Reassessing Christopher Alexander’s theory of urban morphogenesis
Abstract The architect Christopher Alexander made major contributions in architecture, city science, computer science and other fields. His earlier works, notably “A City is Not a Tree,” contributed to the understanding of cities as complex adaptive systems. Less well known, although no less theoret...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Computational Urban Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s43762-025-00193-x |
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| Summary: | Abstract The architect Christopher Alexander made major contributions in architecture, city science, computer science and other fields. His earlier works, notably “A City is Not a Tree,” contributed to the understanding of cities as complex adaptive systems. Less well known, although no less theoretically ambitious, was Alexander’s later work after the year 2000. Here we explore the potential contribution of this work to contemporary urban challenges, focusing on Alexander’s magnum opus The Nature of Order: An Essay of the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe. We assess its theoretical contribution to the field of sustainable urbanism, with a focus on its computational aspects, as well as the critique it poses for conventional approaches to urban sustainability. |
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| ISSN: | 2730-6852 |