(ref.doc)pd220195

Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 11:57:41 -0600
Originator: [email protected]
From: [email protected] (David Geary)
Subject: Re: patterns and change

  Alexander expresses the 'quality without a name' from a perspective
heavily laced with eastern philosophy.  Patterns, like works of nature,
_should_ 'just happen':

    "In fact, the conscious effort to attain this quality, or to be
     free, or to be anything ... will always spoil it" [1]

  A good design is rarely made; it is generated by an iterative process
involving design, generation, and repair:

    "Indeed the main thing we shall deal with in these next nine chapters,
     is the fact that the quality without a name cannot be made, but
     only generated by a process.

     It can flow from your actions ; it can flow with the greatest ease ;
     but it cannot be made.  It cannot be contrived, thought out, designed.
     It happens when it flows out from the process of creation of it's
     own accord." [2]


[1]  'The Timeless Way Of Building' by Christopher Alexander
[2]  'The Timeless Way Of Building' by Christopher Alexander, pg 159
Note:
 Alexander