We owe our concept of living structure to the theories and writings of Christopher Alexander.

Alexander’s decades of investigation into what constitutes design that is most satisfying has led him to conclude that buildings and in fact, all human constructs, contain greater or lesser degrees of “life”.  His definition of life is much broader than what is commonly accepted  but it is not merely poetic. In Alexander’s formulation, the life of buildings, neighborhoods, towns, cities and regions has a direct relationship to the degree to which each of us experiences not only comfort, aesthetic satisfaction and connection to our surroundings but  to the degree to which we  naturally and more easily experience a sense of “aliveness” .

His master work, The Nature of Order, written over a period of 27 years presents an encyclopedic selection of buildings that contain a high degree of life. The books (there are four volumes totaling over XX pages) present an analysis of specific geometric and spatial configurations that Alexander has isolated as the constituent building blocks that aggregate into forms that convey greater degrees of life. i.e., that coalesce into “Living Structure.”

Its a pretty audacious claim and an entirely new way to understand the relationship between people and the structures we create, individually and as societies. Alexander builds his thesis, layer upon layer, with evidence gleaned from both hard science (especially the fields of complexity theory, quantum mechanics, and morphology) and from a common-sense appeal to universally felt intuitions about what in our environment makes us feel connected and whole.

For many of us, its an extremely appealing vision and a major purpose of the Society for Living Structure is to investigate its potential.

Is Alexander truly onto something revolutionary? Is his concept of variable degrees of life in our built environment a real phenomenon? Is it some romantic flight of fancy, or is it actually, as he claims, something objectively verifiable?

If living structure is actual, and if the vision it holds is a worthy societal goal, what would it take to actually manifest this new paradigm?

Conceptually, what new understandings about the nature of space and matter would it require?

Pragmatically, what would need to change in the education and professional practices of architects, planners and builders? What legal innovations in zoning and building codes, construction contracts, etc. would be required?  What changes in the economics of building and development would be necessary?