The Timeless Way of Building
The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid perhaps that they will be laughed at. Now, at last, there is a coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself. The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume in the Center for Environmental Structure series, Christopher Alexander presents in it a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which has at its core that age-old process by which the people of a society have always pulled the order of their world from their own being. Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. And as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are."—Publisher
Stats for nerds
67recommend
134mentions
103people
2008–2026years
61% recommend36% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I haven’t read Berry, but he just went up on my priority list based on this.
Another link to Quality in the Pirsig sense I haven’t seen discussed much is Christopher Alexander’s work. Specifically A Timeless Way of Building which gives similar frustratingly inexact descriptions. I guess Jane Jacobs fits in with this as well but with a bit more concreteness.
- Well, since nobody has mentioned it yet, I recently read The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander and quite enjoyed it. It's an architecture book but the concepts are universal.
The most impactful book I've read recently has been The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, which deals with a man in a reincarnation loop.
Since I was going through a bit of a reincarnation phase I also quite enjoyed Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore, although it's a bit jumpy and all over place.
- Hard no, but for context, I discuss books with AI all the time. I wouldn't discuss Hemingway with an AI, completely pointless. His work is not about the content, it's about the beauty of the prose. By comparison, The Timeless Way of Building, I have ruminated on and used AI to explore. It wouldn't make me want to interact with a synthetic version of Christopher Alexander.
That's not to say the backstory of an author isn't something I would go for either. The Undoing Project was the perfect bookend to Kahneman's work.
- The Art of Game Design is a very good jumping off point; it's how i got my start, and it gives you a lot of windows to look through.
A few years after getting that book, I started to work professionally with people building games, mostly white-labelled projects or contract work, which was the studio's bread and butter. But actually working with people developed my understanding of a) the relative value that artists, designers, and animators bring to the project, relative to my own set of skills and b) how to solve the sorts of problems that ship games. I am a programmer, and I use my programmer skills to give designers and artists what they ask for.
All of that to say: the best next step is working with folks, ideally some who have had experience. Book learning will only get you so far.
That being said, here are a few more books I have seen recommended in my sphere:
- The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander (this is not about games, but design generally)
- Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse
- Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory (this is a technical book about modern game engines)
Finally, Liz England (a designer who lowkey helped me not lose hope when I was breaking into the industry) has/had a blog where she talks about game design books. I cannot personally vouch for the titles, but I trust Liz England [1]
- Read "The Timeless Way of Building" to see what builders of ugly buildings moved away from.
- To me, Christopher Alexander's work comes closest to describing "systems science". I recommend Notes on the Synthesis of Form, The Timeless Way of Building, and then skipping to the Nature of Order series.
I'm of the opinion right now that what we call "design" and "architecture" is really just the science of finding stable habitable zones in high-dimensional problem spaces.
What's cool about Alexander's work is that he makes a great case that this stuff is objective phenomena that can be studied!
I'm planning to write much more about Christopher Alexander on my own blog in the future, but meanwhile I can recommend Dorian Taylor's excellent works:
• https://the.natureof.software
I gave a talk on this subject at DDD Europe this year, so keep your eyes out for "Timeless Way of Software - Taylor Troesh" on their YouTube channel :)
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