Architecture in the Making: Intelligence-based Design

Nikos Salingaros and Kenneth Masden contributed this chapter to the book In Pursuit of a Living Architecture: Continuing Christopher Alexander’s Quest for a Humane and Sustainable Building Culture (Pontikis and Rofè, 2016).

“Humans depend on complex organized information in their surroundings to inform their existence. Architecture as a material practice can change the way we perceive, and thus conceive, the human-bult environment. for nearly a century architects have been prompted, if not compelled, to envision the built world through an industrial model that is both unnatural and inhuman. In an industrial paradigm, information is reduced to extend the economy of standardization. This purposefully minimizes the degree of structured information. In contrast, pre-industrial buildings typically carry within their designs the degree and type of information needed to effectively sponsor a greater sense of wellbeing by engaging human intelligence. Complex organized information is necessary in a human-based and naturally sustainable architecture. The modern education of students of architecture continues to suffer from a reductive way of thinking. Science provides insights on how to re-situate the pursuit of architecture as something made better by way of human intelligence.”

Nikos Salingaros and Kenneth Masden

Read the full chapter here.