My passion for sustainable living started from videos and books by Christopher Alexander.
It always puzzled me why do we build the way we do? Why what we build rarely looks good in the environment?
Why our construction fights against the nature rather than working with it?
Why aren't we concerned with what we are leaving behind us for future generations? And then Christopher Alexander gave it a name: "Spread of Ugliness!"
This was the term I was looking for years! That what we consider normal in our society!
Our homes don't work with nature, they are not reflection of our planet!
Please watch this short video to breath in the spirit of beauty and co-existence with the nature and fall in love with sustainable homes just like I did.
Sustainable architecture through eyes of Christopher Alexander
Recommended books
"Unlocking Wisdom: We've Explored the Pages, So You Can Dive Right In!"
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction.
The Timeless Way of Building
The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid perhaps that they will be laughed at.
The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are not publishing a major statement in the form of three works which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building, and planning, which will, we hope, replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The Oregon Experiment
The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, Book 1 - The Phenomenon of Life
Christopher Alexander's series of ground-breaking books including A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building have pointed to fundamental truths of the way we build, revealing what gives life and beauty and true functionality to our buildings and towns. Now, in The Nature of Order, Alexander explores the properties of life itself, highlighting a set of well-defined structures present in all order and in all life from micro-organisms and mountain ranges to good houses and vibrant communities.
The Process of Creating Life: Nature of Order, Book 2: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe
Christopher Alexander's series of ground-breaking books including A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building have pointed to fundamental truths of the way we build, revealing what gives life and beauty and true functionality to our buildings and towns. Now, in The Nature of Order, Alexander explores the properties of life itself, highlighting a set of well-defined structures present in all order and in all life from micro-organisms and mountain ranges to good houses and vibrant communities.
The Production of Houses (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
As an innovative thinker about building and planning, Christopher Alexander has attracted a devoted following. His seminal books--The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The Oregon Experiment--defined a radical and fundamently new process of environmental design. Alexander now gives us the latest book in his series--a book that puts his theories to the test and shows what sort of production system can create the kind of environment he has envisioned. The Production of Houses centers around a group of buildings which Alexander and his associates built in 1976 in northern Mexico. Each house is different and the book explains how each family helped to lay out and construct its own home according to the family's own needs and in the framework of the pattern language. Numerous diagrams and tables as well as a variety of anecdotes make the day-today process clear.