I found On the Nature of The Nature of Order by James Coplien and Brad Appleton. Very interesting. Quotes:

Alexander tried to carefully study the different characteristics or “properties” which, when present, seemed to trigger a preference in observers for designs which possessed that property. Certain things like centers, symmetry, and “effective” use of positive and negative space, kept recurring as aspects to which all people seemed aesthetically attracted. Alexander was trying […] to verify/validate to [sic!] his belief that beauty, is in fact objective (at least at its deepest and most fundamental levels of recognition).

[…] In [The Timeless Way of Building], Alexander states that the patterns of these kinds of beauty were already in our heads and were deeply embedded within our cultures […], but that we forgot [them] as we evolved toward cultures that were more technically-oriented and became separated into more specialized disciplines and groups […].

We lost [this] because the towns and buildings were no longer designed, built and arranged by their intended habitatns […] but are now instead built by specialists […]. As a result [of this], we lost the awareness of “wholeness” and how all the pieces fit together into a gestalt (a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts).

This is yet another thing that speaks for including end users in the development process. Coplien and Appleton continue:

In [The Nature of Order], Alexander has advanced his notion of [“quality”, as in his concept of “the quality without a name”] and now uses the term wholeness. Wholeness (and “life”) emerges as a result of naturally occurring processes which are based on locii known as centers.

A [center] is “something we notice” as a structure; something which captures our eye as being “architecturally interesting”. A center will draw our attention […] by differentiating itself from [its neighboring structures] via some kind of boundary […]. Patterns are stereotypical centers. [–––] A “good” center will reinforce the other centers around it. Existing centers may be augmented by adding adjacent centers, or by augmenting its adjacent centers […].

This is particularly interesting: They write that “structure-preserving transformations” is a process of starting with “basic, essential centers and then recursively [unfolding] the design to elaborate more centers,” continuously observing “the result to see if it [increases] the wholeness of the system [and if] it does not […] then we need to back off and try something else.”

It reminds me of refactoring and test-driven development. Emergent or evolutionary design. The article goes on to summarize the fifteen properties of wholeness, but I haven’t read the rest of it yet.