Pattern Makers

In 1988, while in Berkeley for a conference, architect Andrés Duany received an invitation from Christopher Alexander to come over to his home for a chat. Duany, who had recently finalized the layout and design code for Seaside, Florida, the New Urbanist community that launched his Miami-based practice, DPZ CoDesign (formerly Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co.), accepted the invitation with curiosity. Why was Alexander, a man known to hold grudges against many of his contemporaries, so eager to meet him? As the two men sat down in Alexander’s living room, the answer became clear. “The problem with my code,” Duany recalls Alexander saying, “is that it requires a leader. I’m fascinated by your codes because you’ve figured out who would implement them. We all know what the appliance is; what we must now do is design the plugs that connect it to the existing power grids.”

Since Alexander’s passing in March at age 85, much has been written about his attempts to find the ideal “appliance” through careful documentation of precedents and the design of individual buildings and neighb…