Beautiful Software is Christopher Alexander's research initiative on computing and the environment
"...the character of the computer environment of the future needs to become more childish,
and more human, if it is to help human beings to genuinely extract the best of themselves...
this change may well affect activities which are apparently technical, not only those that one
broadly classifies as 'creative'." -- Christopher Alexander
In the future we'll only understand how to build good software,
if we focus, now, on creating software that does good ...
... even more, the good needs to be genuine, positive, sensitive,
helping every person, place, and ecosystem to thrive, to live in peace,
to become more whole, to join in a cooperative effort to make
everyone help each other to do good ...
... that's why we focus first on software that helps people create a
built environment at the right scale, in support of people and nature,
grown step-by-step with attention to a nurturing adaptation, adjusting
everything with an eye on its effect as it unfolds ...
"It is a view of programming as the natural genetic infrastructure of a living world which
you/we are capable of creating, managing, making available, and which could then have the result
that a living structure in our towns, houses, work places, cities, becomes an attainable thing.
That would be remarkable. It would turn the world around, and make living structure the norm once again,
throughout society, and make the world worth living in again." -- Christopher Alexander
We need to develop our capacity to work together to help the world become more
beautiful, humane, fair, natural, comfortable, and alive. We need to listen
carefully to people and nature, and to ground ourselves in reality.
Ultimately, we want to help human intuition to do what it does best. That
means people's interactions with computers should only help them to do
what is needed, to inform them, to help them connect to the real world,
and to draw their attention towards important things they've forgotten,
and away from unimportant things they're too focused upon.
We bring computer people into the Beautiful Software Initiative through the
Building Beauty core course, so they get a chance to study the physical building
process with Christopher Alexander's colleagues and students. This stimulates
their innate ability to see the living qualities in anything,
and to generate a living process for growing anything.
With this appreciation for the importance of natural structure, we are moving
forward with the experimental engineering that Alexander felt was needed
in the practice and application of computing.
"... I would hope to see examples of programs which make you gasp
because of their beauty. And I would hope for a growing knowledge,
in the field of software engineering, of what this means ..."
-- Christopher Alexander
2024 Greg Bryant: Morphology and Software Development
2024 Christopher Alexander CES Archive
2023 Tomaz Zlender: Latent Centers
2023 Alexander as a Generative AI pioneer
2022 beautiful.software on ycombinator's hacker news
2022 Nikos A. Salingaros: Artificial Intelligence reveals what experts deny
2022 Tim Gorichanaz: How ‘living architecture’ could help the world avoid a soul-deadening digital future
2022 Angus Stocking: Christopher Alexander and Modern Surveying
2022 David Gasca: How to make living systems
2022 Richard P. Gabriel: Notes For ' Notes On “Notes” '
2022 Misha Semenov: Beautiful Software mentioned in New York Review of Architecture
2022 Alexander discussion on ycombinator's hacker news
2022- Dorian Taylor: The Nature of Software
2022 Dorian Taylor: Any given moment in a process
2022 Arlene Chen and Theodora Vardouli: Interactive reconstruction of hidecs2
2022 Theodora Vardouli: Christopher Alexander's mathematics
2022 Robinson, Ohrenstein: How To Build Beautiful Places
2022 Bryant, Heshmat, Lavrisha: Analogous Unfolding
2022 Greg Bryant: Unfolding Sequences - a video introduction
2022 Greg Bryant: transcript for Unfolding Sequences - an introduction
2021-2022 Shahriar Heshmat's Color theory guide: patterns.blue (in progress)
2021 Claire L. Evans: Towards Growing Peaches Online
2021 The Beautiful Software Thesis: feeling as the core of good engineering
2021 Beautiful Software at Building Beauty
2020-2021 Tomaž Žlender - Mirror of the Self survey tool
2021 Gareth Rees: Building Beauty / Beautiful Software -- the first year
2021 Stefan Lesser: Christopher Alexander’s philosophy — useful for tools for thought?
2020 Stefan Lesser: How to adopt Christopher Alexander’s ideas in the software industry
2020 Self-descriptive webapp -- a class exercise
2020 one step of a sequence platform
2020 PUARL+BB conference: The point of the Beautiful Software seminar: distributing the toolbox
2020 Podcast: Ryan Singer and Greg Bryant
2020 The Beautiful Software Initiative announcement
2020 Beautiful Software at computing philosophy
2020 Diana Cristobal Olave: The Computer‑Aided Rough Patterns of Christopher
Alexander
2020 The Game Overanalyser: Christopher Alexander and Game Design
2019 Egon Elbre: Building with Value
2019 R. Gabriel and J. Quillien: A Search for Beauty
2018 Building Beauty: diagnosis, analysis, and project language
2018 Or Ettlinger: The wonder of mockups
2017+ buildingbeauty.org
2017 Gatemaker video demonstration
2015 Greg Bryant: Living Structure and Cognition
2014 Nikos Salingaros: Codes That Generate Life
2014 Urbanology YouTube channel
2013 Gatemaker: Christopher Alexander's dialogue with the computer industry
2010 Ryan Singer: Designing with Forces
2008 Greg Bryant: Developing software with sequences: Passing Keys
2008 Christopher Alexander interview snippet: computer-assisted building
2007 Ed Yourdon credits Christopher Alexander for coupling and cohesion in structured design
2007 Christopher Alexander: Interview by Katy Butler
2006 Christopher Alexander: Action List for Building a Living Neighborhood
2006 Christopher Alexander: The Heart of the City
2006 Christopher Alexander: Three Rules for Starting a Neighborhood
2006 Christopher Alexander: Pattern Languages, Sequences, and Generative Codes
2006 Christopher Alexander: The order in which things are done
2006 Christopher Alexander: Main steps of work
2006 Christopher Alexander: What is an unfolding?
2006 Christopher Alexander: Library of Unfoldings
2006 Christopher Alexander: Generative codes
2006 Christopher Alexander: Seven Main Steps to a Living Neighborhood
2006 Christopher Alexander: Our Services (CES)
2006 Christopher Alexander interview: excerpts relevant to computing
2006 Christopher Alexander: Empirical Findings from The Nature of Order
2005 Christopher Alexander: Pedestrian London
2005 Christopher Alexander: The Brookings Plan
2005 Christopher Alexander: Harmony-Seeking Computations
2005 Christopher Alexander: A house in 33 steps
2005 Christopher Alexander interview: Battle for Ordinary Human Existence
2005 Christopher Alexander: Generative Codes - The Path
2005+ livingneighborhoods.org
2004+ community-projects
2004 Christopher Alexander: Sustainability and Morphogenesis
2004 Christopher Alexander and Maggie Moore: Conversation on Stress
2004 Christopher Alexander: The Nature of Order (book 4)
2003 Christopher Alexander and Maggie Moore: Conversation on Sustainability
2003 Christopher Alexander: New Concepts in Complexity Theory
2002 Christopher Alexander & Greg Bryant: Sequences
2002 Christopher Alexander: The Nature of Order - Bk. 2 Ch. 6 on sequences and computing
2002 Christopher Alexander: A Universal Sequence
2002 Christopher Alexander: Our New Architecture And The Many World Cultures
2002 Christopher Alexander & Wendy Kohn: interview
2002 Christopher Alexander: The Kitchen Cost Game
2001 Christopher Alexander: Advice on starting a project
2001 Christopher Alexander: Fifteen Properties (Whole Earth)
2001 Christopher Alexander: The Nature of Order (book 1)
2000 San Francisco Examiner: Alexander's web ambitions
2000 first release of patternlanguage.com
2000 Bill Joy in Fortune on digital future and Alexander
1999 Hajo Neis: Building Process Syllabus
1998+ patternlanguage.com
1998 Jim Coplien on the Nature of Order and software
1997 Stewart Brand (BBC) How Buildings Learn (including Alexander)
1 2 3 4 5 6
1997+ urbanology.com
1997+ Greg Bryant: Gatemaker or "The Aspen summit"
1997 Christopher Alexander: Gatemaker as a fundamental step in computer science
1997 Christopher Alexander & Greg Bryant: Thoughts on the Aspen Meeting
1997 Greg Bryant: Report on Software Issues
1997 Christopher Alexander & Greg Bryant: Three Key Definitions
1996 Christopher Alexander OOPSLA Keynote address
1996 Christopher Alexander: Foreword to Patterns of Software
1996 Alan Powers - The Alexander Technique (West Dean)
1995 Christopher Alexander video: Nature, Life, Self
1995 Christopher Alexander: The Mary Rose Museum
1994 Greg Bryant: Alexander visits The Oregon Experiment
1994 Christopher Alexander interviewed by Greg Bryant: The Application of Feeling
1993 Christopher Alexander: A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art
1991 Greg Bryant: The Oregon Experiment after Twenty Years
1991 Christopher Alexandert: Manifesto 1991
1989 Christopher Alexander: The Perfection of Imperfection
1987 Emoto Apartment Building, Tokyo. Christopher Alexander, Hajo Neis, Ingrid King, Miyoko Tsutsui
1987 Emoto Apartment latitude longitude
1987 Christopher Alexander: Toward a Personal Workspace
1987 Christopher Alexander: A New Theory of Urban Design
1985 Christopher Alexander's Eishin School Campus: a 30-minute documentary
1985 Christopher Alexander: The Production of Houses
1985 Jon Krakauer: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
1984 Christopher Alexander: Mexicali Revisted: Introduction
1984 Dorit Fromm, Peter Bosselmann: Mexicali Revisited: Seven Years Later
1984 Christopher Alexander & Pete Retondo: An Uncommon Bench
1984 Uncommon Bench on Google Maps
1984 Christopher Alexander: The order in which things are done
1983 Stephen Grabow: Christopher Alexander
1982 Christopher Alexander: Moshav Shorashim Handbook for House Design
1981 Christopher Alexander: The Linz Café
1980 Kiko Denzer: Organic Design
1979 Christopher Alexander: The Timeless Way of Building
1977 Steven Joseph Difranco: Use of Hierarchical Decomposition in Computer System Design
1975 Christopher Alexander: The Oregon Experiment
1973 Christopher Alexander: The Grass Roots Housing Process
1972 Christopher Alexander: The Invention of a Human and Organic Building System
1972 Christopher Alexander: An Attempt to Derive the Nature of a Human Building System from First Principles
1972 AIA Journal: Alexander's research medal
1971 Christopher Alexander: The State of the Art in Design Methods
1971 Christopher Alexander: Summary of Houses Generated by Patterns
1971 Gregory Bateson on Christopher Alexander, page 2
1970 Christopher Alexander: Early summary draft of A Timeless Way of Building
1970 Architectural Forum on Pattern Language
1970 Christopher Alexander: Changes in Form
1970-1976 UO student paper articles on Christopher Alexander and the Oregon Experiment
1970 Christopher Alexander on the University of Oregon campus
1969 Christopher Alexander: Houses Generated By Patterns
1966-69 Solly Angel recalls the final form of patterns (2022)
1969 Christopher Alexander: Major Changes in Environmental Form Required by Social and Psychological Demands
1969 Herbert Simon on Christopher Alexander
1968 Christopher Alexander: The Bead Game Conjecture
1968 Christopher Alexander & Susan Carey: Subsymmetries
1968 Christopher Alexander: An Environmental Pattern Language
1968 Gregory Bateson, Warren McCulloch, Barry Commoner, Gordon Pask discuss Christopher Alexander
1968 Peter Naur on Christopher Alexander
1974
1976
1992
1967 Christopher Alexander, Heinz von Foerster: computers and pattern languages
1967 Christopher Alexander et al: Design Innovation
1967 Christopher Alexander: Systems Generating Systems
1966 Christopher Alexander: The Coordination of the Urban Rule System
1966 Christopher Alexander: The Pattern of Streets
1966 Christopher Alexander: The City as a Mechanism for Sustaining Human Contact
1966 Christopher Alexander: Relational Complexes in Architecture
1966 Christopher Alexander: The Atoms of Environmental Structure
1966 Christopher Alexander: From a Set of Forces to a Form
1966 Architectural Forum: Christopher Alexander at BART
1965 Christopher Alexander: A City is not a Tree
1965 Christopher Alexander: The Theory and Invention of Form
1964 Christopher Alexander: On Changing the Way People See
1964 Christopher Alexander: A Much Asked Question About Computers and Design
1964 Proceedings of Architecture and the Computer
1964 about 'Architecture and the Computer'
1964 Christopher Alexander & B. V. Doshi: Main Structure Concept
1964 Christopher Alexander: 390 requirements for the rapid transit station
1964 Christopher Alexander: Notes on the Synthesis of Form
1963 Chermayeff and Alexander: Community and Privacy
1963 Christopher Alexander: HIDECS 3
1963 Christopher Alexander:
Twenty-six pictures to the top of the tree
1963 Christopher Alexander: The Determination of Components of an Indian Village
1962 Christopher Alexander: HIDECS 2
1962 Christopher Alexander: The Origin of Creative Power in Children
1962 Christopher Alexander: The Use of Diagrams in Highway Route Location : An Experiment
1962 Christopher Alexander: The Design of Highway Interchanges
1961 (written in 2002) Christopher Alexander: The Bavra Story
1961 Christopher Alexander: Information and an Organized Process of Design
1960 Christopher Alexander: A Result in Visual Aesthetics
1960 Christopher Alexander: The Revolution Finished Twenty Years Ago
1959 Christopher Alexander: Perception and Modular Co-ordination
Christopher Alexander in documents at the Internet Archive
Christopher Alexander Curriculum Vitae