A Pattern Language is a profound book which suggests one of the methods to generate alternative solutions for any given architectural design problem. It is the second book in a series by Christopher Alexander in late 1970’s after publishing The Timeless Way of Building.
In the first book he observes that town and buildings will not be able to come alive, unless they are made by the people in the society and a common language. His second book emphasis on the elements of this language identified as patterns. Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repetitively in our environment, and then explains the core solution to problem in such a way that it can be used number of times without repeating it same way twice.
To have the central idea and clarity of connections, patterns have been structured in a strong presentation format. Each title has a sequence of an archetypical picture, introductory paragraph, divider mark, problem in bold headlines, empirical background work, key solution in bold headline, justified diagram, divider mark, and a list of patterns.
There are 253 identified patterns. All these patterns are hierarchically ordered in a linear sequence considering the scale. They begin with very large region and town and then working down to neighborhood, cluster of buildings, building, rooms, alcoves and end with details of construction. In a sequence of order, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern is connected by a larger patterns above and smaller patterns below. This is a fundamental viewpoint of the world by Christopher Alexander. He says that when you build a thing you can not merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at one place becomes more coherent, and more whole, and the thing which you may takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.
Apart from architecture, a method suggested in pattern language has been realized in other design disciplines also. Especially, it has influenced greater in the fields of computer science such as software development, human-computer interaction, interaction design, web design, and so forth. To an extent it has also been referred in some pedagogical development projects.
PATTERN LANGUAGE:
A Pattern Language is a profound book which suggests one of the methods to generate alternative solutions for any given architectural design problem. It is the second book in a series by Christopher Alexander in late 1970’s after publishing The Timeless Way of Building.
In the first book he observes that town and buildings will not be able to come alive, unless they are made by the people in the society and a common language. His second book emphasis on the elements of this language identified as patterns. Each pattern describes a problem which occurs repetitively in our environment, and then explains the core solution to problem in such a way that it can be used number of times without repeating it same way twice.
To have the central idea and clarity of connections, patterns have been structured in a strong presentation format. Each title has a sequence of an archetypical picture, introductory paragraph, divider mark, problem in bold headlines, empirical background work, key solution in bold headline, justified diagram, divider mark, and a list of patterns.
There are 253 identified patterns. All these patterns are hierarchically ordered in a linear sequence considering the scale. They begin with very large region and town and then working down to neighborhood, cluster of buildings, building, rooms, alcoves and end with details of construction. In a sequence of order, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern is connected by a larger patterns above and smaller patterns below. This is a fundamental viewpoint of the world by Christopher Alexander. He says that when you build a thing you can not merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at one place becomes more coherent, and more whole, and the thing which you may takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.
Apart from architecture, a method suggested in pattern language has been realized in other design disciplines also. Especially, it has influenced greater in the fields of computer science such as software development, human-computer interaction, interaction design, web design, and so forth. To an extent it has also been referred in some pedagogical development projects.
