The Timeless Way of Building
THE TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING
CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER, CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STRUCTURE, Oxford University Press, 1979
We asked the Green & Healthy Maine HOMES advisory panel to share what they’re reading these days, and which books have had a profound impact on how they approach their work.
Recommended by Michael Maines (Maines Design / Author, Pretty Good House): In The Timeless Way of Building, the first volume of his seminal trilogy on architecture, Christopher Alexander of the Center for Environmental Structure presents 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.”
“Though it’s not strictly about high performance building, it’s a classic that every architect should memorize, many of my clients have read and it includes a lot of great ideas about sustainable living, starting at city scale and working down to fine details.”
This article appeared in the Spring 2020 edition of Green & Healthy Maine HOMES. Subscribe today!
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