The Center for Environmental Structure

The Center for Environmental Structure was founded in Christopher Alexander in 1967 to house his research, teaching and building projects. The Center continues his legacy by developing further the ideas presented in the four volumes of The Nature of Order, which create a sweeping new conception of the nature of things that is at once objective, structural, and personal. These volumes:

          • Outline the new processes necessary for the formation of healthy, beautiful, and sustainable human environments in a contemporary context.

          • Explain how to execute these processes in built projects.

          • Develop these processes in such a way as to be easily replicable by others.

Key subject areas

The Nature of Order Series, Hardback Editions

The Nature of Order Series, Digital Editions

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The Nature of Order, Four-Volume Set

An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe

Christopher Alexander

In the four books in The Nature of Order, Alexander constructs an entirely new cosmology, grounded in the latest scientific knowledge, and integrating the perennial wisdom of the centrality of human experience and values. In this way, he reunifies for the field of architecture the 400-year old split of Body (structure) and Soul (feeling).