A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction.

by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid

Review
“Architecture and urban design classic”

A pattern language gives everyday person a tool to understand, develop and control the built
environments , establishes a relationship between the environment and inhabitant. It consists
of 253 “patterns,” which all together form a network can be termed as a cipher, where each
pattern serves as a code and knowledge of which enables one to interpret the language and
programme the same , it relates a lot to computer coding .The patterns serve as short generic
guiding principles on how to solve specific design problems and create everything ranging
from regional plan to a room persuading that everything is connected and it is just a matter of
scale involving larger patterns and smaller patterns in a descending order and increased
detailing with reduce in scale .Author suggests that these patterns can be used million times
over without any repetition giving the sense that the solutions in the form of patterns can go
through evolution and can be customised in accordance specific circumstances:

This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot
merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so
that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the
thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.

Author uses humanistic and phenomenological approach engaging the users to delve deeper
into the surrounding, observe and reflect from it ,adding humane touch to the physical and
spatial setting.

The author talks about the nature of the patterns to be beautiful ,alive ,whole, comfortable,
healthy, alive ,self- maintaining , free, exact, egoless and eternal all of which share the
abstract character or a quality without a single name based on human experience.

The patterns are presented in a typical manner, firstly each pattern is introduced with a
picture from everyday setting along with a description , in some cases poetry of the language
is used contrary to the formal tone in other books. After the identification of the pattern ,it
gives connection to other patterns, the context in which the pattern is relevant ,then diagrams
,actions and solutions reflecting the quality without a name and at last other patterns to
complete the given pattern. There is flexibility in the book that one can flip through it and
choose to study specific set of patterns of one’s own interest and develop the solution to
design problem. Many patterns are archetypal since they are adopted from specific places and
cities in the world. No single sequence can perfectly capture the complex network of the
pattern but each small sequence of pattern forms a language. The sequence of the patterns
provides the summary of the language as well as its index.

Throughout the book author’s inclination towards traditional methods of town and building
design is prominent with focus on shared values and customs further forming communities
and neighbourhoods. The author seems to be against the modernistic or contemporary
architecture approach of today for example in the pattern of “four story limit” the criticism of
high rise building is clearly visible and validified using references by the author that “high
buildings make people crazy” and lead to forced isolation and individual breakdowns
especially for the children and women who spend more time inside apartments the
connection between the street scene is lost above 4 four storey walk-ups.

The concept of “piecemeal growth” is highlighted in the book, that patterns at larger level do
not develop instantly but they grow in a incremental manner by grassroot action and every
individual act of building helps to shape larger global patterns. First 94 patterns deal with
towns and larger patterns in which the hierarchical planning process is proposed from lower
levels of social and political entity like family and neighbourhood to city council and regional
assembly. Each entity to be small and autonomous enough to be independent sphere of
culture.

The concept of “right size” comprising of given humanity density so that “human to human
link” is possible within the entity, people should not become remote from large scale process
of government by incorporating decentralisation of power and self -sufficiency. The
examples of right sizes are the region: 8,000,000 people, the major city: 500,000 people,
communities and small towns: 5-10,000 people each, neighbourhoods: 500-1000 people each,
house clusters and work communities: 30-50 people each and families and work groups: 1-15
people each ,all these numbers are ideals.

The patterns like (2) distribution of towns (3) city country fingers (4)agricultural valleys ,(5)
lace of country streets ,(6) country towns and (7) the countryside ,defining majorly that
people should spread in different types of settlement so that the imbalance between city and
country can be ruled out a pattern that number of big towns should be less and small towns
should be more in numbers spaced with proper distancing like big towns 80 miles apart and
small towns 8 miles apart. Everyone should be within 10 minutes walk of the countryside
dealing with the problem of “lost of open spaces” by use of (3) city country fingers. The
“definition of ethic” that there should be limitation on freedom of all and in struggle of
existence, differentiation between social and anti- social conduct. The realisation of
responsibility so that “no wilderness” is abandoned through stewardship.

Parks and camps are defined “artificial and plastic” which should be replaced by countryside.
examples include residences within forest, countryside serving as picnic places “greens for
everyone but with a responsibility”.

Pattern (8) mosaic of subcultures is multiple times used in book which stands for reason that
there should be “subcultures” which should not be lost in heterogeneity of the cities which
often lead to “identity crises” , weak character ,faceless and nameless leading the situation
when “ mixing all colours results in greys” but these colours should be separated to make the
statement through creation of physical or natural boundaries which are non-residential
between “subcultures” so that the subcultures can “flourish” in their own and give
opportunity to people to enjoy every subculture without getting lost in homogeneity. Patterns
like community of 7ooo (12), identifiable neighbourhood (14) and house cluster (37) some or
the other way make mosaic of subculture.

(9) scattered work ensuring that “life is not banished for 8 hours” making sure that where do
you live is not detached from where do you toil interweaving of land uses ,(19) web of
shopping (45) necklace of community projects, (28) eccentric nucleus and (46) market of
many shops all this is not possible without (16) web of public transportation through use of
patterns like preference of (34) interchange instead of lines and use of (20) mini-buses since
feeder services are always needed. Discouraging use of cars as they take 500 times more
space as compared to a person walking through patterns like (22) nine per cent parking which
reduces “parking spaces to minimum”.

(10) magic of the city lies where city life is most intense through enabling face to face
connections between the people by using patterns like (30) activity nodes, (31) promenade ,
(32) shopping street avoiding drab nature of supermarkets and the perquisite for all of them
is to make the streets pedestrian friendly discussed in pattern (100) pedestrian street. (33)
night life by making the dark “live” and full of “light” through dancing streets , casinos and
bars increasing (36) degrees of publicness which leads to lesser number of crimes .All
leading to increase in number of human interactions ,the value of which cannot be avoided.

Strong socio-spatial interplays are incorporated in almost all the patterns . one of the most
touching pattern is “ old people everywhere” stresses on equity that there should “age
distribution” within the settlement. Balance of people at every stage of life old people need
old people but they also need young people and the young people need them, infancy and old
age is a different kind of relation which should be preserved in patterns like (86) children
home.

The balance between genders through patterns like (27) men and women stating that no
activity in life is “purely feminine or purely masculine” so making places gender neutral , (9)
scattered work so , that work is meant for “masculine” kind of mentality which extremely
distorts the society is avoided and females can go to work too also need of (16) web of
public transportation is necessary for those who don’t drive like old age people, young
people or women.

The book is undoubtedly “do it yourself” manual for architecture and urban design, throws
light on deeply rooted “day to day human life intricacies” which often go unnoticed and
that’s why most widely read book and best seller in this genre . But can be criticised on
certain parameters of being too “idiosyncratic” at times calls for evolution but advocates the
“invariant” nature of the patterns. The study becomes “cumbersome” since network of pattern
is a complex with no presence of proper index and sometimes the hand drawn diagrammatic
solutions are “Illegible” .For being such a great book such kind of shortcomings can be
solved by the publisher.

A  Pattern Language is related to Alexander’s other works in the Center for Environmental
Structure series: The Timeless Way of Building (introductory volume) and The Oregon
Experiment.