The more living patterns there are in a place - a room, a building, or a town - the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.

Reasoning that users know more about the buildings they need than any architect could he produced and validated (in collaboration with Sarah Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein) a "pattern language" designed to empower anyone to design and build at any scale. It describes exact methods for constructing practical safe and attractive designs at every scale from entire regions through cities neighborhoods gardens buildings rooms built-in furniture and fixtures down to the level of doorknobs. It first has users prototype a structure on-site in temporary materials.

As such Alexander is widely considered to occupy a place outside the discipline the discourse and the practice of Architecture. Now retired (though still active) he is based in Arundel Sussex UK. [citation needed] In 1958 he moved from England to the United States living and teaching in Berkeley California from 1963.