Christopher Alexander and unselfconscious design

Typical suburban mass housing UK

Le Corbusier   Haute Savoie

In chapter 3 of Notes on the Synthesis of Form  CA comments on rigorously-designed  modernist buildings as being only partially good fits for their environment.  This is not to say that clear organisation is undesirable.  At the opposite side of the equation, mass housing is designed to cater for basic living requirements but for the market and in a piecemeal sense “without any sense of the overall organization the form needs in order to contribute as a whole to the working order of the ensemble” p. 29.  We now have so many ways of adapting our environment, from electricity to sound insulation to extractor fans,  that builders do not have to consider relationships between rooms or access to natural light in their plans.

Mousgoum village

Fixing the Mousgoum house

Social design of Mousgoum 

He contrasts both approaches to vernacular building,  and gives as an example the Mousgoum hut from Cameroon.  The hemispherical shape protects from intense heat and is supported by vertical ribs which act as guides for rainwater and give ready access to the building when repair is needed.  “The scaffolding is part of the structure” (p. 31).  The huts are built in dips and hollows to protect against wear and erosion, and the grouping reflects the social structure of the inhabitants. “This example shows how the pattern of the building operation, the pattern of the building’s maintenance, the constraints of the surrounding conditions, and also the pattern of daily life, are fused in the form. “ (p. 31)

In the “unselfconscious” process of design, although  the rules and building methods are learned informally, this does not mean that they are not extremely complex.   They are often associated with myth and legend as well as ritual and taboo.  There is no There is no incentive to change unless there “are powerful (and obvious) irritations in the existing forms which demand correction”. (p.48)  and “there is a special closeness of contact between man and form which leads to constant rearrangement of unsatisfactory detail…” (p. 49)

 "The failure or inadequacy of the form leads directly to the action” without intervention of rules and theory.  All the agent needs to do is recognise a “poor fit” (source of discomfort or inconvenience, or simply bad workmanship) and make amends.  No formal “artistic skill” is required

Some writers such as Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown ("Learning from Las Vegas (1972)" and "Signs of Life, Symbols in the American City" (1976))  would claim that "ordinary" and unpretentious building is a a vernacular in its own right, reflecting the tastes and values of its inhabitants just as the Mousgoum huts do.  I think Alexander would argue that the layout of this type of housing is nevertheless not integrated to basic human needs for light and comfort.  Even though we have come to accept and cherish it through long association.