We have a saying here in Romania :) : "With the blockhead uneducated man you fight a little and you are disembarrassed, but you are infernally wrestling with the blockhead that has attended a school."

"Cu omul needucat/ Te lupti putin si ai scapat/ Dar duci o lupta infernala/ Cu prostul care are scoala."

:))

The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art. ~Paul Klee

Nikos, such an arrogant...

I really fear that we'll find out that the "public" likes Cinderella's castle, Pedimented and Corinthian ordered façades in their homes, tacky Arabian skyscrapers, Walmart art rather than Picasso, and LaZboy seating instead of Mies' Barcelona chair. The "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like" syndrome. I'll read on and hopefully de contradicted.

Indeed. The Joseph Beuys eternal curse on us all "everyone is an artist." (*cringe*)

Glad to see the work of perhaps one of the most eloquent and impressive personalities of the 21st century architecture available freely on the web. Will definitely be awaiting further enlightenment from his works!

Wolf, you are too occupied with the past. Biophilia, as this book is about, is the future. But not alone. Biophilia has to be linked with the new in-group society: http://blog.p2pfoundation.n...

Actually I've just finished an article on this subject, but as I write for the Norwegian deep ecology blog Kulturverk.com now, you cannot follow my thoughts anymore: http://naturkonservativ.blo...

With this unification Zahavism (from Amotz Zahavi), not Darwinism, will be the basic for democracy and production, which will be unified and given to the people.

I think I've managed to convince Salingaros` best man in Norway to join Bongard's research group, but I'm not sure yet. Anyway, Bongard was very enthusiastic when I showed him the Alexandrine pattern 37, HOUSE CLUSTER: http://www.patternlanguage....

I will work hard to unify biophilia with this new in-group society, as I'm sure this is essential to its success, and this way we can transform to a new resilient civilisation.

You, and the rest of the world, will be stunned to see this transformation to a new civilization will start in Norway.

Does no one remember the critique of positivism? The "objectivity" posited here is nothing other than reification, the "phantom objectivity" of bourgeois society in repetitive flux.

A similar study has just been conducted on Norwegian salmon: http://rspb.royalsocietypub...

An article in Norwegian on the subject: http://www.forskning.no/art...

@Kyle, there has just been conducted a Norwegian study on salmon giving the same results: http://rspb.royalsocietypub...

Article on the study in Norwegian here: http://www.forskning.no/art...

Glad to hear that the lessons will be on ArchDaily, it might even be worthwhile to redo the lectures created with TextPotential. As much as everyone is yelling snakeoil salesman, I encourage everyone to keep an open mind as Nikos Salingaros does an incredible job of connecting the dots between biology, psychology, mathematics, and design (just finished reading the chapter about the relative size of a trout's brain to its environment). I do have a fundamental problem with Nikos's ideas on construction science and the said structural expression in contemporary design with curtain wall construction, but that will be for another day.

I can only applaud the initiative of a teacher finally understanding that sharing knowledge on the web will not reduce his book sales and that he will actually touch a lot more people with this medium. Why all teachers in the world aren't doing the same is a mystery to me.

Now, as an architect adept of the scientific method, I will see these articles as theories (without the quotation marks). The introduction seem to imply pompously that this is the one and only answer to the schism between architects and the public, hence a few sarcastic remarks in the comments; as long as the future articles avoid this mental pitfall, and stay humble by accepting that this work is a theory based on scientific trials and not a dogma based on the personal beliefs of the author, we should learn a few things. Otherwise, I still salute the initiative, and will enjoy the reading in any case.

We will be able to design buildings free from political or ideological meaning. This may be difficult for all those buildings whose purpose is political and ideological. Fortunately science will arrive as our savior!

"Common People" will finally appreciate the work of Architects. I am sure "Common People" will be eternally grateful.

Well... not a very promising beginning, it seems to me. "I am the best, I will tell it finally, follow me!". To make it worse, from the very small portions of "content" it seems that it will be only a very formal level: "trying to employ more organic forms and to break out of the glass or concrete box."

Are we in the seventies?... "this is a goldmine for young architects" - wouuahh...

19th century german psychologists believed they could make private sensations available for empirical study, which inspired historians such as Wölfflin, or Schmarsow to approach art and architecture "scientifically". However, they were probably wrong, and if the test for such studies is one's own verbal reports of sensations, then the study is not empirical but conceptual (regardless of whether one also observes the body's external behavior). Sensations can be evoked or corrupted by the report or its surrounding preconceptions. Anyway, Salingaros might have an entirely different approach, so let's read it.

Snakeoil salesmen. A grand unified theory of architecture?... so naive. The idea that someone would publish such nonsense much less waste time trying to spread it online is just so intellectually naive, it's almost adorable.

LOL, aaaaand that's why people come to archdaily for the photos and not the intellectual commentary. Nikos for your first publication? LOL. Sounds about right.

It will be nice to finally see scientific validation for the theories Mr. Salingaros has been preaching about. I wonder why he is so concerned with answering the question of what is good architecture, surely someone of his stature must know this is a subjective question. Will he reveal that we are all a system of synapses that operate on the same rules, denying our individuality but providing for a universal architecture? Maybe he will enlighten us about the mechanics of the intuition, which will be explained as a scientific system. Finally something to fill the parameters of Parametricism. Thanks, my friend Schumacher has been waiting for this bro ;)

Thank Heavens...and here I was afraid I might die before the riddle of "good architecture" was solved...

at least it promises one more brick in the Tower of Babel.

Thank Heavens...Here I was, afraid that I might die before the answer of the "good architecture" riddle was solved.
Well, at least it promises one more brick in the Tower of Babel.

Sounds great, this has been on my reading list. Could I make a request? Please do not publish as a pdf. It would be far more useful as a .mobi or other proper ebook format.

Thank you! Great initiative! waiting for the first chapter