You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

PATTERN LANGUAGE.

Today I listened to a lecture by my former mentor, Christopher Alexander. He was giving a talk to the leaders of the information age in Silicon Valley. He was telling about his development of The Pattern Language and subsequent work over the 25 years since I last had contact with him. The Pattern Language is a method of itemizing the best design practices for architectural and planning projects.

Over the Summer of 1970, while on vacation from my teaching job at the University of Kansas, I took a position of research assistant in Chris’ office. I was one of two volunteer researchers that summer providing the on site studies needed to formulate a pattern language for a new Berkeley City Hall. We observed the staff of Berkeley City Hall as they performed their work tasks. Two of us were to describe the tasks, the procedures, and physical setting used to accomplish them. We would then describe the key elements of each task and how the setting supported that task. We would also make suggestions for ways to improve each setting to make it ideal for the tasks being performed there. Our findings and suggestions were used by Chris and his regular staff of four to formulate the final patterns. Chris’s office was located in a craftsman style house in a residential neighborhood near the Berkeley campus of The University of California. The house was well suited for the casual organization of the office. The living room was where, after work, we would relax, often with someone playing the piano, to talk about the insights of the day. The dining room was for lunch and meetings. Chris and his regular staff had their desks in bedrooms on the second floor. The kitchen was for making lunch. Lunch was an especially enjoyable time there. Each day the lunch was prepared by one of the seven of us on a rotating basis. We all ate around the dining room table. One wall of the dining room had windows looking onto a tangle of overgrown landscaping. The lunch hour or hour and a half, was spent in intense discussion of some issue regarding the formulation of a pattern or set of patterns. In addition to patterns describing specific settings, such as I was developing for the city hall, there were general patterns. These were philosophical concepts guiding the over-all design process. Chris and his staff seemed to be more interested in these than in design concepts for specific settings. Chris addressed the distinction between these two types of patterns in the lecture I watched today. At the time I was in his office, these general patterns seemed to me to be of little value in guiding an architect in his design, whereas the setting patterns, being descriptions presented specifics the design of workstations and other settings. As such, they would serve as proscriptive descriptions of each setting’s features. I worked there with Chris, for more than two months. During this period my colleague and I completed the research phase of programming for the Berkeley City Hall. In mid August I returned to the University of Kansas. It was an exhilarating experience which enriched my life’s work. The most memorable aspects of the summer were:My research work toward compiling patterns for a city hall,Sharing a one bedroom apartment with three strangers, The events of the 4th of July weekend, 1970. and, Lunches with Chris and his staff.

As a teacher of architecture I frequently encouraged my students to think in terms of design patterns. I had a research project while at the University of Kansas, developing a set of patterns for residential kitchens using the techniques learned over the Summer with Chris. While teaching in Saudi Arabia, I taught architectural programming. The pattern language approach was a central part of that course. I have used this approach in my own design work. I believe that the use of descriptive design patterns such as described in his book, The Pattern Language, is a practical way to guide good functional design. The lecture I heard today was a shock to me because in it I learned Chris had all but abandoned the pattern language shortly after the summer I spent in his office. The Lecture occurred in 1996, 30 years ago. In it, Chris described his development of a pattern language “in the late 1960s to early 1970s.” After that his interest turned to the practice of architecture and teaching. He continued to follow his interest in finding a way to guide architects and other designers but his focus was no longer on design patterns for built settings. Which he described as “static” and only good to develop individual buildings. Instead his focus was on those more general, philosophical patterns. Those, he said, were the way to influence the future of design in the direction of promoting “living places”. His belief, and of those who continued to work with him, was that to be a living places had to be more than ideally functional, they had to have another quality which he described as “living”. A concept which he felt had the power to transform the way humanity designs its environments. He alluded to “living places” as places built in primitive times, when those who lived in a place were the ones who conceived of, and built them to suit their lives most harmoniously. Alexander wrapped up his 45 minute lecture imploring the computer world executives to set aside the objectives of their clients, and instead to focus on guiding the design world to make the design of “living places” a reality around the world.

I went away from watching this lecture, shaking my head. Chris had failed to adequately describe what constituted a living place. My opinion is that he turned away from his solid contribution, the formulation of The Pattern Language, and was swept up into a woo-woo world of a vaguely conceived notion that things can transcend function to be alive.

Chris died in Great Britain in 2022 at the age of 86.

Video of Chris’ talk is online at:

Christopher Alexander, Patterns Architecture (OOPSLA 1996)