"Behind all processes which allow us to make buildings live, there is a single common process...but though this method is precise, it cannot be used mechanically. Indeed, it turns out, in the end, that what this method does is simply free us from all method...It is a process which lies deep in us: and only needs to be released. But these are not mechanical rules. They require the nature of the designer, and of the learner, to be considered. This makes things always changing and different."
"We find out that we already know how to make buildings live, but that the power has been frozen in us: that we have it, but are afraid to use it: that we are crippled by our fears, and crippled by the methods and the images which we use to overcome these fears. But we learn too, that this capacity in us is not accessible, until we first go through the discipline which teaches us to let go of our fears. It is instead a process which lies deep in us: and only needs to be released. It is a process which brings order out of nothing but ourselves; it cannot be attained, but it will happen of its own accord, if we will only let it."
"At the human level of complexity, then, there is a distinction between systems which are true to their 'inner nature,' and those which aren't. Not all of us are equally true to our inner nature, or equally real, or equally whole. And exactly the same is true in those larger systems, outside us, which we call our world. Not all parts of the world are equally true to themselves, equally real, equally whole."
How Buildings Learn--This book offers an excellent example of architecture that grows and even "learns." A fun read!
The Architecture Pack--This title is as wonderful an educational product as it is a primer on architecture.
The ABCs of Architecture--This book presents a concise, accessible introduction to the field.
