Christopher Alexander's Notes On The Synthesis Of Form By Chert Alexander

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The following is an analysis of the works of Christopher Alexander’s Notes on the Synthesis of Form and Herbert Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial. It contains explanations of the concepts of the artifice, the form, and the form making process; and explanations on how the artifice, form and form making process can be relevant to policy making. Included is a discussion of Simon’s concept of the inner environment and outer environment of the human decision maker, and the abilities in their relation to decision making. According to Simon there are three principles of complexity that allow humans to understand a complex problem and simplify it. The analysis includes a discussion of these three principles of complexity and how the components of complexity relate to decision making.
Christopher Alexander’s Notes on the Synthesis of Form provides a generalization of explaining design problems. The ultimate object of design is form, and
Fitness is a mutually accepted relationship between context and form, and the goal in problem solving is to put the context and form into a frictionless coexistence (Alexander, 1964, page 19). A simple example of a form context ensemble and quality of fit is the suit and tie ensemble. To achieve a good quality suit and tie ensemble it is necessary to consider both the style and color of both the suit and the tie. A high quality design would be how well the suit and tie match or how well they fit together. A low quality design would be how misfit the form and context are, or how unmatched the suit and tie are. Just as in form and its context designers are worried about fit, so are the designers of an artifice. They concern themselves with how things should be in order to achieve the goals and functions of the artifice. To achieve a good fit from Simon’s perspective is how well adapted is the inner environment to the outer

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