The goal of architecture (and presumably other aspects of human creation) should be to create life.
Alexander makes a distinction between creating life and preserving nature which is generally accomplished by leaving areas untouched, such as in wildlife preserves. Nor is it simply trying to make structures that are compatible with nature.
He gives the example of landscape in Southern England which feels surprisingly open and natural but is in fact entirely a man-made structure.
This active creation of a non-natural structure which clearly has life, and which is alive, is very much more than merely preserving nature. It is much harder, to begin with, because it has to be invented; it is not a case of merely smiling at nature and saying, “Let’s keep it that way.” The fact that it is even possible poses enormous intellectual difficulties. In order to understand it, grasp it mentally, and to do it, we must have a conception of things in which the relation between living tissue, in the narrow biological sense, and non-living matter (again, non-living in the narrow biological sense), can be made clear and understood. We must not only want the bush to be alive with respect to birds, earth, rain and so on, but we must also understand how the piece of wood in the windowsill, the piece of concrete in the edge of the flower bed fit into this pattern of life and complete it.
SOURCE The Nature of Order, Book One, The Phenomenon of Life page 29
SEE ALSO
The idea that human built structures can have life stems from TK A new idea of order § 202301042005
These structures will have life not simply because we made them lively through our design, but because TK Physical materials have life § 202301042154
RELATED
This idea recognizes that even TK Gardens are man made structures not nature § 202301082132
Contrary to this idea are different ways of looking at life such as TK Aristotle’s idea of what is alive § 201907082103
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