살아있는 패턴과 죽은 패턴

Christopher Alexander on living or dead patterns.¹

…some towns and buildings are more full of life, and others less.

Of course, stress and conflict are a normal and healthy part of human life…. But a pattern which prevents us from resolving our conflicting forces, leaves us almost perpetually in a state of tension…. It is therefore clear that patterns play a concrete and objective role in determining the extent to which we come to life in any given place…. But, beyond that, patterns are not merely instruments which help us live: they are themselves alive or dead…. Good patterns are good because to some extent each one of them reaches the quality without a name itself.

The more living patterns there are in a thing - a room, a building, or a town - the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has this self-maintaining fire, which is the quality without a name.

Footnotes

1. Chapter 6 “Patterns which are alive”, The timeless way of building ↩