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Christopher Alexander’s pattern language

Definition:¹

A pattern language is a system which allows its users to create an infinite variety of those three dimensional combinations of patterns which we call buildings, gardens, towns.

The breakdown of language:²

But in our time the language have broken down. Since they are no longer shared, the process which keep them deep have broken down: and it is therefore virtually impossible for anybody, in our time, to make a building live…. Consider, for example, the language which generated my office at school: …

Long and narrow

Daylight at one end only

Window the full width of the wall

…

This terrible language has generated hundreds of offices…. It is therefore obvious that the mere use of pattern languages alone does not ensure that people can make places live.

In a town with a living language, the pattern language is so widely shared that everyone can use it…. The connection between the users and the act of building is direct…. The adaptation between people and buildings is profound…. But, by contrast, in the early phases of industrial society which we have experienced recently, the pattern language die…. Most people believe themselves incompetent to design anything and believe that it can only be done properly by architects and planners.

In panic, people try to replace the lost order of the organic process, by artificial forms of order based on control…. They try to control larger pieces of the environment (this is called urban design). They try to control more pieces of the environment (this is called mass production or system-building). They try to control the environment more firmly, by passing laws (this is called planning control).

Patterns which can be shared:³

To work our way toward a shared and living language once again, we must first learn how to discover patterns which are deep, and capable of generating life. If we hope to bring our towns and buildings back to life, we must begin to re-create our languages, in such a way that all of us can use them…. In order to make patterns explicit, so that they can be shared in this new way, we must first of all review the very complex structure of a pattern.

Each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution.

As an element in the world, each pattern is a relationship between a certain context, a certain system of forces which occurs repeatedly in that context, and a certain spatial configuration which allows these forces to resolve themselves. As an element of language, a pattern is an instruction, which shows how this spatial configuration can be used, over and over again, to resolve the given system of forces, wherever the context makes it relevant. The pattern is, in short, at the same time a thing, which happens in the world, and the rule which tells us how to create that thing; both a description of a thing which is alive, and a description of the process which will generate that thing.

Footnotes

Chapter 10 “Our pattern languages”, The timeless way of building ↩
Chapter 13 “The breakdown of language”, The timeless way of building ↩
Chapter 14 “Patterns which can be shared”, The timeless way of building ↩