Finished reading: Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher Alexander 📚

I learned about Christopher Alexander from a video by Ryan Singer. I have no idea how I stumbled upon Ryan’s video though so the whole experience felt surreal. Either way, I was fortunate that the local library had a copy so I said what the hell and gave it a read.

I’m not a designer per se but I think most of us have some design responsibilities in our roles. This book starts strong, using abstract terminology to describe the problem space of design. Even though Alexander may be talking about architecture, mapping his points to your field was straight forward. But as you get deeper into the book the more esoteric it becomes.

This might be due to my own deficiencies but I got lost once the book turned to math proofs on variables of design requirements in a problem space to evaluate the fit of a solution to a problem. Luckily the book is fairly short at about 140 pages, so tail end confusion aside, it was worth the read. It gave language to the design problems and new ways to think about how we identify and evaluate potential solutions. (I believe this is what Alexander calls a “pattern language”, which he has another book about)

This is just one of a few books by Alexander and while I don’t do enough design work to continue diving into his catalog, those who do design daily might find it useful. Ryan’s video is a primer into Alexander’s work but even that veers into the swamp of the abstract.