This page is a marked up version of the openly accesible web site with patterns from the book " Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)" by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, 1977.  The markup reflects elements of the patterns that may be relevant to design of the VCE environment 3D Space.

A Pattern Language

Summary of a book by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, with Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King and Shlomo Angel. Published by Oxford University Press. The original book contains much essential detail behind each of the following patterns and is recommended reading.

We begin with that part of the language which defines a town or community. These patterns can never be "designed" or "built" in one fell swoop- but patient piecemeal growth, designed in such a way that every individual act is always helping to create or generate these larger global patterns, will, slowly and surely, over the years, make a community that has these global patterns in it.

Do what you can to establish a world government, with a thousand independent regions, instead of countries.

 TOWNS 

   1. Independent Regions

With each region work toward those regional policies which will protect the land and mark the limits of the cities.

   2. The Distribution of Towns

   3. City Country Fingers

   4. Agricultural Valleys

   5. Lace of Country Streets

   6. Country Towns

   7. The Countryside

Through city policies, encourage the piecemeal formation of those major structures which define the city.

   8. Mosaic of Subcultures

   9. Scattered Work

  10. Magic of the City

  11. Local Transport Areas

Build up these larger city patterns from the grass roots, through action essentially controled by two levels of self-governing communities, which exist as physically identifiable places.

  12. Community of 7000

  13. Subculture Boundary

  14. Identifiable Neighbourhood

  15. Neighbourhood Boundary

Connect communities to one another by encouraging the growth of networks.

  16. Web of Public Transportation

  17. Ring Roads

  18. Network of Learning

  19. Web of Shopping

  20. Mini-Buses

Establish community and neighborhood policy to control the character of the local environment according to the following fundamental principles.

  21. Four-Story Limit

  22. Nine Percent Parking

  23. Parallel Roads

  24. Sacred Sites

  25. Access to Water

  26. Life Cycle

  27. Men and Women

Both in the neighborhoods and the communities, and in between them, in the boundaries, encourage the formation of local centers.

  28. Eccentric Nucleus

  29. Density Rings

  30. Activity Nodes

  31. Promenade

  32. Shopping Street

  33. Night Life

  34. Interchange

Around these centers, provide for the growth of housing in the form of clusters, based on face-to-face human groups.

  35. Household Mix

  36. Degrees of Publicness

  37. House Cluster

  38. Row Houses

  39. Housing Hill

  40. Old People Everywhere

Between the house clusters, around the centers, and especially in the boundaries between neighborhoods, encourage the formation of work communities;

  41. Work Community

  42. Industrial Ribbon

  43. University as a marketplace

  44. Local Town Hall

  45. Necklace of Community Projects

  46. Market of Many Shops

  47. Health Center

  48. Housing Inbetween

Between the house clusters and work communities, allow the local road and path network to grow informally, piecemeal.

  49. Looped Local Roads

  50. T Junctions

  51. Green Streets

  52. Network of Paths and Cars

  53. Main Gateways

  54. Road Crossing

  55. Raised Walk

  56. Bike Paths and Racks

  57. Children in the City

In the communities and neighborhoods, provide public open land where people can relax, run shoulders and renew themselves.

  58. Carnival

  59. Quiet Backs

  60. Accessible Green

  61. Small Public Squares

  62. High Places

  63. Dancing in the Street

  64. Pools and Streams

  65. Birth Places

  66. Holy Ground

In each house cluster and work community, provide the smaller bits of common land, to provide for local versions of the same needs.

  67. Common Land

  68. Connected Play

  69. Public Outdoor Room

  70. Grave Sites

  71. Still Water

  72. Local Sports

  73. Adventure Playground

  74. Animals

Within the framework of the common land, the clusters, and the work communities encourage transformation of the smallest independent social institutions: the families, workgroups, and gathering places. the family, in all its forms.

  75. The Family

  76. House for a Small Family

  77. House for a Couple

  78. House for One Person

  79. Your Own Home

The workgroups, including all kinds of workshops and offices and even children's learning groups.

  80. Self-Governing Workshops and Offices

  81. Small Services without Red Tape

  82. Office Connections

  83. Master and Apprentices

  84. Teenage Society

  85. Shopfront Schools

  86. Children's Home

The local shops and gathering places.

  87. Individually Owned Shops

  88. Street Café

  89. Corner Grocery

  90. Beer Hall

  91. Traveller's Inn

  92. Bus Stop

  93. Food Stands

BUILDINGS 

We now start that part of the language which gives shape to groups of buildings, and individual buildings, on the land, in three dimensions. These are the patterns which can be "desiged" or "built"- the patterns which define the indivual buildings and the space between buildings; where we are dealing for the first time with patterns that are under the control of individuals or small groups of individuals, who are able to build the patterns all at once.

Layout the overall arrangement of a group of buildings: the height and nuber of these buildings, the enterances to the site, main parking areas, and lines of movement through the complex.

  95. Building Complex

  96. Number of Stories

  97. Shielded Parking

  98. Circulation Realms

  99. Main Building

 100. Pedestrian Street 

 101. Building Thoroughfare

 102. Family of Entrances

 103. Small Parking Lots

Fix the position of individual buildings on the site, within the complex, one by one, according to the nature of the site, the trees, the sun: this is oneof the most important moments in the language.

 104. Site Repair

 105. South Facing Outdoors

 106. Positive Outdoor Space

 107. Wings of Light

 108. Connected Buildings

 109. Long Thin House

Within the buildings' wings, lay out the entrances, the gardens, courtyards, roofs, and terraces: shape both the volume of the buildings and the volume of the space between the buildings at the same time- remembering that indoor space and outdoor space, yin and yang, must always get their shape together.

  110. Main Entrance

 111. Half-hidden Garden

  112. Entrance Transition

  113. Car Connection

 114. Hierarchy of Open Space 

 115. Courtyards which Live 

 116. Cascade of Roofs 

 117. Sheltering Roof

 118. Roof Garden

When the major parts of buildings and the outdoor areas have been given their rough shape, it is the right time to give more detailed attention to the paths and squares between the buildings.

 121. Path Shape

 122. Building Fronts

 123. Pedestrian Density

 124. Activity Pockets

 125. Stair Seats

 126. Something roughly in the Middle

Now, with the paths fixed, we come back to the buildings: within the various wings of any onebuilding, work out the fundamental gradients of space, and decide how the movement will connect the spaces in the gradients.

 127. Intimacy Gradient

 128. Indoor Sunlight

 129. Common Areas at the Heart 

 130. Entrance Room

 131.The Flow through Rooms

 132. Short Passages

 133. Staircase as a Stage

 134. Zen View

 135. Tapestry of Light and Dark

Within the framwork of the wings and their internal gradients of space and movement, define the most important areas and rooms. First, for a house.

 136. Couple's Realm

 137. Childrens Realm

 138. Sleeping to the East

 139. Farmhouse Kitchen

 140. Private Terrace on the Street

 141. A Room of One's Own

 142. Sequence of Sitting Spaces

 143. Bed Cluster

 144. Bathing Room

 145. Bulk Storage

Then the same for offices, workshops, and public buildings.

 146. Flexible Office Space

 147. Communal Eating

 148. Small Work Groups

 149. Reception Welcomes You

 150. A place to Wait

 151. Small Meeting Rooms

 152. Half-Private Office

Add those small outbuildings which must be slightly independent from the main structure, and put in the access from the upper stories to the street and gardens.

 153. Rooms to Rent

 154. Teenager's Cottage

 155. Old Age Cottage

 156. Settled Work

 157. Home Workshop

 158. Open Stairs

Prepare to knit the inside of the building to the outside, by treating the edge between the two as a place in its own right, and making human details there.

 159. Light on two sides of every Room

 160. Building Edge

 161. Sunny Place

 162. North Face

 163. Outdoor Room

 164. Street Windows

 165. Opening to the Street

 166. Gallery Surround

 167. Six-Foot Balcony

 168. Connection to the Earth

Decide on the arrangement of the gardens, and the places in the gardens.

 169. Terraced Slope

 170. Fruit Trees

 171. Tree Places

 172. Garden Growing Wild

 173. Garden Wall

 174. Trellised Walk

 175. Greenhouse

 176. Garden Seat

 177. Vegetable Garden

 178. Compost

Go back inside the building and attatch the necessary minor rooms and alcoves to complete the main rooms.

  179. Alcoves

 180. Window Place

 181. The Fire

 182. Eating Atmosphere

 183. Workspace Enclosures

 184. Cooking Layout

 185. Sitting Circle

 186. Communal Sleeping

 187. Marriage Bed

 188. Bed Alcove

 189. Dressing Room

Fine tune the shape and size of rooms and alcoves to make them precise and buildable.

  190. Ceiling Height Variety

 191. The Shape of Indoor Space

 192. Windows Overlooking Life

 193. Half-Open Wall

 194. Interior Windows

 195. Staircase Volume

 196. Corner Doors

Give all the walls some depth, wherever there are to be alcoves, windows, shelves, closets or seats.

 197. Thick Walls

 198. Closets Between Rooms

 199. Sunny Counter

 200. Open Shelves

 201. Waist-High Shelf

 202. Built-In Seats

 203. Child Caves

CONSTRUCTION 

The last part of the language, tells how to make a buildable building, directly from this rough scheme of space, and tells you how to build it, in detail.

Before you lay out structural details, establish a philosphy of structure which will let the structure grow directly from your plans and your conception of the buildings.

 205. Structure Follows Social Spaces

 206. Efficient Structure

 207. Good Materials

 208. Gradual Stiffening

Within this philosphy of structure, on the basis of the plans which you have made, work out the complete strutural layout; this is the last thing you do on paper, before you actually start to build.

 209. Roof Layout

 210. Floor and Ceiling Layout

 211. Thickening the Outer Walls

 212. Columns at the Corners

 213. Final Column Distribution

Put the stakes in the ground to mark the columns on the site, and start erecting the main frame of the building according to the layout of these stakes.

 214. Root Foundations

 215. Ground Floor Slab

 216. Box Columns

 217. Perimeter Beams

 218. Wall Membranes

 219. Floor-Ceiling Vaults

 220. Roof Vaults

Within the main frame of the building, fix the exact positions for openings- the doors and windows- and frame these openings.

 221. Natural Doors and Windows

 222. Low Sill

 223. Deep Reveals

 224. Low Doorway

 225. Frames as Thickened Edges

As you build the main frame and its openings, put in the following subsidiary patterns where they are appropriate.

 226. Column Place

 227. Column Connection

 228. Stair Vault

 229. Duct Space

 230. Radiant Heat

 231. Dormer Windows

 232. Roof Caps

Put in the surfaces and indoor details

 233. Floor Surface

 234. Lapped Outside Walls

 235. Soft Inside Walls

 236. Windows which Open Wide

 237. Solid Doors with Glass

 238. Filtered Light

 239. Small Panes

 240. Half-inch Trim

Build outdoor details to finish the outdoors as fully as the indoor spaces.

 241. Seat Spots

 242. Front Door Bench

 243. Sitting Wall

 244. Canvas Roofs

 245. Raised Flowers

 246. Climbing Plants

 247. Paving with Cracks between the Stones

 248. Soft Tile and Brick

Complete the buildings with ornament and light and color and your own things.

 249. Ornament

 250. Warm Colors

 251. Different Chairs

 252. Pools of Light

 253. Things from Your Life