A Pattern Language

Last updated

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
A Pattern Language.jpg
AuthorChristopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein
SubjectArchitecture
PublisherOxford University Press
Publication date
1977;47 years ago (1977)
Pages1071
ISBN 0-19-501919-9
LC Class HT166.A6147
Preceded by The Oregon Experiment  
Followed by The Timeless Way of Building  

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction is a 1977 book on architecture, urban design, and community livability. It was authored by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein of the Center for Environmental Structure of Berkeley, California, with writing credits also to Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King and Shlomo Angel. Decades after its publication, it is still one of the best-selling books on architecture. [1]

Contents

The book creates a new language, what the authors call a pattern language derived from timeless entities called patterns. As they write on page xxxv of the introduction, "All 253 patterns together form a language." Patterns describe a problem and then offer a solution. In doing so the authors intend to give ordinary people, not only professionals, a way to work with their neighbors to improve a town or neighborhood, design a house for themselves or work with colleagues to design an office, workshop, or public building such as a school.

Structure

Written in the 1970s at the University of California, Berkeley, A Pattern Language is structured as a network, where each pattern may have a statement referenced to another pattern by placing that pattern's number in brackets, for example: (12) means go to the Community of 7,000 pattern.

It includes 253 patterns and is written as a set of problems and documented solutions.

According to the authors, the work originated from an observation:

At the core […] is the idea people should design their homes, streets, and communities. This idea […] comes from the observation most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects, but by the people.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, front bookflap

The book primarily describes its patterns verbally, but has supporting illustrations. It describes exact methods for constructing designs at every scale, from entire regions, through cities, neighborhoods, gardens, buildings, rooms, built-in furniture, and fixtures down to the level of doorknobs. The patterns are regarded by the authors not as infallible, but as hypotheses:

[…] each pattern represents our current best guess as to what arrangement of the physical environment will work to solve the problem presented. The empirical questions center on the problem—does it occur and is it felt in the way we describe it?—and the solution—does the arrangement we propose solve the problem? And the asterisks represent our degree of faith in these hypotheses. But of course, no matter what the asterisks say, the patterns are still hypotheses, all 253 of them—and are, therefore, all tentative, all free to evolve under the impact of new experience and observation.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, p. xv

Some patterns focus on materials:

We believe ultra-lightweight concrete is one of the most fundamental bulk materials of the future.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, p. 958

Other patterns focus on life experiences such as the Street Cafe (Pattern 88):

The street cafe provides a unique setting, special to cities: a place people can sit lazily, legitimately, be on view, and watch the world go by […]. Encourage local cafes to spring up in each neighborhood. Make them intimate places, with several rooms, open to a busy path, so people can sit with a coffee or a drink, and watch the world go by. Build the front of the cafe so a set of tables stretch out of the cafe, right into the street.

— Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, p. 437,439

Grouping these patterns, the authors say, they form a kind of language, each pattern forming a word or thought of a true language rather than a prescriptive way to design or solve a problem. As the authors write on p xiii, "Each solution is stated in such a way, it gives the essential field of relationships needed to solve the problem, but in a very general and abstract way—so you can solve the problem, in your way, by adapting it to your preferences, and the local conditions at the place you are making it."

According to the authors, all the patterns were tested in the real world and then reviewed by multiple architects for beauty and practicality. The patterns include provision for future modification and repair.

Reception

This book's method was adopted by the University of Oregon, as described in The Oregon Experiment , and remains the official planning instrument. [2] It is adopted, in part, by some government agents [ which? ] as a building code.[ citation needed ]

Alexander's conception of patterns, and pattern languages, were major factors in the creation of Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb, the first wiki, intended as an archive and discussion web application for the Portland Pattern Repository. [3]

The idea of a pattern language applies to many complex engineering tasks. It is especially influential in software engineering, where design patterns are used to document collective knowledge in the field. [4] [5] In that field, it was a major inspiration to Richard P. Gabriel before he wrote Patterns of Software. [6]

Will Wright cited the book as one of his inspirations for creating SimCity 2000 . [7]

Other titles in the series

The eight books in the Center for Environmental Structure Series are: [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Alexander</span> British-American architect (1936–2022)

Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, and sociology. Alexander designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor.

A design pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a design problem. The idea was introduced by the architect Christopher Alexander and has been adapted for various other disciplines, particularly software engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ward Cunningham</span> American computer programmer who developed the first wiki (born 1949)

Howard G. Cunningham is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki and was a co-author of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Termed a pioneer, and innovator, he also helped create both software design patterns and extreme programming. He began coding the WikiWikiWeb in 1994, and installed it on c2.com on March 25, 1995, as an add-on to the Portland Pattern Repository. He co-authored a book about wikis, entitled The Wiki Way, and invented the Framework for Integrated Test.

In software engineering, a design pattern describes a relatively small, well-defined aspect of a computer program in terms of how to write the code.

A pattern language is an organized and coherent set of patterns, each of which describes a problem and the core of a solution that can be used in many ways within a specific field of expertise. The term was coined by architect Christopher Alexander and popularized by his 1977 book A Pattern Language.

An anti-pattern in software engineering, project management, and business processes is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. The term, coined in 1995 by computer programmer Andrew Koenig, was inspired by the book Design Patterns and first published in his article in the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming. A further paper in 1996 presented by Michael Ackroyd at the Object World West Conference also documented anti-patterns.

Pattern in architecture is the idea of capturing architectural design ideas as archetypal and reusable descriptions. The term pattern in this context is usually attributed to Christopher Alexander, an Austrian born American architect. The patterns serve as an aid to design cities and buildings. The concept of having collections of "patterns", or typical samples as such, is much older. One can think of these collections as forming a pattern language, whereas the elements of this language may be combined, governed by certain rules.

The Portland Pattern Repository (PPR) is an online repository for computer programming software design patterns. It was accompanied by the website WikiWikiWeb, the world's first wiki. The repository has an emphasis on Extreme Programming, and is hosted by Cunningham & Cunningham (C2) of Portland, Oregon. The PPR's motto is "People, Projects & Patterns".

The concept of design paradigms derives from the rather ambiguous idea of paradigm originating in the sociology of science, which carries at least two main meanings:

<i>The Oregon Experiment</i> 1975 book

The Oregon Experiment is a 1975 book by Christopher Alexander and collaborators Murray Silverstein, Shlomo Angel, Sara Ishikawa, and Denny Abrams. It describes an experimental approach to campus community planning at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon which resulted in a theory of architecture and planning described in the group's later published and better-known volumes A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building.

<i>Notes on the Synthesis of Form</i> 1964 book by Christopher Alexander

Notes on the Synthesis of Form is a book by Christopher Alexander about the process of design.

Interaction design patterns are design patterns applied in the context human–computer interaction, describing common designs for graphical user interfaces.

An architectural pattern is a general, reusable resolution to a commonly occurring problem in software architecture within a given context. The architectural patterns address various issues in software engineering, such as computer hardware performance limitations, high availability and minimization of a business risk. Some architectural patterns have been implemented within software frameworks. There are two main categories of architectural patterns: monolithic and distributed.

Software analysis patterns or analysis patterns in software engineering are conceptual models, which capture an abstraction of a situation that can often be encountered in modelling. An analysis pattern can be represented as "a group of related, generic objects (meta-classes) with stereotypical attributes, behaviors, and expected interactions defined in a domain-neutral manner."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikos Salingaros</span> Greek-Australian-American mathematician, architecture theorist and polymath

Nikos Angelos Salingaros is a mathematician and polymath known for his work on urban theory, architectural theory, complexity theory, and design philosophy. He has been a close collaborator of the architect Christopher Alexander, with whom Salingaros shares a harsh critical analysis of conventional modern architecture. Like Alexander, Salingaros has proposed an alternative theoretical approach to architecture and urbanism that is more adaptive to human needs and aspirations, and that combines rigorous scientific analysis with deep intuitive experience.

Murray Silverstein co-authored the books A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment. At that time, he taught architecture courses at the University of California, and subsequently taught at the University of Washington. He had also written several articles on pattern languages. As a young designer, he worked for noted California architect Richard Neutra.

PALLAS stands for Parallel Applications, Libraries, Languages, Algorithms, and Systems. It is a research group in The Parallel Computing Laboratory of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at University of California, Berkeley, led by Professor Kurt Keutzer. The group believes that the productive development of applications for an emerging generation of highly parallel microprocessors is the preeminent programming challenge of our time. Its goal is to enable the productive development of efficient parallel applications by domain experts, not just parallel programming experts.

<i>The Timeless Way of Building</i> 1979 book by Christopher Alexander

The Timeless Way of Building is a 1979 book by Christopher Alexander that proposes a new theory of architecture that relies on the understanding and configuration of design patterns. Although it came out later, it is essentially the introduction to A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment, providing the philosophical background to the Center for Environmental Structure series.

Michael West Mehaffy is an urbanist, architectural theorist, urban philosopher, researcher, educator, and executive director of Sustasis Foundation, based in Portland, Oregon, USA.

A design system is a comprehensive set of standards, documentation, and reusable components that guide the development of digital products within an organization. It serves as a single source of truth for designers and developers, ensuring consistency and efficiency across projects. A Design system may comprise, pattern and component libraries; style guides for font, color, spacing, component dimensions, and placement; design languages, coded components, brand languages, and documentation. Design Systems aid in digital product design and development of products such as mobile applications or websites.

References

  1. ↑ review: Towards a New Science of Architecture, and a New Architecture of Science, KATARXIS No 3, London UK, September 2004
  2. ↑ University of Oregon Campus Plan -- Principle 11: Patterns. UO Campus Plan, Eugene, Oregon, 2018{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ↑ Bill Venners (October 20, 2003). "Exploring with Wiki: A Conversation with Ward Cunningham, Part I". artima developer. Archived from the original on February 5, 2015. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  4. ↑ Berna L. Massingill, Timothy G. Mattson, and Beverly A. Sanders (2000), A Pattern Language for Parallel Application Programs, Euro-Par 2000 Parallel Processing, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, ISBN   978-3-540-67956-1, pages 678–681, 2000
  5. ↑ Our Pattern Language Archived 2017-08-24 at the Wayback Machine An ongoing collaborative effort to construct a pattern language for parallel programming.
  6. ↑ Gabriel, Richard (1996). Patterns of Software: Tales from the Software Community . Oxford University Press, UK. p.  239. ISBN   0-19-512123-6.
  7. ↑ Kelly, Kevin. ""Will Wright: The Mayor of SimCity"". Wired.
  8. ↑ Oxford University Press page for the series
  9. ↑ Alexander, Christopher (1977). A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction . Oxford University Press, USA. p.  1216. ISBN   0-19-501919-9.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.