Can anyone who has read Alexander's work recommend one of his books to start with, which focuses on the core moral and ethical views, while being most relevant to CS? For context, I work in k12 computing education, designing new kinds of computing experiences for children.
IMO A Pattern Language really hits the moral and ethical component very well though the format is a bit odd. Notes on the Synthesis of Form is potentially more pragmatically useful to someone working in software.
His wife and some of his proteges teach a program called Building Beauty that forwards his thinking in architecture and I know that they use The Nature of Order. I haven't read it yet but I suspect there's good reason they use that one as the basis of their program.
The format is odd indeed. In retrospect, it's really bold to basically build their thesis by example (although pattern language could be considered as a complement to their timeless way of building volume, like a plates volume of an art history publication).
The great part is not the details of the actual patterns, sometimes they just seem plain wrong (e.g. guidelines for roof massing is what mcmansioms are doing today). The power of the book really is the edifice they create, the making real and making concrete of the harmony between large and small scale, something which is generally only felt. Crazy ambitious.
The moral dimension is not made explicit, and in hindsight, it seems to be injected really subversively. An example: the key indicator of a healthy public realm is one where people feel comfortable taking a nap. It seems somewhat quaint, but then look around outside. Are the people sleeping deviants, or are they kindly old folk taking a quick little doze after feeding the ducks at the pond? Other examples about independent mobility for children etc..
It's frightening how we debased our commons, made it intolerable, and inflict it on our poorest and most vulnerable.
Pattern language reveals this not by rhetoric, but rather a slow stacking of example after example. It's easy to miss if you consult the book as a reference manual, rather than read it as a polemic.
I think The Nature of Order vol. 1: The Phenomenon of Life is what you’re looking for. Going back in time, The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language show the roots of The Nature of Order series. To look at a recent case study, The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth.
I also recommend looking at works by Salingaros and Mehaffy like Design for a Living Planet, Principles of Urban Structure, and Unified Architecture Theory.
A Pattern Language is the second half of a single work, of which The Timeless Way of Building is the first. From the introduction to A Pattern Language:
> Volume 1, The Timeless Way of Building, and Volume 2, A Pattern Language, are two halves of a single work. This book provides a language, for building and planning; the other book provides the theory and instructions for the use of the language. This book describes the detailed patterns for towns and neighborhoods, houses, gardens, and rooms. The other book explains the discipline which makes it possible to use these patterns to create a building or a town. This book is the sourcebook of the timeless way; the other is its practice and its origin.
> The two books have evolved very much in parallel. They have been growing over the last eight years, as we have worked on the one hand to understand the nature of the building process, and on the other hand to construct an actual, possible pattern language. We have been forced by practical considerations, to publish these two books under separate covers; but in fact, they form an indivisible whole. It is possible to read them separately. But to gain the insight which we have tried to communicate in them, it is essential that you read them both.
The former book expounds the ideas. But it is a weird pile of ideas. Somewhat moral and ethical, also somewhat practical, and also rather mystical. The combination has a religious feel.
The Oregon Experiment is a sort of prequel to The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language. It's an account of the development and application of those ideas to building projects at the University of Oregon. It might be the most approachable explanation of the ideas. It has the considerable advantage of being a ninth the length of the other two combined.
Well, that’s just like, your opinion, man. I think it lays out a pretty succinct overview of the ethics involved in building any system in a wholistic manner. He changed his statements later to say that “the quality without a name” is, in fact, wholeness.
