Patterns in a Living Building
Prepared for a Knowledge Wall for a DesignShopTM Event  from Writings by Christopher Alexander

 

In order to define the central quality of life in  buildings and in towns, we must begin by understanding that every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep on happening there.  These patterns of events are always interlocked with  certain geometric patterns in the space.  Indeed, as we shall see, each building and each town is ultimately made out of these patterns in the space and of nothing else: and they are the atoms and the molecules from which a building or a town is made.  The specific patterns out of which a building or a town is made may be alive or dead. To the extent they are alive, they let our inner forces loose, and set us free; but when they are dead, they keep us locked inner conflict.  The more living patterns are in place - a room, a  building, or a town - the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name. (Christopher ALexander, The Timeless Way of Building)


 

A Group of Buildings
This group of patterns helps to lay out the over all arrangement of a group of buildings:

Outside and Edges
Prepare to knit the inside of the building to the outside, by treating the edge between the two as a place in i ts own right, and making human details there: Volumes and Space
Within the buildings' wings, lay out the entrances, the gardens, courtyards, roofs, and terraces:  shape both the volume of the buildings and the volume between the buildings at the same time: Philosophy of Structure
Before you layout structural details, establish a philosophy of structure and work out the complete structural layout: Space and Movement
Within the various wings of any one building, work out the fundamental gradients of space, and decide how the movement will connect the spaces in the gradients: Important Areas
Within the framework of the wings and their internal gradients of space and movement, define the most important areas: Depth Perception
Give all the walls some depth, wherever there are to be alcoves, windows, shelves, closets, or seats: Variety
Fine tune the shape and size of rooms and alcoves to make them precise and buildable: Practical Precision
Attach necessary minor rooms and alcoves to complete the main rooms:
alcoves Subsidiaries
As you build the main frame and its openings, put in the following subsidiary patterns where they are appropriate: Completing the Effect
Complete the buildings with ornament, light and color: Adapted from A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander.

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