When1: 1977
When2: 1999
Who: Christopher Alexander [Alexander, Christopher]
What: architect
Where: USA
works\ Pattern Language [1977: with Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein]; Timeless Way of Building [1999]; Oregon Experiment [1977 to 1999]
Detail: Towns and buildings built in natural, intuitive, organic, and evolving way are best. People in society can share ideas {pattern language}. Pattern-language patterns solve problems of living in environments, from large regions down to room parts. Patterns depend on each other.
Larger patterns are about town or community. They have independent regions. They have town distributions, city-country fingers, agricultural valleys, country streets, country towns, and countryside. They have subcultures, scattered work, and local transport areas. They have community of 7000, subculture boundary, identifiable neighborhood, and neighborhood boundary. They have public transportation webs, ring roads, learning networks, shopping webs, and minibuses. They have four-story limit, nine-percent parking, parallel roads, sacred sites, access to water, life cycle accommodation, and men and women. They have eccentric nuclei, density rings, activity nodes, promenades, shopping streets, nightlife, and interchanges. They have household mix, public and private mix, house clusters, row houses, housing hills, and old people everywhere. They have work communities, industrial ribbons, marketplace universities, local town halls, community-project loops, large markets, health centers, and housing between. They have looped local roads, T-junctions, green streets, path and road networks, main gateways, road crossings, raised walks, bike paths and racks, and children. They have carnivals, quiet back areas, accessible greens, small public squares, high places, street dancing, pools and streams, birthplaces, and holy ground. They have common land, connected play, public outdoor rooms, grave sites, still water, local sports, adventure playgrounds, and animals. They have families and different-size houses. They have self-governing workshops and offices, small services without red tape, office connections, masters and apprentices, teenage society, shop-front schools, and homes. They have individually owned shops, street cafes, corner groceries, beer halls, traveler's inns, bus stops, and food stands.
Smaller patterns are for buildings. They have building complexes, several stories, shielded parking, circulation realms, main buildings, pedestrian paths, building thoroughfares, family entrances, and small parking lots. They have site repair, south-facing outdoor areas, outdoor spaces, light wings, connected buildings, and long thin houses. They have main entrances, half-hidden gardens, entrance transitions, car connections, open-space hierarchies, living courtyards, cascading roofs, sheltering roofs, and roof gardens. They have arcades, paths and goals, path shapes, building fronts, pedestrians not too crowded, activity pockets, and stair seats. They have intimacy gradient, indoor sunlight, common areas at heart, entrance rooms, flows through rooms, short passages, staircase stages, zen-style views, and light and dark tapestries. They have couple realms, children realms, sleeping to east, farmhouse kitchens, private terraces, own rooms, sitting spaces, bed clusters, bathing rooms, and bulk storage. They have flexible office space, communal eating, small work groups, reception areas, places to wait, small meeting rooms, and half-private offices. They have rooms to rent, teenager cottages, old-age cottages, settled workplaces, home workshops, and open stairs. They have light on two room sides, building edges, sunny places, north facing areas, outdoor rooms, street-level windows, openings to street, galleries, six-foot balconies, and connections to earth. They have terraced slopes, fruit trees, tree places, wild gardens, garden walls, trellised walks, greenhouses, garden seats, vegetable gardens, and compost. They have alcoves, window places, fireplaces, eating spots, workspace enclosures, cooking layouts, sitting circles, communal sleeping, marriage beds, bed alcoves, and dressing rooms. They have ceiling-height variety, indoor space shapes, large windows, half-open walls, interior windows, good staircase volume, and corner doors. They have thick walls, closets between rooms, sunny counters, open shelves, waist-high shelves, built-in seats, child caves, and secret places.
Building details have patterns. Buildings have structure that follows social spaces, efficient structure, good materials, and gradual stiffening. They have roof layouts, floor-and-ceiling layouts, outer wall thickenings, corner columns, and column distributions. They have root foundations, ground floor slab, box columns, perimeter beams, wall membranes, floor-ceiling vaults, and roof vaults. They have natural doors and windows, low sill, deep reveals, low doorway, and frames as thickened edges. They have column places, column connections, stair vaults, duct spaces, radiant heat, dormer windows, and roof caps. They have floor surfaces, lapped outside walls, soft inside walls, windows that open wide, solid doors with glass, filtered light, small panes, and half-inch trim. They have seat spots, front-door benches, sitting walls, canvas roofs, flower baskets, climbing plants, stone paving, tile, and brick. They have ornaments, warm colors, different chairs, light pools, and things from life.
Combining patterns gives deeper meaning.
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Date Modified: 2022.0224