Just over 30 years ago, an Englishman named Christopher Alexander tried to revolutionize architecture. In A Pattern Language, Alexander told architects and planners to design homes on emotional and spiritual principles – not on traffic flow. The revolution didn’t quite come. But the book had a ...

His groundbreaking book A Pattern Language urged architects consider emotional and spiritual ideas when designing. It was the beginning of an elaborate, nuts-and-bolts philosophical system. Christopher Alexander failed to revolutionize the practice of architecture, but he inspired a movement in computer programming that affects how ...