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(PDF) Ways of Understanding Wholeness: Place, Christopher Alexander, and Synergistic Relationality (forthcoming, 2019, conference proceedings)
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Ways of Understanding Wholeness: Place, Christopher Alexander, and Synergistic Relationality (forthcoming, 2019, conference proceedings)
David Seamon
2019, Revised Proceedings version of the inaugural Christopher Alexander Keynote Lecture, Portland, Oregon, October 26, 2018; Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab (PUARL)
October 11, 2025
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Abstract
In this presentation, I discuss architect Christopher Alexander's work in relation to a broader body of research and design focusing on a "phenomenology of place and place making." I begin by describing two contrasting ways of understanding wholeness-what I call analytic relationality and synergistic relationality. In analytic relationality, wholes are pictured as sets of arbitrary parts external to each other and among which are located linkages involving stronger and weaker connections and relationships. In contrast, synergistic relationality interprets wholes as dynamic, generative fields that sustain and are sustained by intensive parts that integrally belong to and support the whole. I suggest that, in terms of synergistic relationality, places can be envisioned as interconnected fields of intertwined relationships gathering and gathered by a lived intimacy between people and world. I illustrate how Alexander's approach to wholeness assumes a synergistic relationality and contributes to both understanding and making places that are whole, robust, and life-enhancing.
Key takeaways
AI
Christopher Alexander advocates for synergistic relationality to understand and create life-enhancing places.
Synergistic relationality sees wholes as dynamic fields rather than mere sets of parts.
The six place processes—interaction, identity, release, realization, intensification, and creation—interrelate constructively or destructively.
Alexander's design philosophy emphasizes the intrinsic connectedness of parts within a whole, fostering community and environment.
Phenomenology enhances understanding of wholeness and place-making through attentive, empathetic engagement.
Figures (4)
Figure 1. Above: Henri Matisse’s four self-drawings; below: Photographs of Matisse (from Alexander, 2002a, p. 98). Phenomenology and Alexander’s Understanding of Wholeness BS BRUREUVERIUIEUEU SY OREN CAENCAGIIUANE OD OU EEUUE OUCEIUEEEE GS, UE VV BRUEUEEUDD In Nature of Order, Alexander (2002, p. 90) defines wholeness as “the source of coherence in any part of the world.” He associates wholeness with other related qualities, including comfort, freedom, health, healing, vitality, and life (Alexander, 1979, pp. 25-40). One of Alexander’s most penetrating depictions of wholeness is his account of four drawings by artist and sculptor Henri Matisse (Figure 1). Though each of these self-portraits is literally different, there is an underlying commonality that speaks to the personality and character of the artist. It is this largely
Here, I overview each of the six place processes and then indicate how each is reflected in Alexander’s writings and designs.’ My aim is to demonstrate that these six processes can be related to Alexander’s work and provide one fruitful means to illustrate the significance of synergistic relationality in his understanding of wholeness. Throughout, I refer to patterns in Pattern Language (Alexander et al., 1977) because they are particularly revealing in pointing to real-world instances of the six place processes. Sustaining and undermining aspects of the six place processes
Figure 2. Simplified rendition of give-and-take linkages among the six place processes (based on Seamon, 2018, p. 170; redrawn).
Figure 3. A more lifelike rendition of give-and-take linkages among the six place processes (based on Seamon, 2018, p. 170; redrawn).
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[Revised Proceedings version of the first-annual Christopher Alexander Keynote Lecture, “Ways of Understanding Wholeness: Place,
Christopher Alexander, and Synergistic Relationality,” the 10th-annual conference on Christopher Alexander, Portland, Oregon, October 26,
2018; sponsored by the Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab (PUARL), a professional unit of the University of Oregon’s School of
Architecture and Environment]

Ways of Understanding Wholeness:
Place, Christopher Alexander, and Synergistic Relationality1
David Seamon
Department of Architecture
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS USA
Abstract
In this presentation, I discuss architect Christopher Alexander’s work in relation to a broader
body of research and design focusing on a “phenomenology of place and place making.” I begin
by describing two contrasting ways of understanding wholeness—what I call analytic
relationality and synergistic relationality. In analytic relationality, wholes are pictured as sets of
arbitrary parts external to each other and among which are located linkages involving stronger
and weaker connections and relationships. In contrast, synergistic relationality interprets wholes
as dynamic, generative fields that sustain and are sustained by intensive parts that integrally
belong to and support the whole. I suggest that, in terms of synergistic relationality, places can
be envisioned as interconnected fields of intertwined relationships gathering and gathered by a
lived intimacy between people and world. I illustrate how Alexander’s approach to wholeness
assumes a synergistic relationality and contributes to both understanding and making places that
are whole, robust, and life-enhancing.
Key words
Christopher Alexander, pattern language, phenomenology, place, wholeness
One day when we have learned the timeless way again, we shall feel the same about our towns,
and we shall feel as much at peace in them as we do today walking by the ocean or stretched out
in the long grass of a meadow.
—Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, p. 549
Introduction
Understanding wholeness is a central concern of architect Christopher Alexander.2 Whether in
his writings or designs, Alexander aims to study wholeness so that, in both theory and practice,
one might find a way self-consciously to generate life-enhancing environments and places. In this
presentation, I explore Alexander’s understanding of wholeness in three ways:
1. I consider wholeness as it might be interpreted phenomenologically, focusing on how
wholeness can be understood so that the whole remains whole. I call this mode of
understanding synergistic relationality.
2. I argue that phenomenology and, specifically, phenomenologies of place, offer one
conceptual means for keeping wholes, whole. I review the phenomenological research on
place, making use of recent work on the generative aspects of place, by which I mean
identifying place processes that help one understand how environments and places become
stronger, weaker, or remain more or less the same. I overview six such processes that I label

place interaction, place identity, place release, place realization, place intensification, and
place creation.
3. I discuss how Alexander’s understanding of wholeness relates to phenomenologies of place,
particularly how his thinking and designing have bearing on the six place processes.
At the start, I provide a preliminary description of phenomenology by defining it as a conceptual
and methodological approach that aims for a careful description and interpretation of human
experience and meaning.3 Phenomenologists studies phenomena—i.e., things or experiences as
people experience those things or experiences. Two central phenomenological concepts are
lifeworld and natural attitude. The lifeworld is the taken-for-granted pattern and context of
everyday life, normally unnoticed. In turn, the natural attitude is the unquestioned acceptance of
the things and experiences of everyday life—in other words, the unquestioned acceptance of the
lifeworld that, normally, “simply happens,” unfolding matter-of-factly with a minimum of self-
conscious awareness or direction. In working phenomenologically, one works to shift from the
natural attitude to a phenomenological attitude, whereby he or she aims to make the lifeworld
and natural attitude a focus of research attention. As phenomenological psychologist Amedeo
Giorgi (1970, p. 148) explains, “The acts that in the natural attitude are simply lived are now
thematized and made topics of reflective analysis.”
In this presentation, I argue that there is much about Alexander’s work that is implicitly
phenomenological. I suggest that the relationship between his thinking and phenomenology can
be clarified by explicating his understanding of wholeness as it relates to phenomenologies of
place and place making.

Figure 1. Above: Henri Matisse’s four self-drawings; below: Photographs of Matisse (from Alexander, 2002a, p.
98).

Phenomenology and Alexander’s Understanding of Wholeness
In Nature of Order, Alexander (2002, p. 90) defines wholeness as “the source of coherence in
any part of the world.” He associates wholeness with other related qualities, including comfort,
freedom, health, healing, vitality, and life (Alexander, 1979, pp. 25-40). One of Alexander’s
most penetrating depictions of wholeness is his account of four drawings by artist and sculptor
Henri Matisse (Figure 1). Though each of these self-portraits is literally different, there is an
underlying commonality that speaks to the personality and character of the artist. It is this largely

ineffable, less visible “ambience” and “presence” that for Alexander marks the core feature of
authentic wholeness. He writes:

[Wholeness is] the overall vector, the overall qualitative structure, the overall field effect of the
face…. [We see that] wholeness is a global thing—easy to feel, perhaps, but hard to define. You
cannot get the portrait of a person right unless you can see this underlying wholeness… In
portraiture, as in architecture, it is the wholeness that is the real thing that lies beneath the
surface and determines everything (Alexander, 2002a, p. 98).
Note that in Alexander’s understanding of wholeness, there is an indivisible, intensive
connectedness—what he describes as an “overall vector—that runs “beneath” the drawings’
markings and integrates them into an underlying “togetherness” globally present but impossible
to pinpoint or describe precisely, even though the visual result is a trenchant portrayal of Matisse
as a personality and unique person. The concern I address in this presentation is whether we can
locate and describe this manner of wholeness more exactly and how phenomenology might assist
in this aim. Relevant questions include the following:
▪ What is wholeness?
▪ What are some different ways of thinking about wholeness?
▪ Can wholeness be probed phenomenologically and what does a phenomenology of
wholeness entail?
▪ Can a phenomenology of wholeness contribute to constructive praxis?
▪ Is there a relationship between a phenomenology of wholeness and a phenomenology of
place?
▪ How does an understanding of wholeness contribute to place making?
▪ How can Alexander’s understanding of wholeness be specified more exactly and does a
phenomenology of wholeness contribute to that specification?
▪ How is Alexander’s work related to a phenomenology of place and place making?
In the following discussion, I first consider what a phenomenology of wholeness might entail
and discuss its relationship to a phenomenology of place, which I then relate to Alexander’s
work. I contend that Alexander assumes a particular way of interpreting wholeness and
contributes to both understanding and making places that are whole, robust, and life-enhancing.
Analytic Relationality and Synergistic Relationality
Most commonly today, any whole is defined analytically as some system of pre-defined parts
and interconnections, though it is important to realize that there are other ways of describing the
whole that point toward a phenomenological explication:
▪ An ensemble of relatedness;
▪ A gathering grouped in belonging;
▪ A gathering together of what already belongs together even while apart.4
To begin my explication of Alexander’ conception of wholeness, I argue that there are two
contrasting ways in which wholeness can be understood: what I call analytic relationality and
synergistic relationality (Seamon 2018, pp. 21-28). In the former, wholes are pictured as sets of
interconnected elements and relationships. One of the most prominent examples of analytic
relationality is general systems theory (e.g., Bertalanffy, 1965), which is holistic in that wholes

are interpreted as cohesive sets of elements and linkages but is reductive and piecemeal in that
wholes are broken into arbitrary parts and connections largely predetermined by the researcher.
In contrast to analytic relationality is synergistic relationality, which can be associated with
Alexander’s approach to wholeness. Rather than a set of separated, extensive parts, a whole as
synergistic relationality is understood as an integrated, generative field sustaining and sustained
by constituitive belonging. The whole and parts are present in mutual, intrinsic
interrelationship—a situation deftly described by philosopher Jeff Malpas (2012, p. 239) when
he writes that “The relationship is itself dependent on what it relates, but what is related is also
dependent on the relation.” Similarly, philosopher Henri Bortoft (1996, p. 372, p. 12) explains
that the whole and parts are present in “intrinsic interdependence and therefore non-
separability…. If the whole becomes present within its parts, then a part is a place for the
‘presencing’ of the whole.” Some of the key conceptual differences between analytic
relationality and synergistic relationality are summarized in Table 1.5

Wholeness as analytic relationality Wholeness as synergistic relationality
The whole is a set of correspondences and The whole is self-organizing in that each part
linkages among parts. enters into the constitution of every other part.

The reality of the whole is grounded in the The reality of the whole is grounded in
individual identities of separate, self-contained, compresence—the quality of whole and parts
interacting parts. being mutually present together; all parts are
integral to each other and to the whole.

The parts of the whole remain separate, even as The parts of the whole gain significance from their
they are assembled into the whole; the presence in the whole; their identities as
significance of any part is associated with individualized parts are transposed into and by
interactions that mark changes in some or all the the identity of the whole.
other parts of the whole.

Ontologically, the whole is not a thing-in-itself but Ontologically, the whole is whole and a
a collection of extensive, interlinked elements and coalescence of its parts integrally together; this
processual connections arbitrarily determined by integrality of the parts gathers their separateness
the researcher; the whole is only whole into wholeness; the whole and parts are wholly
secondarily. present as one.
Table 1. Wholeness as analytic relationality and synergistic relationality.

As summarized in Table 2, Bortoft characterizes the difference between synergistic relationality
and analytic relationality as “belonging together” (emphasis on the together) versus belonging
together” (emphasis on the belonging). In analytic relationality, the parts of the whole are
brought together arbitrarily and thus are present to the whole via an extensive separation that
may not reliably picture the whole. The togetherness of the whole is primary and establishes the
belonging of the parts. A primary weakness of analytic relationality is that the researcher loses
sight of how the parts of the whole already belong together. As Bortoft (1996, p. 290) explains,
analytic relationality
tries to put together what already belongs together. Thus, the intrinsic relatedness is not seen,
and instead, external connections are introduced with a view for overcoming separation. But the
form of such connections is that they, too, belong to the level of separation.
In contrast, the belonging of the parts is essential for synergistic relationality because, via the
belonging, the parts are integral rather than superficial. This belonging grounds the togetherness

of the-parts-as-whole. The parts constitute the whole as a generative field that sustains and is
sustained by the parts intensively integrated because they belong to the whole. Bortoft explains
that this way of seeing and understanding the whole-as-belonging-together is difficult because it
requires a mode of attention readily replaced by the imposed, piecemeal perspective of analytic
relationality:
“Belonging together” is subtle, and if we do not become aware of the way in which things
already belong, then we may try to make them belong by togethering them—i.e., by imposing a
framework that organizes them. Since this way of understanding will not be sensitive to the
subtler way in which things already belong together, the organizational framework that brings
them together can only be imposed externally and not be intrinsic (Bortoft, 2012, p. 21).

Belonging Together Belonging Together
(analytic relationality) (synergistic relationality)
“Together” is primary and establishes the “Belonging” is primary and establishes the
“belonging.” “together.”

This “together” is contingent, fortuitous, or pre- This “belonging” is integral for the parts to be the
arranged via cerebral interpretation of researcher. whole and for the whole to be the parts.

The parts are of the whole because they have The parts are of the whole because they belong
been given a position in the order of a together to the whole; the parts are integral, essential, and
that may be arbitrary or fortuitous; the parts are non-contingent; each part is non-exchangeable
contingent, and one set of parts may be with other parts.
substituted for some other set of parts.

The parts of the whole are brought together The parts constitute the whole as a generative
arbitrarily and thus are present to the whole via an field that sustains and is sustained by intensive,
extensive separation. integrated parts.

The whole is an arbitrary set of imposed parts The whole is whole and revealed through an
unilaterally identified by the researcher or interpretive interplay between parts and whole.
practitioner.

The researcher or interpreter “pins down” the The researcher or interpreter is open to the whole
whole and determines its parts to be what he/she and allows the wholeness of the whole to “reveal”
supposes those parts to be. its parts via empathetic encounter.
Table 2. Belonging together vs. belonging together (based on Bortoft 1996, 2012).

I argue here that all of Alexander’s efforts aim toward a belonging together. He seeks an
understanding of wholeness in which the parts are together because they already belong. Though
he does not use the language of “belonging together” and synergistic relationality, he does
emphasize a way of looking and seeing whereby the parts most fittingly relate to mark out the
whole. For example:
▪ “Each part is given its specific form and its existence in the context of the larger whole”
(Alexander, 1979, p. 369);
▪ “There are always certain fields of relationship that are most nearly well adapted to the forces
that exist” (Alexander, 1979, p. 146);
▪ “[Wholeness] appears, not when an isolated pattern lives, but when an entire system of
patterns, interdependent at many levels, is all stable and alive” (Alexander, 1979, p. 135).6

In the rest of this presentation, my aim is to consider more precisely how Alexander works to
understand and design for the parts/whole relationship expressed as synergistic relationality.
First, however, I overview the work on phenomenologies of place because place as human
experience is a multivalent phenomenon in which all the parts are mutually sustaining and
therefore usefully examined from the perspective of synergistic relationality.7 I then consider
how Alexander’s work can be associated with a synergistic approach to place and place making.
Phenomenologies of Place
As I define it, place is any environmental locus in and through which individual or group actions,
experiences, intentions, and meanings are drawn together spatially and temporally (Seamon,
2018, p. 48). Places range from intimate to regional scale and include such environmental
situations as a regularly used park bench, a beloved home, a favorite neighborhood, a city
associated with childhood memories, or a geographical locale to which one vacations regularly.
Experientially, places are multivalent in their constituents and complex in their dynamics. For
the individuals and groups involved, a place can incorporate a wide range of sustaining, neutral,
or unsettling actions, experiences, situations, and meanings.8
Phenomenologists have become progressively interested in the phenomenon of place because it
is a central contributor to the spatial, environmental, and temporal dimensions of any lifeworld,
past, present, or future. As phenomenological philosophers Edward Casey (2009) and Jeff
Malpas (2018) convincingly demonstrate, human being is always human-being-in-place, by
which they mean that place is not only the material and geographical environment distinct from
human beings but also the indivisible, normally taken-for-granted phenomenon of person-or-
people-experiencing-the place. As Casey (2009, p. 14, p. 15) explains, “by virtue of its
unencompassability by anything other than itself, place is at once the limit and the condition of
all that exists…. To be is to be in place.” This claim means that human being is intrinsically
emplaced and any understanding of human life is intimately related to the quality of place in
which that life takes place. As Malpas (2001, p. 232) writes, the quality of any human life
Is directly tied to the way in which the lived relation to place comes to be articulated and
expressed in that life…. To care for and attend to our own lives thus demands that we also care
for and attend to place.
A Phenomenology of Place Processes
A major phenomenological question is how places change for better or worse. Are there
underlying lived processes impelling ways that places are what they are and what they become?
In my own phenomenological work, I have identified six processes that provide at least a partial
answer to these questions (Seamon, 2018). These six processes are place interaction, place
identity, place release, place realization, place intensification, and place creation.
These six place processes are summarized in Table 3; one should note that each place process
works in both constructive or destructive ways. On one hand, these processes maintain and
strengthen place (second column); on the other hand, they weaken and even destroy place (third
column). I argue that these six processes are a synergistic account of place because each
interplays with the others in supportive or undermining ways. As illustrated in figures 2 and 3, I
contend that any place can be pictured generatively in terms of the shifting interweave among the
six processes unfolding temporally. None of the six place processes are more important than the
others, though for specific places and historical moments, the dynamic may involve different

generative combinations and contrasting gradations of quality, intensity, and duration. In
synergistic fashion, one process activates and is activated by the others and incorporates a
complex interplay of intricately intertwined elements, happenings, and relationships, typically in
flux, sometimes evolving and sometimes devolving in their degree of relationship, resonance,
and robustness.

Sustaining and undermining aspects of the six place processes

Place process Sustaining aspects Undermining aspects
Place interaction Relates to the typical everyday goings-on The typical interactions of place become fewer
in a place; “a day in the life of the place.” or destructive; the pleasure of the place is
undermined through discomfort, stress,
nuisance, inefficiency, fear, etc.

Place identity Relates to taking up place as a People associated with a place feel
significant part of one’s world; accepting uncomfortable with taking up that place as a part
and recognizing place as integral to of their world; one mistrusts or feels threatened
one’s personal and communal identity. by people and events of the place.

Place release Relates to an environmental serendipity Serendipitous events unfold that make one
of unexpected encounters and events; unsettled or fearful; people’s sense of self-worth
people are “released” more deeply into and belonging are undermined.
themselves through gaining pleasure
from place.

Place realization Relates to the power of place itself to The ambience of the place becomes negative in
envelop people and project a unique some way or non-existent; the place may invoke
environmental ambience and character— distress, violence, lack of care, etc.
a “spirit of place.”

Place Relates to the power of thoughtful plans Arbitrary or thoughtless policies, designs, and
intensification and appropriate environmental design to actions weaken place by misunderstanding what
work as independent agents for it is and thereby negating its core qualities and
strengthening place; the active role character.
played by architecture, design, and
physical planning in making place one
way rather than another.

Place creation Relates to the people of place, out of Imposed plans and designs that upset and
concern and devotion, imagining and undermine place; the presence of unsuitable
reshaping place in ways whereby it is constructions and interventions that squelch the
sustained and strengthened. life of the place.
Table 3. Sustaining and undermining aspects of the six place processes (drawn from Seamon, 2018).

Here, I overview each of the six place processes and then indicate how each is reflected in
Alexander’s writings and designs.9 My aim is to demonstrate that these six processes can be
related to Alexander’s work and provide one fruitful means to illustrate the significance of
synergistic relationality in his understanding of wholeness. Throughout, I refer to patterns in
Pattern Language (Alexander et al., 1977) because they are particularly revealing in pointing to
real-world instances of the six place processes.

Figure 2. Simplified rendition of give-and-take linkages among the six place processes (based on Seamon, 2018, p.
170; redrawn).

Figure 3. A more lifelike rendition of give-and-take linkages among the six place processes (based on Seamon,
2018, p. 170; redrawn).

1. Place Interaction
Place interaction refers to the typical goings-on in a place and summarizes the constellation of
actions, situations, and events unfolding in that place. One speaks of the “rounds of a place, “the
seasons of a place,” or “a day in the life of the place.” Some place interactions are routine and
taken for granted, while others are occasional or one-in-a-lifetime. Yet again, some interactions
are habitual and happen without any conscious intention or organization; other interactions are
willfully directed and involve some degree of intentional motivation and plan. In addition, place
interactions can range widely in relation to the parties and elements interacting: for example,
people-of-place interacting with each other is a different mode of interaction than people-of-
place interacting with physical, non-human elements of that place. In short, the spectrum of
interaction modes is wide-ranging and, as indicated in Table 3, specific interactions may
strengthen or weaken the particular place. Place interactions are central to lived emplacement

and place making because they are the major engine whereby users conduct their everyday lives
and a place gains in activity and a particular environmental ambience.
Throughout his writings, Alexander highlights place interactions, and this emphasis is
particularly prominent in Timeless Way of Building (Alexander 1979), perhaps the most concise
presentation of the conceptual foundation of his thinking and practice. Describing place
interactions as events, Alexander (1979, pp. 67-68) points out that, for most people, everyday
experience largely incorporates routine events that give life a matter-of-fact but reassuring
solidity:
If I consider my life honestly, I see that it is governed by a certain very small number of patterns
of events that I take part in over and over again. Being in bed, having a shower, having breakfast
in the kitchen, sitting in my study writing, walking in the garden, cooking and eating our
common lunch at my office with my friends, going to the movies…. There are surprisingly few of
these patterns of events in any one person’s way of life, perhaps no more than a dozen. Look at
your own life and you will find the same. It is shocking at first, to see that there are so few
patterns of events open to me.
Not that I want more…. But when I see how very few there are, I begin to understand
what huge effect these few patterns have on my life, on my capacity to live. If these few patterns
are good for me, I can live well. It they are bad for me, I can’t.
In turn, Alexander emphasizes that these routine events largely shape the character of a particular
place. To design wholesome buildings and places, therefore, is to accommodate supportive
events and to facilitate fabricated environments that allow these events to unfold:
… we must recognize that what a town or building is, is governed, above all, by what is
happening there…. Activities; events; forces; situations; lightning strikes; fish die; water flows;
lovers quarrel; a cake burns; cats chase each other; a hummingbird sits outside my window;
friends come by; my car breaks down; lovers’ reunion; children born; grandparents go broke…
My life is made of episodes like this. The life of every person, animal, plant, creature, is made of
similar episodes. The character of a place, then, is given to it by the episodes that happen there
… (Alexander, 1979, p. 62).
The life of a house, or of a town, is not given to it, directly by the shape of its buildings, or by the
ornament and plan—it is given to them by the quality of the events and situations we encounter
there…. A building or a town is given its character, essentially, by those events that keep on
happening there most often (Alexander, 1979, p. 65, p. 66).
In these passages, Alexander suggests that, if one is to understand how a particular place works,
he or she must envision and plan for the regular events of place—in other words, place
interactions. Pattern Language (Alexander et al., 1977) is one of Alexander’s most
comprehensive efforts to envision environmental and place qualities that accommodate robust
place interactions. In considering its 253 patterns, one realizes that most, in one way or another,
relate to aspects of place interaction. In patterns like “mosaic of subcultures (no. 8), “network of
learning” (18), “web of shopping” (19), “children in the city” (57), or “animals” (74), one readily
pictures a wide range of encounters and exchanges unfolding in a human and environmental
gathering founded in place. Many patterns refer to how elements of the physical environment
facilitate or stymie particular place interactions—for example, “six-foot balcony” (167) or “half-

open wall” (193), which both illustrate how designable architectural features—adequate balcony
width or physical and visual connectedness—play a pivotal role in everyday place interactions
and events.
2. Place Identity
In place identity, people associated with place take up that place as a significant part of their
world. Place becomes central to a personal and communal sense of self and self-worth. If people
live their entire lives in one place, then place identity is an integral aspect of who people are as
they are born into and live their lives in that place. Today, many people regularly change places,
and strong place identity is less certain, since it requires time and continual, active involvement
with place.
In Timeless Way, Alexander (1979, p. 54) associates place identity with environmental
wholeness and a place vitality that makes us feel alive. He relates place identity to robust
physical surroundings that contribute to a sense of personal presence that in turn intensifies place
wholeness. He goes so far as to suggest that disordered environments contribute to disordered
human lives, and vice versa:
Places that have [a quality of wholeness] invite this quality to come to life in us. And when we
have this quality in us, we tend to make it come to life in towns and buildings that we help to
build. It is a self-supporting, self-maintaining, generating quality. It is the quality of life. And we
must seek it, for our own sakes, in our surroundings, simply so that we can ourselves become
alive (Alexander, 1979, p. 54).
This quality [of wholeness] can only come to life in us when it exists within the world we are part
of. We can come alive only to the extent the buildings and towns we live in are alive. This quality
without a name is circular: it exists in us, when it exists in our buildings; and it only exists in our
buildings, when we have it in ourselves (Alexander, 1979, p. 62).
In considering Pattern Language in terms of place identity, one recognizes a good number of
patterns, at a wide range of environmental scales, that work to support personal or group
identification with and attachment to place—for example, “independent regions” (1),
“community of 7,000 (12), “subculture boundary” (13), “quiet backs” (59), “high places” (62),
and “intimacy gradient” (127). Several patterns use designable elements directly to facilitate
place identity as is illustrated by “identifiable neighborhood” (14), “neighborhood boundary”
(15), “degrees of publicness” (36), and “main gateways” (53). In these four patterns, visible
edges, spatial gradients, architectural cohesiveness, and memorable entrances enhance
environmental presence and thereby contribute to a person or group’s place identity.
3. Place Release
Place release refers to an environmental serendipity of happenstance encounters and events.
Through unexpected engagements and situations in place, people are “released” more deeply into
themselves. Partly because of the surprises offered by place, “life is good.” Examples of place
release are meeting an old friend on the sidewalk or by chance noticing a poster advertising a
local coffeehouse performance of one’s favorite musical group. In his writings, Alexander gives
no extended attention to place release, though many patterns in Pattern Language incorporate
place release in passing as in “promenade” (31), for which Alexander emphasizes the
significance of unexpected, rejuvenating encounters in places where one goes to see and be seen:

Throughout history there have been places in the city where people… could go to get in touch
with each other. These places have always been like street theaters: they invite people to watch
others, to stroll and browse, and to loiter…. (Alexander et al., 1977, p. 169).
A good number of other patterns in Pattern Language speak to place release in that they
highlight informal, interpersonal encounters and exchanges often unplanned and surprising—for
example, “magic of the city” (10), “web of shopping” (19), “shopping street” (32), “night life”
(33), “carnival” (58), “accessible green” (60), “small public squares” (61), “dancing in the street”
(63), and “windows overlooking life” (192). One notes that patterns like “night life” and
“dancing in the street” describe a broad mode of place dynamism and ambience, whereas
others—“web of shopping” or “accessible green”—provide more precise design suggestions for
facilitating place serendipity; thus “web of shopping” offers guidelines for locating retail uses,
and “accessible green” highlights the importance of placing city parks within a three-minute
walk of residences and workplaces. Most of the time, place release cannot be made to happen
directly, but many of Pattern Language’s patterns are significant because they aim to sustain
places where accidental encounters and out-of-the-ordinary events might readily happen, partly
because these places support exuberant place interactions, which are an important grounding for
the environmental serendipity of place release.
4. Place Realization
Place realization relates to a distinctive environmental presence propelled by both the tangible
and intangible qualities of place, including ambience and atmosphere. The place evokes a unique
feeling and character that is as real in itself as the people who know and experience that place.
The less effable aspect of place realization is often called “sense of place” or spirit of place.”
One speaks of the “Portland-ness” of Portland, the “Melbourne-ness” of Melbourne, or the
“Beijing-ness” of Beijing. Alexander (1979, p. 95) refers to place realization when he claims that
what people remember in a place are not its peculiarities but “the typical, the recurrent, the
characteristic features: the canals of Venice, the flat roofs of a Moroccan town, the even spacing
of the fruit trees in an orchard, the slope of a beach towards the sea.” Using Venice as a more
detailed example, he generates a list of some of its typical environmental and place elements:
A large number of islands, typically about 1,000 feet across, packed-together houses, 3-5 stories,
built right up to the canals; each island with a small square in the middle, the square usually
with a church; narrow, irregular paths cutting across the islands; hump-backed bridges where
these paths cross canals; houses opening onto the canals and onto the streets; steps at the canal
entrance (to take care of variations in water level) …
Venice is the special place it is only because it has those patterns of events in it, which
happen to be congruent with all these patterns in space (Alexander, 1979, p. 97).
In turning to the patterns of Pattern Language, one realizes that the programming method of
generating a specific pattern language for a specific design problem is one practical means for
envisioning a particular place realization. Writing a pattern language allows clients, users, and
designers to identify, discuss, and crystallize the specific physical and human elements that
should contribute to the constructed environment’s sustaining a specific ambience and sense of
place (Coates and Seamon,1993; Kubala, 2016). Alexander (et al., 1977, p. xxxv) makes this
point at the start of Pattern Language, when he says that the pattern-language method is “capable
of generating a million parks, paths, houses, workshops, or gardens.” He then illustrates this
possibility by providing a pattern language for a porch at the front of a house: “private terrace on

the street” (140), “sunny place” (161), “outdoor room” (163), “six-foot balcony” (167), “paths
and goals” (120), “ceiling height variety” (190), “columns at the corners” (212), “front door
bench” (242), “raised flowers” (245), and “different chairs” (251). Via this ten-item pattern
language, as simple as it may be, one forms a clear, concentrated picture of what this small porch
might be and how designable elements contribute to its place realization.
Perhaps Alexander’s most compelling effort to actualize place realization is his designing and
fabricating the 36-building, 10-million-dollar Eishin School, a 2,000-student combination high
school and college in suburban Tokyo, Japan, begun in 1981 and largely completed by 1990
(Alexander et al., 2012; Guttmann et al., 2017). Because of its complex programming
requirements, this project incorporates the most comprehensive pattern language that Alexander
has published, comprising 110 patterns arranged from largest to smallest scale, beginning with
“global character of the campus” (5 patterns) and “Inner Precinct” (14 patterns), then moving
through “buildings of the Inner Precinct” (12 patterns) to smaller-scaled patterns like “special
outdoor details” (8 patterns) and “interior building character” (9 patterns). This Eishen School
pattern language is relevant to place realization because the patterns concretize both a physical
campus and a singular environmental ambience.
Designed and built with the collaboration of faculty and students, the Eishen School’s site and
buildings are carefully arranged to enhance the natural setting and to foster a sense of school
identity and community. The wooden post-and-beam construction of some of the major buildings
is spectacular, and, overall, the project demonstrates that, even at a large scale, Alexander’s
approach can involve users and be carried out on time and on budget, using the best of traditional
and modern structural and construction techniques to make imposing architecture. The real-
world result is an impressive effort to actualize place realization architecturally. Alexander and
his colleagues appear to have created a place that sustains learning and evokes a powerful
environmental atmosphere and presence.
5. Place Intensification
Place intensification refers to the independent power of the designable environment to contribute
actively to human wellbeing and place quality. The emphasis is on how physical aspects of place
make a difference in the actions, experiences, and meanings of a place. Architects and planners
are often accused of “environmental determinism,” claiming that the designable environment
makes human life one way rather than another. In speaking of place intensification, I emphasize
not that the physical environment determines human behaviors and actions but that it does play
some role in those behaviors and actions, often in crucial ways that strengthen or weaken the
quality of life-in-place.
Throughout his writings, Alexander emphatically endorses the central role of the physical
environment in human experience. In one of his most direct phrasings, he writes that “a person is
so far formed by his surroundings that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with
his surroundings (Alexander, 1979, p. 106). More often, his assertions are less deterministic—for
example, he writes that any designed environment should be “a place where it is pleasant to be”
(Alexander, 2005, p. 100) or that “Our wellbeing originates in large part in the spatial order of
the world” (Alexander et al., 2012, p. 282). Whatever the intensity of declaration, Alexander
does believe profoundly that the designable environment is an important contributor to human
life and that his primary responsibility as an architect is “to make places that have a genuine
warmth and heartfelt connection with people’s humanness” (Alexander, 2005, p. 45). He

envisions an architecture in which “every part, every building, every street, every garden, is
alive” (Alexander, 2002b, p. 2).
The emphasis on the designable environment in all the patterns in Pattern Language is the most
obvious example of how important place intensification is in Alexander’s work. As illustrated,
for example, by “nine-percent parking” (22), “shielded parking” (97), “south facing outdoors”
(105), “common areas at the heart” (129), or “light on two sides of every room” (180), every
pattern speaks to how features of architecture and the physical environment contribute to human
life and experience in positive or negative ways. More recently, in Nature of Order, Alexander
brings attention to the role of geometric and spatial qualities in facilitating place making. He
identifies fifteen “geometric properties” that he claims contribute to the robustness and
wholeness of any well-designed environment. Of all these properties, Alexander argues that the
most pivotal is centers, by which he means any organized focus or place of more intense matter,
density, or activity—for example, an elegant carpet pattern, a handsomely designed window, a
welcoming building, a lively plaza, or a beloved neighborhood. Design-wise, the aim is to create
a dense fabric of smaller-to-larger centers incorporating such qualities as symmetry,
distinctiveness, levels of scale, and positive and negative space (Alexander, 2002a, pp. 143-242).
Perhaps the most challenging and controversial aspect of Alexander’s fifteen geometric
properties his claim that all aspects of the world and human life are underlaid (and ultimately
superseded) by a primordial ground or “plenum” ranging in intensity dependent on the degree of
geometric density, relationship, and wholeness present in a particular localized region of space.
In relation to place realization, this claim is significant because it presupposes that spatial and
geometric qualities of a place contribute mightily to the quality of human life and wellbeing in
that place. Alexander (2002a, p. 444) first makes this claim in the first volume of Nature of
Order when he writes that:
… space itself, material itself, has life in varying degrees. There is a convergence of function,
geometry, and feeling in space; this space is conceived as a living fabric that—through its
[geometric] structure—encompasses these things. Space does not merely contain living
structure. Space has life, to a greater or lesser degree. It is the space itself which resembles self,
which functions, which works, which has living structure in it and which has life. The life which
appears is an attribute of space itself.
Or as he contends more poetically in the last volume of Nature of Order:

It appears that life is inherent in space itself, and in which soul, or spirit, is an inevitable part of
matter, which shows through, as the curtain rends, in which not only people, but buildings,
flowering bushes, even window sills, have their own life and spirit too, as a real thing, which
goes far beyond the mechanical world and is part of the nature of their existence (Alexander,
2004, pp. 343-44).
Alexander’s supposition here is that the spatial and geometric richness of a place sustains a
richness of human life in that place and vice versa. This claim is unusual, contentious, and, for
most current academic thinking, vexing, since Alexander contends that the material and
experiential, the physical and existential, are inextricably sutured, and that the relative degree of
place vitality is dependent on the relative degree of geometric density and pattern. In terms of

place intensification, Alexander’s claim is significant and thought-provoking because it
presupposes the integral significance of the physical and designable environment to human life.
6. Place Creation
The last of the six place processes is place creation, whereby concerned people, responsible for
place, draw on their commitment to that place to envision and fabricate creative changes that
make the place better. Architectural phenomenologist Dalibor Vesely (2003, p. 144) describes
place creation when he writes that “To create is to bring to existence what was not here before,
but in such a way that the result is fully reconciled with everything that is already here.” How, in
other words, to individuals and groups associated with a place empathize with that place and
generate designs, plans, policies, and actions that respect the place and make it more whole and
vital? Vesely (2003, p. 144) contrasts this mode of creation with what he calls production, a
manner of counterfeit making that is inappropriate and thereby undermines what is already
present. He associates production with “loss of meaning, a confused sense of reality, emptiness
of building and spaces, the growing room for hallucinatory experiences, and growing cultural
fragmentation” (Vesely, 2003, p. 144).
Throughout his writings, Alexander condemns production, which, in Battle for the Life and
Beauty of the Earth, he designates System B—the dominant mode of designing and building
today and only concerned with money, power, control, and rapidity of production. System B
emphasizes “size, speed, profit, efficiency, and numerical productivity” (Alexander et al., 2012,
p. 59); the environmental and architectural result is fragmentation, ugliness, and alienation.
Because of System B:
… the architecture of the last seventy years has often been stark, homogeneous, boring to a
degree that is almost frightening, very often entirely without delight and—most important—
absurdly lacking the functional co-adaptation between parts that would mark it as living
(Alexander et al., 2012, p. 25).
Paralleling Vesely’s creation, Alexander works to actualize a contrasting building approach that
he designates System A—a way to fabricate buildings and places that evoke comfort, serenity,
exuberance, and joy. System A gives attention to “the wellbeing of the world—its land,
ecosystems, and people” (Alexander et al. 2012, p. 49). This way of envisioning and making
emphasizes quality, subtlety, elegance, and adaptive structures grounded in place and locality.
The aim is creating “beauty, healing, and wholeness” for both material environments and human
worlds (Alexander et al. 2012, p. 49). As Alexander explains,
In any environment we build—building, room, garden, neighborhood—always, what matters
most of all is that each part of this environment intensifies life. We mean that it intensifies human
life, animal life, emotional life, the life of storms, the life of wild grasses and lilies, the life of fish
in a stream, the life of human kindness in a rough place where it may not be easy to find
(Alexander et al. 2012, p. 115).
All of Alexander’s efforts are crucial to place creation in that, to design the built environment
well, is to make life in the sense that the designed environment can be, on one hand, comfortable,
beautiful, robust, and whole or, on the other hand, disconcerting, unseemly, lifeless, and
fragmented. We arrive at Alexander’s definition of order, by which he means an ever-
intensifying making and unfolding of life, which, depending on the particular situation, might

refer to poise, handsomeness, exuberance, happiness, solace, holiness, awe, sense of community,
emotional weight—in short, the right ambience and feelings for the particular moments and
experiences a place is meant to encourage.
In Nature of Order, Alexander’s major purpose is to develop a design method for generating
order and life through an incremental intensification of strong centers at all levels of physical
scale, from city and urban district through building layout and massing to architectural structure,
ornament, and furnishings. Method-wise, the impetus and activator for this all-encompassing
intensification is step-by-step attention and concern, whereby each stage in the design of the
particular project becomes a pointer for what is to come next:
The essence of life in any system lies in the adaptive response of each new development in the
system to the previously existing state…. It cannot be achieved by a mechanical framework, by
any mechanical system, nor by any stereotyped or stylistic response. Rather, it comes about only
when the response of each act of building has been fresh, authentic, and autonomous, called into
being by previous and present circumstance, shaped only be a detailed and living overall
response to the whole (Alexander, 2005, p. 22).
This method of careful, step-by-step designing and building Alexander (2007) has come to call
wholeness-extending transformations, whereby each stage in making becomes a pointer for what
is to follow through the recognition of creating more and more centeredness, density, order, and
life—a process that Alexander describes as “the slow process of getting things right” (Alexander,
2002b, p. 8). His practical means toward this end is a series of 10 structure-enhancing actions
that he claims will always intensify the life and wholeness of a thing: (1) step-by-step adaptation;
(2) each step helping to enhance the whole; (3) always making centers; (4) allowing steps to
unfold in the most fitting order; (5) creating uniqueness everywhere; (6) Working to understand
the needs of clients and users (pattern language remains an important tool here); (7) evoking and
being guided by deep feeling of the whole: (8) finding coherent geometric order; (9) establishing
a form language that arises from and shapes the thing being made; and (10) always striving for a
simplicity by which the thing becomes more coherent and pure (Alexander, 2002b, p. 225).10
Alexander contends that, when thoroughly understood and practically mastered, these steps,
always interconnected and overlapping, will contribute unfailingly to a living process that, at
each stage in its development,
always starts from the wholeness as it currently exists at that moment. At the next moment, we
take a new step—introducing one new bit of structure (always composed of new, living, centers)
into the whole. The new structure may be large, medium, or tiny; it may be physical or abstract;
it may occur on the land itself or in a person’s mind, or in the collective understanding of a
group of people. But the point is that at every state of every life-creating process, the new bit of
structure which is injected to transform and further differentiate the previously existing
wholeness, will always extend, enhance, intensify the structure of the previous wholeness by
creating further and stronger, living centers …. The structure-enhancing step, which again and
again intensifies one center and creates “hooks” to other new centers, might even be called the
fundamental process (Alexander, 2002b, p. 216).
Alexander, Environmental Humility, and Real Kindness
I have given considerable attention to place creation in Alexander’s work because, ultimately, it
is his effort to specify and actualize a wholeness-making process that is perhaps his most

significant contribution to place thinking and place making. At the same time, his work says
much about the other five place processes and is perhaps best envisioned as a decades-long
experiment—a series of intellectual and design efforts to facilitate and refine a way of learning
and making that might generate environmental and place wholeness, order, and life. This is
Alexander’s unique contribution: his ceaseless effort to understand how parts might be integrated
most fittingly and to use that conceptual understanding practically to generate a world more
coherent and alive. He realizes that, if we are to really know and shape our world in a better way,
we must find a more appropriate and engaged means to see, to understand, and to make. In this
presentation I have argued that a phenomenological outlook, particularly synergistic relationality
and phenomenologies of place, contribute valuable insights to his vision.
Most broadly, Alexander’s work is a living testament to a lived environmental ethic. His hopeful
vision can readily be related to what phenomenological geographer Edward Relph (1981, p. 187)
describes as environmental humility—a way of seeing, understanding, and acting responsive to
the best qualities of the Other, whether that Other is a place, things, people, other living beings,
or the natural world as a whole. Relph writes that environmental humility appeals to
“guardianship, for taking care of things merely because they exist, for tending and protecting
them. In this there is neither mastery nor subservience, but there is responsibility and
commitment” (Relph 1981, p. 187).
Ultimately, it is environmental humility that is the motivational engine for Alexander’s
remarkable work. In Nature of Order, he refers to this compassionate, engaged mode of being
with the world as “real kindness,” by which he means a generous encountering and
understanding whereby the world is seen more clearly and efforts to make it better can unfold
rightly. Alexander’s description of “real kindness” is a fitting way to conclude this presentation:
Real kindness is not guided by the grasp for a goal but is guided by the minute-to-minute
necessity of caring, dynamically, for the feelings and well-being of another. This is not trivial but
deep; sincerely related to human feeling; and not predictable in its end-result.
[Real kindness involves] process itself as a budding, as a flowering, as an unpredictable,
unquenchable unfolding through which the future grows from the present in a way that is
dominated by the goodness of the moment (Alexander, 2002b, p. 22).
Notes
I want to thank Hajo Neis, Howard Davis, and other PUARL (Portland Urban Architecture Resarch Lab) associates
for inviting me to present this first-annual “Christopher Alexander lecture.” I first learned of Alexander’s work at
the University of Oklahoma in 1981, teaching courses in behavioral aspects of design. I remember vividly one
afternoon when urban-design professor Tom Selland handed me copy of A Pattern Language and said, “this is
exactly what you’re interested in!” After flipping through a few pages, I realized that Selland was right: I was
astonished that an architect saw so clearly how environmental and human qualities inescapably intermesh. At that
moment, I became a passionate Alexander advocate and ever since have followed his work closely—see Seamon
2004, 2005, 2016. For sure, he is one of the remarkable thinkers of our time. Useful recent overviews of Alexander’s
work are Pontikis and Rofé 2016; Guttmann et al., 2017.
Key works include: Alexander, 1979; 1981; 1993; 2002a; 2002b; 2004; 2005; 2007; Alexander et al., 1975; 1977;
1985; 1987; 1995; 2012.
Helpful introductions to phenomenology are Cerbone, 2006; Finlay, 2011; Moran, 2000; van Manen, 2014. For
phenomenological work relevant to architectural and environmental topics, see Environmental and Architectural
Phenomenology, a bi-annual newsletter published since 1990; archival copies are available at: http://krex.k-
state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/1522 (accessed December 26, 2018).
This description is drawn from Mugerauer 1988, p. 216.

In asking why, in twentieth-century Western culture, analytic relationality became so much more dominant than
synergistic relationality, Bortoft (2009) points to the work of psychiatrist Ian McGilchrist (2009), who argues that
the brain’s right and left hemispheres understand wholeness differently and that this difference can be pictured in
terms of what I call here analytic and synergistic relationality. McGilchrist (2009, p. 137) associates the brain’s left
hemisphere with the analytic functions of “abstracted, decontextualized, disembodied thinking,” whereas he
associates the right hemisphere with synergistic ways of understanding, including emotional and intuitive modes. As
he explains, “… there is a process of responsive evocation, the world ‘calling forth’ something in me that in turn
‘calls forth’ something in the world” (McGilchrist, 2009, p. 133). Note this responsive reciprocity between person
and world can be related to phenomenology, which McGilchrist discusses as one of the most significant twentieth-
century intellectual efforts to facilitate synergistic understanding. Though McGilchrist does not mention Alexander,
he too aims to facilitate a way of seeing, understanding, and making grounded first of all in right-hemisphere-
focused efforts.
Alexander (1979, pp. 368-69) recognizes the ineffectiveness of an analytic approach to wholeness: “When parts
are modular and made before the whole..., they are identical, and it is impossible for every part to be unique,
according to its position in the whole. Even more important, it simply is not possible for any combination of
modular parts to contain the number of patterns that must be present simultaneously in a place that is alive.”
In a recent series of blog entries on the parts/whole relationship, permaculturist Dan Palmer argues that the
piecemeal understanding of analytic relationality can happen in two contrasting ways. On one hand, one can
assemble the parts and thereby form a whole; on the other hand, one can partition the whole, and thereby locate
parts. In assembling, the parts come first and the whole follows; in partitioning, the whole comes first and the parts
follow. Drawing both on Alexander and Bortoft, Palmer advocates a synergistic approach to the parts/whole
relationship, which he describes as “iteratively enhancing life in pre-existing whole systems….” Or as he explains
more fully: “To enhance life… is to enhance adaptedness. Enhancing adaptedness… is another way of saying
enhancing fitness—fitness in the sense of the fitted-ness of a whole’s parts to each other, and the fitted-ness of that
whole to the larger whole it sits within.” These blog entries are available at: http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/
(accessed December 26, 2018).
Useful discussions of place include: Casey, 2009; Janz, 2005; Malpas, 2018; Manzo and Devine-Wright, 2014;
Mugerauer, 1994; Relph, 1976; Seamon, 2018; Stefanovic, 2000.
See Seamon, 2018 for a more comprehensive explication of the six place processes and their derivation and
justification.
10
In his blog entries on the parts/whole relationship (see note 7), Dan Palmer also considers the processual aspects
of designing when he speaks of fabricating versus generating. In the former, the designer generates a detailed design
that is actualized exactly as the design requires with no revisions or modifications; in the latter, the designer designs
and revises as he/she proceeds, a way of working that parallels Alexander’s wholeness-extending transformations.
Palmer quotes Alexander (2002a, no page given): “All the well-ordered complex systems we know in the world, all
those anyway that we view as highly successful, are generated structures, not fabricated structures.”

References
Alexander, C. (1979). The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C. (1981). The Linz Café. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C. (1993). A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish
Carpets. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C. (2002a). The Nature of Order, Vol. 1: The Phenomenon of Life. Berkeley: Center for Environmental Structure.
Alexander, C. (2002b). The Nature of Order, Vol. 2: The Process of Creating Life. Berkeley: Center for
Environmental Structure.
Alexander, C. (2004). The Nature of Order, Vol. 4: The Luminous Ground. Berkeley: Center for Environmental
Structure.
Alexander, C. (2005). The Nature of Order, Vol. 3: A Vision of a Living World. Berkeley: Center for Environmental
Structure.
Alexander, C. (2007). Empirical findings from The Nature of Order, Environmental and Architectural
Phenomenology, 18(1): 11–19.
Alexander, C., Silverstein, M., Angel, S., Ishikawa, S., and Abrams, D. (1975). The Oregon Experiment. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., and Silverstein, M. (1977). A Pattern Language. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Davis, H., Martinez, J., and Corner, D. (1985). The Production of Houses. New York: Oxford
University Press.

Alexander, C., Anninou, A., King, I., and Neis, H. (1987). A New Theory of Urban Design, New York: Oxford
University Press.
Alexander, C., Black, G., and Tsutsui, M. (1995). The Mary Rose Museum. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Neis, H., and Moore Alexander, M. (2012). The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Bertalanffy, L. von (1965). Perspectives on General Systems Theory. New York: George Braziller.
Bortoft, H. (1996). The Wholeness of Nature, Hudson, New York: Lindesfarne Press.
Bortoft, H. (2012). Taking Appearance Seriously, Edinburgh: Floris Press.
Casey, E. (2009). Getting back into Place, 2nd edn. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.
Cerbone, D. (2006). Understanding Phenomenology. Durham, UK: Acumen.
Coates, G. and Seamon, D. (1993). Promoting a Foundational Ecology Practically Through Christopher Alexander's
Pattern Language: The Example of Meadowcreek. In D. Seamon (ed.), Dwelling, Seeing and Designing: Toward a
Phenomenological Ecology (pp. 331-355). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Finlay, L. (2011). Phenomenology for Therapists: Researching the Lived World. London: Wiley.
Giorgi, Amedeo (1971). Phenomenology and experimental psychology, I, in A. Giorgi et al., eds, Duquesne Studies
in Phenomenological Psychology (pp. 6-16). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Guttmann, E., Kaiser, G., and Mazanek, C. (2017). Shifting Patterns: Christopher Alexander und der Eishin
Campus. Zürich: Park Books.
Janz, B. (2005). Walls and Borders: The Range of Place. City & Community, 4(1), 87-94.
Kubala, T. (2016). When Wholeness is the Aim of Design: The Aldo Leopold Legacy Center. In K. Pontikis and Y.
Rofѐ (eds.), In Pursuit of a Living Architecture: Continuing Christopher Alexander’s Quest for a Humane and
Sustainable Building Culture (pp. 363-385). Champaign, IL: Common Ground.
Malpas, J. (2001). Comparing Topographies: Across Paths/Around Place: A Reply to Casey. Philosophy and
Geography, 4(2): 231-238.
Malpas, J. (2012). Putting Space in Place: Philosophical Topography and Relational Geography. Environment and
Planning D: Society and Space, 30(2), 226-242.
Malpas, J. (2018). Place and Experience, 2nd edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Manzo, L. and Devine-Wright, P., eds. (2014). Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods and Research. New
York: Routledge.
McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and the Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.
New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to Phenomenology. London: Routledge.
Mugerauer, R. (1988). Heidegger’s Language and Thinking. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Mugerauer, R. (1994). Interpretations on Behalf of Place. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
Pontikis, K. and Rofѐ, Y. (eds.), In Pursuit of a Living Architecture: Continuing Christopher Alexander’s Quest for a
Humane and Sustainable Building Culture. Champaign, IL: Common Ground.
Relph, E. (1976). Place and Placelessness. London: Pion.
Relph, E. (1981). Rational Landscapes and Humanistic Geography. London: Croom Helm.
Seamon, D. (2004). Grasping the Dynamism of Urban Place: Contributions from the Work of Christopher
Alexander, Bill Hillier, and Daniel Kemmis. In T. Mels (ed.), Reanimating Places pp. 123–45. Burlington,
Vermont: Ashgate.
Seamon, D. (2005). Making Better Worlds [a review of C. Alexander, The Nature of Order, vols. 2-4], Traditional
Building, October, pp. 186–88.
Seamon, D. (2016). Christopher Alexander and a Phenomenology of Wholeness. In K. Pontikis and Y. Rofѐ (eds.),
In Pursuit of a Living Architecture: Continuing Christopher Alexander’s Quest for a Humane and Sustainable
Building Culture (pp. 50-66). Champaign, IL: Common Ground.
Seamon, D. (2018). Life Takes Place: Phenomenology, Lifeworlds, and Place Making. London: Routledge.
Stefanovic, I. (2000). Safeguarding our Common Future. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of Practice. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Vesely, D. (2003). The Humanity of Architecture. In N. Leach (ed.), Architecture and Revolution (pp. 139-145).
London: Routledge.
David Seamon is Professor of Environment-Behavior and Place Studies in the Department of Architecture at Kansas State University in
Manhattan, Kansas, USA. His research focuses on a phenomenological approach to environmental and architectural dimensions of human
experience. He is editor of Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology, which celebrates thirty years of publication in 2019. His latest book
is Life Takes Place: Phenomenology, Lifeworlds, and Place Making (Routledge, 2018).

18
References (41)
Alexander, C. (1979). The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C. (1981). The Linz Café. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C. (1993). A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C. (2002a). The Nature of Order, Vol. 1: The Phenomenon of Life. Berkeley: Center for Environmental Structure.
Alexander, C. (2002b). The Nature of Order, Vol. 2: The Process of Creating Life. Berkeley: Center for Environmental Structure.
Alexander, C. (2004). The Nature of Order, Vol. 4: The Luminous Ground. Berkeley: Center for Environmental Structure. Alexander, C. (2005). The Nature of Order, Vol. 3: A Vision of a Living World. Berkeley: Center for Environmental Structure. Alexander, C. (2007). Empirical findings from The Nature of Order, Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology, 18(1): 11-19.
Alexander, C., Silverstein, M., Angel, S., Ishikawa, S., and Abrams, D. (1975). The Oregon Experiment. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., and Silverstein, M. (1977). A Pattern Language. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Davis, H., Martinez, J., and Corner, D. (1985). The Production of Houses. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Anninou, A., King, I., and Neis, H. (1987). A New Theory of Urban Design, New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Black, G., and Tsutsui, M. (1995). The Mary Rose Museum. New York: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C., Neis, H., and Moore Alexander, M. (2012). The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bertalanffy, L. von (1965). Perspectives on General Systems Theory. New York: George Braziller.
Bortoft, H. (1996). The Wholeness of Nature, Hudson, New York: Lindesfarne Press.
Bortoft, H. (2012). Taking Appearance Seriously, Edinburgh: Floris Press.
Casey, E. (2009). Getting back into Place, 2 nd edn. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.
Cerbone, D. (2006). Understanding Phenomenology. Durham, UK: Acumen.
Coates, G. and Seamon, D. (1993). Promoting a Foundational Ecology Practically Through Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language: The Example of Meadowcreek. In D. Seamon (ed.), Dwelling, Seeing and Designing: Toward a Phenomenological Ecology (pp. 331-355). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Finlay, L. (2011). Phenomenology for Therapists: Researching the Lived World. London: Wiley.
Giorgi, Amedeo (1971). Phenomenology and experimental psychology, I, in A. Giorgi et al., eds, Duquesne Studies in Phenomenological Psychology (pp. 6-16). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Guttmann, E., Kaiser, G., and Mazanek, C. (2017). Shifting Patterns: Christopher Alexander und der Eishin Campus. Zürich: Park Books.
Janz, B. (2005). Walls and Borders: The Range of Place. City & Community, 4(1), 87-94.
Kubala, T. (2016). When Wholeness is the Aim of Design: The Aldo Leopold Legacy Center. In K. Pontikis and Y. Rofѐ (eds.), In Pursuit of a Living Architecture: Continuing Christopher Alexander's Quest for a Humane and Sustainable Building Culture (pp. 363-385). Champaign, IL: Common Ground.
Malpas, J. (2001). Comparing Topographies: Across Paths/Around Place: A Reply to Casey. Philosophy and Geography, 4(2): 231-238.
Malpas, J. (2012). Putting Space in Place: Philosophical Topography and Relational Geography. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 30(2), 226-242.
Malpas, J. (2018). Place and Experience, 2 nd edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Manzo, L. and Devine-Wright, P., eds. (2014). Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods and Research. New York: Routledge.
McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and the Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to Phenomenology. London: Routledge.
Mugerauer, R. (1988). Heidegger's Language and Thinking. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Mugerauer, R. (1994). Interpretations on Behalf of Place. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
Pontikis, K. and Rofѐ, Y. (eds.), In Pursuit of a Living Architecture: Continuing Christopher Alexander's Quest for a Humane and Sustainable Building Culture. Champaign, IL: Common Ground.
Relph, E. (1976). Place and Placelessness. London: Pion.
Relph, E. (1981). Rational Landscapes and Humanistic Geography. London: Croom Helm.
Seamon, D. (2004). Grasping the Dynamism of Urban Place: Contributions from the Work of Christopher Alexander, Bill Hillier, and Daniel Kemmis. In T. Mels (ed.), Reanimating Places pp. 123-45. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate.
Seamon, D. (2005). Making Better Worlds [a review of C. Alexander, The Nature of Order, vols. 2-4], Traditional Building, October, pp. 186-88.
Seamon, D. (2016). Christopher Alexander and a Phenomenology of Wholeness. In K. Pontikis and Y. Rofѐ (eds.), In Pursuit of a Living Architecture: Continuing Christopher Alexander's Quest for a Humane and Sustainable Building Culture (pp. 50-66). Champaign, IL: Common Ground.
Seamon, D. (2018). Life Takes Place: Phenomenology, Lifeworlds, and Place Making. London: Routledge.
Stefanovic, I. (2000). Safeguarding our Common Future. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of Practice. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Vesely, D. (2003). The Humanity of Architecture. In N. Leach (ed.), Architecture and Revolution (pp. 139-145). London: Routledge.
FAQs
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The paper identifies six processes: place interaction, identity, release, realization, intensification, and creation, which interact to sustain or undermine places.
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Analytic relationality sees wholes as separate parts and connections, while synergistic relationality views them as mutually integrated and self-organizing.
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The research illustrates that phenomenology can elucidate Alexander's understanding of wholeness as it relates to place and the lived experience of environments.
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Place realization evokes a unique environmental character, reinforcing the sense of belonging and community cohesion among inhabitants.
David Seamon
Kansas State University, Faculty Member
David Seamon (PhD, 1977, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts USA) is Professor Emeritus of Environment-Behavior and Place Studies in the Department of Architecture at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, USA. Trained in behavioral geography and environment-behavior research, he is interested in a phenomenological approach to place, architecture, environmental experience, and environmental design as placemaking. His books include DWELLING, PLACE AND ENVIRONMENT: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERSON AND WORLD (1985); DWELLING, SEEING, AND DESIGNING: TOWARD A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ECOLOGY (1993); GOETHE'S WAY OF SCIENCE: A PHENOMENOLOGY OF NATURE; and A GEOGRAPHY OF THE LIFEWORLD: MOVEMENT, REST AND ENCOUNTER (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979/Routledge Revival series, 2015). His most recent books are LIFE TAKES PLACE: PHENOMENOLOGY, LIFEWORLDS AND PLACE MAKING (2018) and PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PLACE, LIFEWORLDS, AND LIVED EMPLACEMENT (2023). Both books are published by Routledge.
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Revealing Environmental and Place Wholes: Lessons from Christopher Alexander's Theory of Wholeness and Bill Hillier's Space Syntax (2004)
David Seamon
ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY, 2004
This article examines the conception of the everyday city as presented in the work of architect Christopher Alexander and architectural theorist Bill Hillier: Both thinkers suggest that, in the past, lively urban places arose unself-consciousty through the routine daily behaviors of many individual users coming together in supportive space and place. In different ways. both thinkers ask whether, today, a similar manner of vital urban district can be made to happen self-conscioustv through explicit understanding transformed into design and policy principles. The aim for both Alexander and Hillier is place-based urban communities marked by lively streets, serendipitous public encounters, and informal sociability. The article begins by examining commonalities and differences in Alexander and Hillier's conceptions of environmental wholeness and urban place. Next. the article considers implications for urban design and, last, indicates the considerable value that the two thinkers' ideas offer environmental philosophy, particularly for understanding environmental wholes.
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Architecture, Place, and Phenomenology: Buildings as Lifeworlds, Atmospheres, and Environmental Wholes (2017)
David Seamon
PLACE AND PHENOMENOLOGY, Janet Donohoe, editor, 2017
[The edited volume of which this chapter is a part is now available. Contact the author for a PDF of the published version]. This chapter draws on a phenomenological approach to examine three ways in which buildings work as places: first, as lifeworlds; second, as architectural atmospheres; and, third, as physical and spatial fields sustaining or stymying environmental and place wholeness. Architecture as lifeworld refers to the fact that a building can be understood as a constellation of actions, events, situations, and experiences associated with individuals and groups that use that building. Architecture as atmosphere refers to the fact that a building can be understood to include a certain ineffable character or ambience that contributes to the particularity or uniqueness of that building as a place. Architecture as environmental and place wholeness refers to the fact that a building can be understood as it facilitates or undermines a lived integration and connectedness between architecture and users. This chapter highlights these three themes because they have been given only minimal attention in the growing literature on architectural phenomenology, which can be defined as the phenomenological study of architectural experiences, actions, and meanings as constituted by qualities and features of both the built environment and human life. Key words: architecture, architectural archetypes, architectural phenomenology, atmosphere, buildings, lifeworlds, natural symbols, pattern languages, phenomenology, place, sense of place, space syntax, spirit of place, wholeness.
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Understanding Place Holistically: Cities, Relationality, and Space Syntax (2015)
David Seamon
JOURNAL OF SPACE SYNTAX, vol. 6, no. 1 (fall), pp. 19-33., 2015
This article discusses two contrasting conceptual understandings of place. The approach of analytic relationality interprets places as sets of interconnected parts and their relationships. In contrast, synergistic relationality interprets places as integrated, generative fields, the parts of which are only parts as they both sustain and are sustained by the constitution and dynamism of the particular place as a whole. This article presents one interpretation of place as synergistic relationality by describing six interrelated, generative processes: place interaction, place identity, place release, place realization, place creation, and place intensification. The article considers how concepts and principles relating to space syntax contribute to understanding places as synergistic relationality broadly; and to understanding the six place processes specifically.
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Radically constructing 'place'
Ben Sweeting
2018
Place-what it means to be somewhere, or to be from somewhere-is a common thread running through the many systemic crises of our time. Place is a value under threat from globalisation, gentrification, networked technologies, human conflict and environmental disasters. At the same time, it is an underlying cause of some of the political and social tensions that are intertwined with these issues. Within architectural theory, place is strongly associated with phenomenology, the foundations of which are entangled with the sort of nativist politics that is currently resurgent around the world. In this working paper, I outline an alternative approach to place as a way to address its double-edged quality, building on Ernst von Glasersfeld's radically constructivist interpretation of Jean Piaget. In doing so, I establish points of connection between architectural discourse on place and the cybernetic foundations of systemic design.
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Place as Organized Complexity: Understanding and Making Places Holistically (forthcoming, 2018?)
David Seamon
2015
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Place‐Making
Shu-mei Huang
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies, 2019
Place-making is an assemblage of related concepts and practices predicated on the phenomenon of place. Although scholars have mostly focused on human actions in particular locations and have prioritized the significance of materiality, some have argued that place is porous and multiscalar and contains multiple human and nonhuman actors. As a process, it can be conceived of as a bundle of numerous actors rather than as a prescribed territory. As praxis, it has been a loosely defined set of practices that seek to make, transform, and care for places and for the people in them. This process tends to be inclusive and is often synonymous with community-building, which celebrates collective action, sometimes without sufficient recognition of the politics in place-making. Given the increasing mobility of our world, mobility and place cannot be binaries. Today, to consider mobility in the discussion of place-making is not just a theoretical discussion but also an empirical imperative.
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Architecture, Environment, Phenomenology--ENVIRONMENTAL & ARCHITECTURAL PHENOMENOLOGY (fall 2014 --25th-anniversary issue)
Eva Simms
Julio Bermudez
Dylan Trigg
Bryan Bannon
robert mugerauer
Ingrid Stefanovic
edward relph
David Seamon
Bruce Janz
Jeff Malpas
This special issue of EAP celebrates 25 years of publication and includes 19 invited essays organized in terms of four themes: 1. Place—lived emplacement, place attachment, and environmental design as place making; 2. Nature—the lived constitution of the natural environment and natural world; 3. Real-world applications of phenomenological principles (transit design; virtual reality; environmental education); 4. Broader conceptual issues (the subjectivity-objectivity duality; phenomenology vs. analytic science; phenomenology as practiced by non-phenomenologists; phenomenological understanding vs. practical applications; parallels between real-world and phenomenological pathways). Contributors and essay titles are as follows: David Seamon, “Human-Immersion-in-World: Twenty-Five Years of EAP”; Robert Mugerauer, “It’s about People”; Jeff Malpas, “Human Being as Placed Being”; Eva-Maria Simms, “Going Deep into Place”; Sue Michaels, “Viewing Two Sides”; Dennis Skocz, “Giving Space to Thoughts on Place”; Bruce Janz, “Place, Philosophy, and Non-Philosophy”; Janet Donohoe, “Can there be a Phenomenology of Nature”; Tim Ingold, A Phenomenology with the Natural World”; Mark Riegner, “A Phenomenology of Betweenness”; Bryan E. Bannon, “Evolving Conceptions of Environmental Phenomenology”; John Cameron, “Place Making, Phenomenology, and Lived Sustainability”; Lena Hopsch, Social Space and Daily Commuting: Phenomenological Implications”; Matthew S. Bower, “Topologies of Illumination”; Paul Krafel, “Navigating by the Light”; Yi-Fu Tuan, “Points of View and Objectivity: The Phenomenologist’s Challenge”; Julio Bermudez, “Considering the Relationship between Phenomenology and Science”; Edward Relph, “Varieties of Phenomenological Description”; Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, “Phenomenology, Philosophy, and Praxis”; Elizabeth A. Behnke, “In Celebration of a Conversation of Pathways.”
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Life takes place: phenomenology, lifeworlds, and place making
David Seamon
Journal of Cultural Geography, 2019
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Merleau-Ponty, Environmental Embodiment, and Place: Implications for Architecture and Placemaking (2024)
David Seamon
Embodied Awareness and Space: Body, Agency and Current Practice, edited by Christos Kakalis. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024
Available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-4264-6?sap-outbound-id=AAB251287B1FA44C39617230239FC4B68D62AEFE&utm_source=standard&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=000_LAN36_0000019083_Book+author+congrats+NEW&utm_content=EN_33928_20250121&mkt-key=42010A0557EB1EEBBF95BCEC131F5074 In this chapter, I draw on French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to explore environmental embodiment—the various lived ways, sensorily and motility-wise, that the body in its pre-reflective perceptual presence engages and synchronizes with the world at hand, especially its architectural and environmental aspects. First, I consider Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of perception, which he understands as the immediate givenness of the world founded in bodily sensibility. Second, I consider the architectural and environmental significance of what Merleau-Ponty calls body-subject—pre-reflective corporeal awareness expressed through action and typically in sync with and enmeshed in the physical world in which the action unfolds. I focus on the taken-for-granted sensibility of body-subject to manifest in extended ways over time and space. I ask how routine actions and behaviors of individuals coming together regularly can transform an environment into a place with a unique dynamic and character—a lived situation I term place ballet. For both perception and body-subject, I examine how qualities of the physical and designable world—for example, materiality, form, and spatiality—contribute to the lived body’s engagement with and actions in the world. I end by arguing that Merleau-Ponty offers an essential perspective for understanding the importance of place and lived emplacement in human life, but this perspective must be extended by considering how places change over time via generative processes that enliven or undermine places and lived emplacement. Key words: body-subject, environmental embodiment, lived body, Merleau-Ponty, perception, phenomenology, place, place ballet
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Placemaking: The Power To Change
Angelica Fortuzzi
Journal of Biourbanism, 2017
Placemaking is an approach to designing and planning public spaces, including their management, which is becoming widespread not only in the United States but worldwide. The idea of placemaking is revolutionary because of its approach to urban issues that opens up new possibilities of participatory design. The focus of the practice is on the place, consequently on the community that uses and lives in it because public space symbolizes the “connective tissue” of communities, hence the importance of its care. This paper outlines the issues and major trends emerging from recent placemaking experiences.
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