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