Architecture as a Hands-on Search for Beauty

Alexander—best known for his work producing and testing a “pattern language,” a description of good practices that anyone can use to design and build at any scale—has been studying and writing about the nature of human-centered design since the ’60s. His ideas form the foundation of a new master’s program at the Sant’Anna Institute in Sorrento, Italy, Building Beauty: Ecologic Design and Construction Process. According to the program’s website, the curriculum “emphasizes the generation of beauty by means of the practical work of making.”

The program aims to teach students a design process that is scientific and evidence-based but also makes use of one’s own intuitive feelings as a way to analyze and judge the quality of a built environment.

Students study the characteristics that make certain objects and experiences universally beautiful and are taught to understand beauty as an objective quality that can be measured and analyzed. Complementing this kind of knowledge, students also work on developing practical self-awareness skills to better understand how a space or environment affects them and are taught how this subjective knowledge is used in the act of design.

The program is based on the idea that the best way to learn how to design is through hands-on engagement with materials. Students are taught to produce full-scale physical mock-ups as testing and decision-making tools in the design process, and finish their training by participating in a construction project.

For more information:

Building Beauty: Ecologic Design and Construction Process
buildingbeauty.org