the physics of thermodynamic processes, and extends earlier work by Herbert A. Simon and Warren Weaver. The terminology arises from an analogy with biological forms. Salingaros distinguished between “organized” and “unorganized” complexity, going further to claim innate (biologically based) positive advantages of the former. The book claims, at least for those who like traditional buildings, the correlation between Salingaros’ “life” measure and the perceived degree of life in a building is high. Minimalist and deconstructivist buildings, on the other hand, rate very low, and this is a point of controversy with most architects. Christopher Alexander reproduces Salingaros’ results in Book 1 of “The Nature of Order”, saying that: “It is telling that a simply constructed arithmetical function, based on the considerations of the nature of living structure, no matter how crudely, could get these kinds of results at all. It shows that, while the question itself may be a million times more subtle, there is something tangible, and ultimately measurable, in the degree of life the living structure has.” Emergence and evidence-based design Salingaros describes architecture (or at least architecture that he terms “adaptive”) as a characteristic phenomenon of Emergence. Contemporary architectural thinking has recently been moving in this direction, and this book attempts to advance the field forward. The author claims that Architectural theory has degenerated into a narrow point of view, neglecting architectural space and meaning. In proposing a broader discourse, some contemporary theorists are turning once again to phenomenology. Christopher Alexander and Salingaros claim to move past the limited philosophical tools of phenomenology to derive evidence-based results. Evidence-based design is already being used in the innovative design of healing environments such as hospitals and health-care facilities. In parallel with intellectual advances in other fields driven by the revolution in scientific research at the end of the last millennium, authors such as Salingaros, Alexander, and others seek to build theoretical knowledge in architecture from experimental findings. These arguments are now being adopted and supplemented by a group of architects applying biophilia, a term coined by Edward Osborne Wilson to describe an intrinsic, genetic predisposition of human beings towards structures found in other living objects such as animals and plants. The key researchers in biophilic design refer to Salingaros’ work, and to chapters of this book in particular. Pattern languages Salingaros develops pattern languages originally introduced by Christopher Alexander and used in architecture as well as in software design.