The Computer-Aided Rough Patterns of Christopher Alexander

Abstract

This paper analyzes Christopher Alexander’s combined use of mathematical graphs and hand-made diagrams, and argues that such affinities marked the insertion of roughness into architectural computational thinking. Within the techno-scientific context of American postwar architecture, the techniques of transcription and calculation used by Alexander at the Center for Environmental Structure reveal the progressive erasure of determinacy that took place within an architecture practice with empiricist, mathematic and computational preferences. Rather than establishing an optimized and quantified standard to which architecture had to conform, Alexander’s rough diagrams and mathematical graphs serialized variation and provided room for indeterminacy and contingency within a clearly defined set of rules.