Patterns of Growth: Operationalizing Alexander’s “Web Way of Thinking”

IF 1.7 Q3 URBAN STUDIES Urban Planning Pub Date : 2023-05-16 DOI:10.17645/up.v8i3.6688
Michael W. Mehaffy
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Christopher Alexander was often characterized—and sometimes seemed to characterize himself—as “sui generis,” a radical and perhaps even eccentric thinker on architecture, technology, culture, and nature. That perception in turn has led many to dismiss Alexander’s work as too idiosyncratic to be operationalized in the pragmatic world of planning and building. Here we show, however, that Alexander’s core ideas have strong parallels in contemporary network science, mathematics, physics, and philosophy, and in the pragmatic world of technological design (including computer software). We highlight a remaining gap in translating Alexander’s work into practical tools and strategies for implementation—a gap that is tantalizingly near to being bridged.
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成长模式:运用亚历山大的“网络思维方式”
克里斯托弗·亚历山大经常被描述为——有时似乎也被描述为——“特立独行”,在建筑、技术、文化和自然方面是一个激进的、甚至可能是古怪的思想家。这种看法反过来又导致许多人认为亚历山大的作品过于独特,无法在规划和建筑的务实世界中运作。然而,我们在这里表明,亚历山大的核心思想在当代网络科学、数学、物理和哲学以及技术设计(包括计算机软件)的实用世界中有很强的相似之处。我们强调了将Alexander的工作转化为实用工具和实施策略的剩余差距-这是一个诱人的接近弥合的差距。
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来源期刊
Urban Planning
Urban Planning URBAN STUDIES-
CiteScore
3.60
自引率
5.60%
发文量
124
审稿时长
12 weeks
期刊介绍: Urban Planning is a new international peer-reviewed open access journal of urban studies aimed at advancing understandings and ideas of humankind’s habitats – villages, towns, cities, megacities – in order to promote progress and quality of life. The journal brings urban science and urban planning together with other cross-disciplinary fields such as sociology, ecology, psychology, technology, politics, philosophy, geography, environmental science, economics, maths and computer science, to understand processes influencing urban forms and structures, their relations with environment and life quality, with the final aim to identify patterns towards progress and quality of life.
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