Christopher alexander - A pattern language

2. It is essential to work on the site, where the project is to be built; inside the room that is to be remodeled; on the land where the building is to go up; and so forth. And as far as possible, work with the people that are actually going to use the place when it is finished: if you are the user, all the better. But, above all, work on the site, stay on the site, let the site tell you its secrets.

3. Remember too, that the form will grow gradually as you go through the sequence, beginning as something very loose and amorphous, gradually becoming more and more complicated, more refined and more differentiated, more finished. Don’t rush this process. Don’t

BUILDINGS

give the form more order than it needs to meet the patterns and the conditions of the site, each step of the way. In effect, as you build each pattern into the design, you will experience a single gestalt that is gradually becoming more and more coherent.

4. Take one pattern at a time. Open the page to the first one and read it again. The pattern statement describes the ways in which other patterns either influence this pattern, or are influenced by it. For now , this information is useful only in so far as it helps you to envision the one 'pattern before you , as a whole.

5. Now, try to imagine how, on your particular site, you can establish this pattern. Stand on the site with your eyes closed. Imagine how things might be, if the pattern, as you have understood it, had suddenly sprung up there overnight. Once you have an image of how it might be, walk about the site, pacing out approximate areas, marking the walls, using string and cardboard, and putting stakes in the ground, or loose stones, to mark the important corners.

6. Complete your thought about this pattern, before you go on to the next one. This means you must treat the pattern as an “entity”; and try to conceive of this entity, entire and whole, before you start creating any other patterns.

7. The sequence of the language will guarantee that you will not have to make enormous changes which cancel out your earlier decisions. Instead, the changes you make will get smaller and smaller, as you build in more and more patterns, like a series of progressive refinements, until you finally have a complete design.

8. Since you are building up your design, one pattern

464

BUILDINGS

at a time, it is essential to keep your design as fluid as possible, while you go from pattern to pattern. As you use the patterns, one after another, you will find that you keep needing to adjust your design to accommodate new patterns. It is important that you do this in a loose and relaxed way, without getting the design more fixed than necessary, and without being afraid to make changes. The design can change as it needs to, so long as you maintain the essential relationships and characteristics which earlier patterns have prescribed. You will see that it is possible to keep these essentials constant, and still make minor changes in the design. As you include each new pattern, you readjust the total gestalt of your design, to bring it into line with the pattern you are working on.

9. While you are imagining how to establish one pattern, consider the other patterns listed with it. Some are larger. Some are smaller. For the larger ones, try to see how they can one day be present in the areas you are working on, and ask yourself how the pattern you are now building can contribute to the repair or formation of these larger patterns.

10. For the smaller ones, make sure that your conception of the main pattern will allow you to make these smaller patterns within it later. It will probably be helpful if you try to decide roughly how you are going to build these smaller patterns in, when you come to them.

11. Keep track of the area from the very beginning so that you are always reasonably close to something you can actually afford. We have had many experiences in which people try to design their own houses, or other buildings, and then get discouraged because the final cost

465

TOWNS

the traffic department based on the arguments presented in the pattern, and on an analysis of the existing street pattern.

Another group wanting to build a small communal workshop, in a neighborhood currently zoned for residential use only, can argue their case based on scattered work, settled work,etc., and possibly get the city or zoning department to change the zoning regulation on this matter, and thereby slowly work toward introducing patterns, one at a time within the current framework of codes and zoning.

We have worked out a partial version of this process at the Eugene campus of the University of Oregon. That work is described in Volume 3, The Oregon Experiment. But a university is quite different from a town, because it has a single centralized owner, and a single source of funds. It is inevitable, therefore, that the process by which individual acts can work together to form larger wholes without restrictive planning from above, can only partly be put into practice there.

The theory which explains how large patterns can be built piecemeal from smaller ones, is given in Chapters 24 and 25 of The Timeless Way of Building.

At some time in the future, we hope to write another volume, which explains the political and economic processes needed to implement this process fully, in a town.

7

BUILDINGS

is too high, and they have to go back and change it.

To do this, decide on a budget, and use a reasonable average square foot cost, to translate this budget into square feet of construction. Say for the sake of argument, that you have a budget of $30,000 for construction. With help from builders, find out what kind of square foot cost is reasonable for the kind of building you are making. For example, in 1976, in California, a reasonable house, compatible with the patterns in the last part of the language, can be built for some $28/ square foot. If you want expensive finishes, it will be more. With $36,000 for construction, this will give you some 1300 square feet.

12. Now, throughout the design process, keep this 1300-square-foot figure in mind. If you go to two stories, keep the ground area to 650 square feet. If you use only part of the upstairs volume, the ground floor can go as high as 800 or 900 square feet. If you decide to build rather elaborate outdoor rooms, walls, trellises, reduce the indoor area to make up for these outdoor costs— perhaps down to 1100 or 1200. And, each time you use a pattern to differentiate the layout of your building further, keep this total area in mind, so that you do not, ever, allow yourself to go beyond your budget.

13. Finally, make the essential points and lines which are needed to fix the pattern, on the site with bricks, or sticks or stakes. Try not to design on paper; even in the case of complicated buildings find a way to make your marks on the site.

More detailed instructions, and detailed examples of the design process in action, are given in chapters 20, 21, and 22 of The Timeless Way of Building.

466

The first group of patterns helps to lay out the overall arrangement of a group of buildings: the height and number of these buddings , the entrances to the sitCy main parking areas yand lines of movement through the complex ;

95 BUILDING COMPLEX**

468