  3. Alexander, Christopher, Sarah Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, with M. Jacobson, I. Fiksdahl-King, S. Angel. A Pattern Language, New York: OUP, 1977. {A compilation of 253 building patterns and reflections on connectivity. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health interested in exploring the relationship between the built environment and well-being.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. Alexander, Christopher. The Timeless Way of Building, New York: OUP, 1979. {An essay attempting to get beyond fashion, period architecture and specific traditions to reach a deeper common ground in good buildings.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  5. Alexander, Christopher. The Nature of Order, Berkeley, California: CES, 2003-2005. {A dense weaving of reflections on the natural, man-made, and spiritual worlds. Volume One focuses on a static look at the fifteen geometric properties. Volume Two on process. Volume Three gives blow by blow accounts of specific buildings. Volume Four reaches for a new cosmology.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  6. Brand, Stewart. How Buildings Learn: What happens after they're built? New York: Penguin Books, 1994. {A longitudinal study of buildings as they change over time to suit new needs and owners.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  7. Bronowksi, Jacob. "Architecture as Science, Architecture as Art." in The Visionary Eye: Essays in the Arts, Literature, and Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1978. {One of Bronowski's lectures showing art and science to be but two aspects of the same human endeavor to create.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  8. Brooks, Frederick P. "No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering," Computer, Vol.20, No.4 (April 1987). {A key background article for this piece arguing for conceptual constructs in software development.} Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  9. Csermely, P. Weak Links: Stabilizers of Complex Systems from Proteins to Social Networks, New York: Springer, 2006. {Basic text on weak links in all domains.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  10. Gabriel, Richard. Patterns of Software, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996. {A collection of essays, several of which offer interesting discussions of how to apply Alexander's work to programming. Our quotes on page 11 are from the essay, "The Bead Game, Rugs, and Beauty."} Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  11. Geertz, Clifford. Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 1973. {A collection of essays, the first of which defines thick description as an ethnographic method.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  12. Granovetter, Mark "The Strength of Weak Ties," American Journal of Sociology, 78, 6. (May 1973). {An article which discussed the significance of secondary ties in social relationships.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  13. Hakim, Besim. Arabic-Islamic Cities, London: Kegan Paul International, 1986. {A historian's research on the building codes that gave birth to a multitude of urban pearls around the Mediterranean basin.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  14. Hall, Edward. Beyond Culture, Port Moody, Canada: Anchor Books, 1976. {An early collection of now classic essays in anthropology.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  15. Heidegger, Martin. "Building Dwelling Thinking", in Basic Writings, San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 1993. {A phenomenological look at the art of dwelling and how it must be the guide to building.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  16. Keil-Slawik, Reinhard. "Artifacts in Software Development," in Software Development and Reality Construction, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1992. {An examination of how collective documents are created and shared.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  17. Levy, Steven. The Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge, http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ap70/levyss.htm. {A history of the evolution of VisiCalc and how spreadsheets influence our take on accounting.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  18. Naur, Peter. "Programming as Theory Building," Microprocessing and Microprogramming, 15, (1985). {A key background article for this paper arguing for conceptual constructs in software development.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  19. Rostal, Pam. "Thoughts on Weak Links and Alexandrine Life in Scrum," Nashville, Tenn: PLoP'08. {An article making the connection between weak links and Alexander's properties as useful indicators of complex stable systems.} Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  20. Quillien, Jenny. Delight's Muse: on Christopher Alexander's The Nature of Order, Ames, Iowa: Culicidae Press, 2008. {Beginner's cliff notes on the major themes of The Nature of Order.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  21. Salingaros, Nikos. The Structure of Pattern Language, http://sphere.math.utsa.edu/sphere/salingar/urbanstructure.html.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  22. Salingaros, Nikos, Bruce West. "The Universal Law of Sizes," Environment and Planning, Vol. 26, 1999. {Salingaros, an ardent fan of Alexander's work, develops many themes from his own perspective as a mathematician. We used articles where the structure of pattern languages and levels of scale are investigated.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  23. Sole, R., Ferrer Cancho, R., Montoya, J., and Valverde, S. "Selection, tinkering and emergence in complex networks," Complexity, 8, (January 2003). {An article that allows the interested reader to compare Alexander's concepts with similar concepts - but couched in different vocabulary - found in discussions of complex systems.} Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  24. Whitehead, Alfred North. Modes of Thought, New York, N.Y: Free Press edition, 1968. {A collection of basic essays.}Google ScholarGoogle Scholar

Index Terms

  1. Agile anthropology and Alexander's architecture: an essay in three voices

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Login options

    Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

    Sign in

    Full Access

    • Published in

      cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices
      ACM SIGPLAN Notices  Volume 44, Issue 10
      OOPSLA '09
      October 2009
      554 pages
      ISSN:0362-1340
      EISSN:1558-1160
      DOI:10.1145/1639949
      Issue’s Table of Contents
      • cover image ACM Conferences
        OOPSLA '09: Proceedings of the 24th ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications
        October 2009
        590 pages
        ISBN:9781605587660
        DOI:10.1145/1640089

      Copyright © 2009 ACM

      Publisher

      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 25 October 2009

      Check for updates

      Qualifiers

      • research-article

    PDF Format

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader
    About Cookies On This Site

    We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.

    Learn more

    Got it!