Design

Alexander defines design as "the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function...".

Even though his focus was form in architectural

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 design

Building design

Building design refers to the broadly based architectural, engineering and technical applications to the design of buildings. All building projects require the services of a building designer, typically a licensed architect or structural engineer...

 and civil engineering

Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

, the core ideas underlying his approach can be applied to many other fields.

Influence

By the time it was published, the book was considered "one of the most important contemporary books about the art of design, what it is, and how to go about it."

The book influenced a number of leading software writers, including Larry Constantine

Larry Constantine

Larry LeRoy Constantine is an American software engineer and professor in the Mathematics and Engineering Department at the University of Madeira Portugal, who is considered one of the pioneers of computing...

, Ed Yourdon

Edward Yourdon

Edward Nash Yourdon is an American software engineer, computer consultant, author and lecturer, and pioneer in the software engineering methodology...

 and Tom DeMarco

Tom DeMarco

Tom DeMarco is an American software engineer, author, teacher and speaker on software engineering topics. He is known as one of the developers of Structured analysis in the 1980s.- Biography :...

.

Alexander's later work

For some reasons – perhaps related to the mathematical difficulties he faced or to the paradigm shift taking place in the design methods movement through the 1960s and 1970s – Alexander did not continue to develop the formal parts of his approach, which, by that time, showed promise. Instead, he chose, temporarily, to work on patterns (A Pattern Language

A Pattern Language

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction is a 1977 book on architecture, urban design, and community livability. It was authored by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein of the Center for Environmental Structure of Berkeley, California, with writing credits also to...

) together with other well-known architects (Sarah Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein

Murray Silverstein

Murray Silverstein co-authored the book A Pattern Language. At that time, he taught architecture courses at the University of California, and subsequently taught at the University of Washington. He had also written several articles on pattern languages...

). These patterns are visible or material manifestations of the driving forces underlying the synthesis of form. For an example, let us consider the following excerpt from the part one of the book (page 15):

Nevertheless, what matters here is not only the form itself but the forces induced by the magnetic field. The fact that the magnetic field induces certain kind of form is relevant for some purposes; however, there are many practical applications not related to form. The equations describing the magnetic field can be translated into many useful outputs, to which, the concept denoted here by term "pattern" is a corresponding material manifestation or articulation. In his most recent work, The Nature of Order

The Nature of Order

The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe is a four-volume work by Christopher Alexander published in 2003-2004. In his earlier work, Alexander attempted to formulate the principles that lead to a good built environment as patterns, or recurring design...

, Alexander demonstrates that it is illogical to separate formal manifestations from the underlying processes or sequences which produce the form, as both are observable aspects of the same field, thereby resolving the apparent conflict between this work and his subsequent pattern research.