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The Oregon Experiment
After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are not publishing a major statement in the form of three works which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building, and planning, which will, we hope, replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The Oregon Experiment.
At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation fo the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.
This book is the master plan for the University of Oregon, and is now being implemented at that university; but it shows at the same time how any community the size of a university or small town might go about designing its own future environment-with all members of the community participating personally. It is a concrete example at the Center's theories in practice, showing in simple detail, with numerous illustrations, how to implement six guiding principles: organic order, participation, piecemeal growth, patterns, diagnosis, and coordination.
At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation fo the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.
This book is the master plan for the University of Oregon, and is now being implemented at that university; but it shows at the same time how any community the size of a university or small town might go about designing its own future environment-with all members of the community participating personally. It is a concrete example at the Center's theories in practice, showing in simple detail, with numerous illustrations, how to implement six guiding principles: organic order, participation, piecemeal growth, patterns, diagnosis, and coordination.
202 pages, Hardcover
First published December 11, 1975
11 people are currently reading
790 people want to read
About the author
Christopher W. Alexander
25 books448 followersChristopher Wolfgang John Alexander was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, and sociology. Alexander designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor.
In software, Alexander is regarded as the father of the pattern language movement. The first wiki—the technology behind Wikipedia—led directly from Alexander's work, according to its creator, Ward Cunningham. Alexander's work has also influenced the development of agile software development.
In architecture, Alexander's work is used by a number of different contemporary architectural communities of practice, including the New Urbanist movement, to help people to reclaim control over their own built environment. However, Alexander was controversial among some mainstream architects and critics, in part because his work was often harshly critical of much of contemporary architectural theory and practice.
In software, Alexander is regarded as the father of the pattern language movement. The first wiki—the technology behind Wikipedia—led directly from Alexander's work, according to its creator, Ward Cunningham. Alexander's work has also influenced the development of agile software development.
In architecture, Alexander's work is used by a number of different contemporary architectural communities of practice, including the New Urbanist movement, to help people to reclaim control over their own built environment. However, Alexander was controversial among some mainstream architects and critics, in part because his work was often harshly critical of much of contemporary architectural theory and practice.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 21, 2024
It's been funny reading this, 'A Pattern Language', and 'The Timeless Way of Building' concurrently. I would really like to read a update on how things have gone at Oregon University, if the proposal and building process laid out in this book has-been followed. The main issue I see is how difficult it is to engender a sense of collective autonomy/ownership of space in a society with a generally authoritarian approach to public property. I'll try to hold on to the principles of organic order, participation, and piecemeal growth. Im less convinced by their explanation of creating university-specific patterns and coordination. I like the section on diagnosis a lot. It's not clear to me if the level of mapping they propose is totally necessary/helpful. A map for every adopted pattern seems excessive to me, but maybe it's needed on a whole-university level.
This book made me think about the differences between colleges just for undergrads and universities with a wider variety of degrees and ages of students and thus needs they have to meet.
This book made me think about the differences between colleges just for undergrads and universities with a wider variety of degrees and ages of students and thus needs they have to meet.
October 11, 2024
A great book. Short and concisely explains how to develop an environment to commune with its inhabitants. I'm curious to see if, in the 49 years since, the University of Oregon actually followed this prescription and if the character of the community developed as hypothesized.
I certainly believe that, whether or not the prescription is totally sound, or if it worked in Oregon, any process which ever could bring about "organic order" would have to follow a procedure resembling an organic one. Thus, such a procedure would follow the principles of "piecemeal growth", and recurring "diagnosis" within a culture of "patterns".
This is the second book I've enjoyed by Christopher Alexander (although it's the third in the series), and I'm excited to start reading the next: A New Theory of Urban Design.
I certainly believe that, whether or not the prescription is totally sound, or if it worked in Oregon, any process which ever could bring about "organic order" would have to follow a procedure resembling an organic one. Thus, such a procedure would follow the principles of "piecemeal growth", and recurring "diagnosis" within a culture of "patterns".
This is the second book I've enjoyed by Christopher Alexander (although it's the third in the series), and I'm excited to start reading the next: A New Theory of Urban Design.
December 22, 2021
"The Oregon Experiment" might well be the best of the TWoB series.
Though the slightest in size by a considerable margin, and focused on a particular context, it nonetheless offers a conceptual whole for an entire approach to ongoing institutional development that is unified in its theoretical vision. It's also the least obviously dogmatic of the series, adapting the radical customization required by a TWoB worldview to an institutional context.
One might mistakenly think that "The Oregon Experiment" (OE) is a case study, demonstrating first the theory of TWoB and then the specific design templates of "A Pattern Language" (APL). It is not, but instead pleasingly demonstrates that there is a whole layer of applied theory yet appropriate, developing a layer of process which makes it clear how to deploy patterns into ongoing growth and repair, with a case study of what the the particular interventions and outcomes turned out to do reserved for a future volume.
As a book, OE consists of six chapters which justify the following principles and unpack them into a concrete process for the University of Oregon at Eugene:
Organic Order: the process allows the whole to emerge from local acts
Participation: decisions about what is to be done and how it is to be done are in the hands of users
Piecemeal Growth: organic growth is encouraged by budgeting approaches that put small, distributed projects on a more equitable footing with larger ventures
Patterns: all design activities are guided by universally adopted planning principles
Diagnosis: well-being of the whole is guarded by a periodic assessment of what is living versus what is dead, both in overall impression and with reference to patterns
Coordination: the slow emergence of organic order is assured by a funding process review tied to the above principles
What is designed in this unpacking isn't building or landscape, but institutional structure: organizations with their members, staffs, and responsibilities; forms and review processes; and standards and templates established through patterns. Of course, the actual weight of architectural design is carried by these patterns, which are both selected from APL and developed specifically for the university. Interestingly, the patterns do not seem to retain their arrangement into a total hierarchy as a necessary part of their use.
Though the interested reader should definitely seek this book out for more particulars, it's worth getting into some of the novel aspects of the budgeting and review process, as they say interesting things about scale. In this approach, projects are divided into different categories of scale defined by magnitudes of cost. Instead of saying that there are an equal number of projects at different scales, it looks to allocate resources more equitably across them, leading to growing magnitudes of smaller projects. Moreover, though projects are reviewed for prioritization, there is no competition between these separate scales for funds.
There are many consequences for this in terms of allowing participation and assuring piecemeal growth, but one interesting consequence is that there are many more projects for review. OE recognizes this challenge, and recommends more frequent review meetings and more expedited and less stringent review for projects at the smallest of scales. At the same time, OE recommends patterns limiting the overall university to a particular size, as well as limiting each department to a particular size.
In this, the institutional design is deliberately aimed to not scale indefinitely, but to stay at a proportion where continued participation is possible. In this, OE maintains the overall TWoB commitment to the human scale of particular experiences and collaborations. At a layer above, one can imagine a social circulation of diagnoses and patterns between institutions, sharing notions of what is working and what is not.
Overall, I recommend the OE for providing a specific example of how to structure organic growth in an institutional context.
Though the slightest in size by a considerable margin, and focused on a particular context, it nonetheless offers a conceptual whole for an entire approach to ongoing institutional development that is unified in its theoretical vision. It's also the least obviously dogmatic of the series, adapting the radical customization required by a TWoB worldview to an institutional context.
One might mistakenly think that "The Oregon Experiment" (OE) is a case study, demonstrating first the theory of TWoB and then the specific design templates of "A Pattern Language" (APL). It is not, but instead pleasingly demonstrates that there is a whole layer of applied theory yet appropriate, developing a layer of process which makes it clear how to deploy patterns into ongoing growth and repair, with a case study of what the the particular interventions and outcomes turned out to do reserved for a future volume.
As a book, OE consists of six chapters which justify the following principles and unpack them into a concrete process for the University of Oregon at Eugene:
Organic Order: the process allows the whole to emerge from local acts
Participation: decisions about what is to be done and how it is to be done are in the hands of users
Piecemeal Growth: organic growth is encouraged by budgeting approaches that put small, distributed projects on a more equitable footing with larger ventures
Patterns: all design activities are guided by universally adopted planning principles
Diagnosis: well-being of the whole is guarded by a periodic assessment of what is living versus what is dead, both in overall impression and with reference to patterns
Coordination: the slow emergence of organic order is assured by a funding process review tied to the above principles
What is designed in this unpacking isn't building or landscape, but institutional structure: organizations with their members, staffs, and responsibilities; forms and review processes; and standards and templates established through patterns. Of course, the actual weight of architectural design is carried by these patterns, which are both selected from APL and developed specifically for the university. Interestingly, the patterns do not seem to retain their arrangement into a total hierarchy as a necessary part of their use.
Though the interested reader should definitely seek this book out for more particulars, it's worth getting into some of the novel aspects of the budgeting and review process, as they say interesting things about scale. In this approach, projects are divided into different categories of scale defined by magnitudes of cost. Instead of saying that there are an equal number of projects at different scales, it looks to allocate resources more equitably across them, leading to growing magnitudes of smaller projects. Moreover, though projects are reviewed for prioritization, there is no competition between these separate scales for funds.
There are many consequences for this in terms of allowing participation and assuring piecemeal growth, but one interesting consequence is that there are many more projects for review. OE recognizes this challenge, and recommends more frequent review meetings and more expedited and less stringent review for projects at the smallest of scales. At the same time, OE recommends patterns limiting the overall university to a particular size, as well as limiting each department to a particular size.
In this, the institutional design is deliberately aimed to not scale indefinitely, but to stay at a proportion where continued participation is possible. In this, OE maintains the overall TWoB commitment to the human scale of particular experiences and collaborations. At a layer above, one can imagine a social circulation of diagnoses and patterns between institutions, sharing notions of what is working and what is not.
Overall, I recommend the OE for providing a specific example of how to structure organic growth in an institutional context.
June 20, 2017
A slight and moderately entertaining book that is literally and figuratively dwarfed by its predecessors, The Oregon Experiment doesn't quite give the resolute conclusions that an experiment might yield. For a book that condemns the usage of a master plan, the book still functions as a prelude to the results of the true experiment. Its conclusion reads like the finish of an introduction. We know that the University of Oregon decided to adopt the aesthetic/architectural/philosophical POV for growth of an organic order from Alexander, but after The Oregon Experiment we only know how those principles were transposed to an academic setting given that there were pragmatic constraints to how the theory of the previous two works could be applied. The most we know of the results of the application is the current campus map of the University of Oregon, which, awesomely, deviates little from the "script". Still, what we're reading here are the early phases of a managed project; what I'm curious about is the deliverable, and what metrics could be utilized to testify to the success of Alexander's model. I'm concerned mainly that: (1) the University of Oregon saved money; (2) if its natural beauty is rated highly by its student body and/or in some of the surveys that rank colleges based on the merits of the campus aesthetic; and (3) if it has grown proportionally in size with the growth of the student body. A cursory glance at the present-day map isn't enough information for me to say that the apparatus is out-and-out successful. While that does allow us to say that Alexander's model succeeds in being prophetic, it hasn't demonstrated to me that it is immune to typical failures of human organization, or that it's easier or can quantify a measured increase in fulfillment - even academic performance - as Alexander implies.
I am concerned with the merit of the assumptions Alexander makes about organic order. For example, he talks about biological "growth fields" that modulate the growth of certain sectors of organisms against others and how this applies to architectural building. It should only work as a metaphorical comparison but Alexander is very serious about making organic growth in an organism match the organic growth of a university. I'm afraid that there's a fallacy of inference here: that by taking the growth characteristic of a cell and seeing the cell's success in growth, Alexander is assuming that this is the sole agent responsible for the cell's success, and ignores some of the more unsung factors going into a cell's proliferation. I caution against using analogical gaps to say that "this process works for X and yields Y for a certain Z, so if we take X for a certain ~Zish thing, it should also yield Y." It's an argument that involves the transposition of behavior from one thing that is not similar to another and assuming the same conclusions. While I'm not sure if this ultimately ended up a success for Alexander, I'm still positive that the correct conclusion was arrived at by fallacious thought processes. Alexander's also overly romanticizing the competence of a cell and its growth. It's likely an anachronistic criticism, but to model architectural growth after cellular growth because of its efficiency is ignoring how much of a kludge human evolution has been. It's a clumsy path of least resistance that shouldn't unhesitatingly be copied.
Alexander also puts way too much credit behind the willing participation of a community to stay and remain involved in for-credit and/or for-fulfillment-of-committee-duty responsibilities. These are unsatisfactory motives for faculty committee memberships that are far less daunting. I doubt that these are long-term, feasible incentives. Nor do I think the temptation to fall prey to developers of 'large lump models' is fully erased by ascribing to Alexander's dogma; it's fully possible that internal pressures coupled with a slowly blooming public apathy will spell difficulties for this organizational model. The apparatus by which adjustments are made here will have to still account for proportional expansion, which will breed more expansion, which will in turn cause the eternal project to require more resources that the University may not be equipped to provide. With these kinds of internal pressures, contracting a firm to build a large, fuck-off building has an appeal and a seductiveness to it that I'm almost positive other universities have succumbed to (given the looks of it, I feel the University of Southern California has, anyway).
Alexander often appeals anecdotally to beautifully-rendered communities that were built in ancient times without the help of corporate firms or heady architects. This is fine, but reductive. They were also constructed in an environment where population density, industrialization, and late-period capitalism weren't wreaking dire havoc. They could also have been built in fiefdoms. We're also ignoring the human cost of these well-laid out plans: the awe-inspiring natural beauty that is Stonehenge likely took some back-breaking slave work, just like the Pyramids, and so on and so forth. Sure, Alexander wants to hearken back to those types of structures, but is not giving full credence to the historical and anthropological context under which they were created. It's not necessarily that they intuited Alexander's pattern language; perhaps it's something else. We don't know because it's not fully addressed.
I also think Alexander misses how well we adjust to our surroundings and sort of let things erode over time. I worry about the collapse of open space with Alexander's small-expanse model because of the human penchant to adjust to new situations, new closed-in spaces, new limitations. With a new structure follows an adjustment to that structure. This is partly where apathy sets in because of how quickly those contributions achieve normalcy, or slowly reveal more problems, or more voids to fill in. Alexander doesn't address how familiar our revisions become, or oftentimes interact to reveal more issues with their presence and by their presence that were meant to be corrected by the presence itself. This is a real phenomenon (perhaps more pertinent when adding components to a complex system) that is neglected here. It also leads me to ponder another phenomenon: is there a nature versus nurture about how the typical human being views, and feels comfortable in, a constructed space? I'm eager to hear Alexander's thoughts about this in his other works.
The Oregon Experiment suffers from its brevity by not giving as much as we might need to be satisfied by the terms and conditions going forward. So be it, but the concepts and theories it discusses are so brilliant and thoughtful that I am more than eager to read the theoretical works proceeding it. The application is lean and smart, and the rebuttals sound given the space they're provided. Alexander is a brilliant thinker in how he and his colleagues are pushing up against the limits of their understanding of building to come up with a mesmerizing body of work. The Oregon Experiment is a cool elevator pitch for that, and lacks in ways the traditional elevator pitch would lack. This left me wanting more, but not in a good way.
I am concerned with the merit of the assumptions Alexander makes about organic order. For example, he talks about biological "growth fields" that modulate the growth of certain sectors of organisms against others and how this applies to architectural building. It should only work as a metaphorical comparison but Alexander is very serious about making organic growth in an organism match the organic growth of a university. I'm afraid that there's a fallacy of inference here: that by taking the growth characteristic of a cell and seeing the cell's success in growth, Alexander is assuming that this is the sole agent responsible for the cell's success, and ignores some of the more unsung factors going into a cell's proliferation. I caution against using analogical gaps to say that "this process works for X and yields Y for a certain Z, so if we take X for a certain ~Zish thing, it should also yield Y." It's an argument that involves the transposition of behavior from one thing that is not similar to another and assuming the same conclusions. While I'm not sure if this ultimately ended up a success for Alexander, I'm still positive that the correct conclusion was arrived at by fallacious thought processes. Alexander's also overly romanticizing the competence of a cell and its growth. It's likely an anachronistic criticism, but to model architectural growth after cellular growth because of its efficiency is ignoring how much of a kludge human evolution has been. It's a clumsy path of least resistance that shouldn't unhesitatingly be copied.
Alexander also puts way too much credit behind the willing participation of a community to stay and remain involved in for-credit and/or for-fulfillment-of-committee-duty responsibilities. These are unsatisfactory motives for faculty committee memberships that are far less daunting. I doubt that these are long-term, feasible incentives. Nor do I think the temptation to fall prey to developers of 'large lump models' is fully erased by ascribing to Alexander's dogma; it's fully possible that internal pressures coupled with a slowly blooming public apathy will spell difficulties for this organizational model. The apparatus by which adjustments are made here will have to still account for proportional expansion, which will breed more expansion, which will in turn cause the eternal project to require more resources that the University may not be equipped to provide. With these kinds of internal pressures, contracting a firm to build a large, fuck-off building has an appeal and a seductiveness to it that I'm almost positive other universities have succumbed to (given the looks of it, I feel the University of Southern California has, anyway).
Alexander often appeals anecdotally to beautifully-rendered communities that were built in ancient times without the help of corporate firms or heady architects. This is fine, but reductive. They were also constructed in an environment where population density, industrialization, and late-period capitalism weren't wreaking dire havoc. They could also have been built in fiefdoms. We're also ignoring the human cost of these well-laid out plans: the awe-inspiring natural beauty that is Stonehenge likely took some back-breaking slave work, just like the Pyramids, and so on and so forth. Sure, Alexander wants to hearken back to those types of structures, but is not giving full credence to the historical and anthropological context under which they were created. It's not necessarily that they intuited Alexander's pattern language; perhaps it's something else. We don't know because it's not fully addressed.
I also think Alexander misses how well we adjust to our surroundings and sort of let things erode over time. I worry about the collapse of open space with Alexander's small-expanse model because of the human penchant to adjust to new situations, new closed-in spaces, new limitations. With a new structure follows an adjustment to that structure. This is partly where apathy sets in because of how quickly those contributions achieve normalcy, or slowly reveal more problems, or more voids to fill in. Alexander doesn't address how familiar our revisions become, or oftentimes interact to reveal more issues with their presence and by their presence that were meant to be corrected by the presence itself. This is a real phenomenon (perhaps more pertinent when adding components to a complex system) that is neglected here. It also leads me to ponder another phenomenon: is there a nature versus nurture about how the typical human being views, and feels comfortable in, a constructed space? I'm eager to hear Alexander's thoughts about this in his other works.
The Oregon Experiment suffers from its brevity by not giving as much as we might need to be satisfied by the terms and conditions going forward. So be it, but the concepts and theories it discusses are so brilliant and thoughtful that I am more than eager to read the theoretical works proceeding it. The application is lean and smart, and the rebuttals sound given the space they're provided. Alexander is a brilliant thinker in how he and his colleagues are pushing up against the limits of their understanding of building to come up with a mesmerizing body of work. The Oregon Experiment is a cool elevator pitch for that, and lacks in ways the traditional elevator pitch would lack. This left me wanting more, but not in a good way.
December 27, 2011
Just finished re-reading this book. Did not compare the drawings in the book with a current map of university campus today last time..
Now I did.. http://bit.ly/t0Ka0Z
It's amazing how a book written in 1973 have predicted the way a campus of the University of Oregon will expand in the next 30 years.
How they did it - six simple principles were introduced in 70s and used instead of the master plan:
1. Organic order
2. Participation
3. Piecemeal growth
4. Patterns (see previous Alexander's book)
5. Diagnosis
6. Coordination
Now I did.. http://bit.ly/t0Ka0Z
It's amazing how a book written in 1973 have predicted the way a campus of the University of Oregon will expand in the next 30 years.
How they did it - six simple principles were introduced in 70s and used instead of the master plan:
1. Organic order
2. Participation
3. Piecemeal growth
4. Patterns (see previous Alexander's book)
5. Diagnosis
6. Coordination
April 15, 2016
Although considered by many a flawed model for participation in architecture (including Ratti, who claimed that the lack of a mechanism to prevent apathy was its main problem), Alexander's practical approach to the use of some of his "patterns" defined in "A Pattern Language" is a brilliant micro-revolution to the way a project is dealt with it's users. Empowered individuals holding the key for transformation in a time where no internet, apps or any high-tech mechanism could be employed is fascinating.
May 17, 2020
The book has much more insight than I expected. The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language were very impressive, and I thought there would be little value in reading this book as well, but this one brings some real world examples and more reasoning about why the way in which we build is badly infected by the way we allocate money and responsibility. It's a much shorter read than either of the other two, so might be a better introduction to his way of thinking than anything else so far.
September 2, 2018
Excellent and underrated book that proves with empirical evidence that the drawing out of master plans for cities is a road to disaster and that piecemeal growth is the correct method of development for cities. Reading this book was an intellectual treat and just left me wondering about the genius of Christopher Alexander.
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September 23, 2022Read for my Town-Gown Lands of Middlebury seminar 🤠🤠
June 28, 2024
Easy to read and digest... partially cus it conforms so tightly to some of my held beliefs but still expands my understanding.
December 31, 2009
The best book I've ever read on the master planning process for the University of Oregon, bar none. No, seriously, it's an interesting case for making small organic plans rooted in real needs on the ground vs. huge splashy projects. Slow evolution > punctuated equilibrium in town or university development. It explains how campus architecture can create both dead zones and lively, social places.
July 17, 2014
What I'd dearly love to read now is a "where is it now?" on the Oregon Experiment. How's it coming? How, in Stewart Brand's parlance, has it learned?
July 25, 2014
Let me read first
March 18, 2016
A letdown after Pattern Language, but a good case study to ponder
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews