Volume I, The Timeless Way of Building, and Volume 2, A Pattern Language, are two halves of a single work. This book provides a language, for building and planning; the other book provides the theory and instructions for the use of the language. This book describes the detailed patterns for towns and neighborhoods, houses, gardens, and rooms. The other book explains the discipline which makes it possible to use these patterns to create a building or a town. This book is the sourcebook of the timeless way; the other is its practice and its origin.
The two books have evolved very much in parallel. They have been growing over the last eight years, as we have worked on the one hand to understand the nature of the building process, and on the other hand to construct an actual, possible pattern language. We have been forced by practical considerations, to publish these two books under separate covers; but in fact, they form an indivisible whole. It is possible to read them separately. But to gain the insight which we have tried to communicate in them, it is essential that you read them both.
The Timeless Way of Building describes the fundamental nature of the task of making towns and buildings. It is shown there, that towns and buildings will not be able to become alive, unless they are made by all the people in society, and unless these people share a common pattern language, within which to make these buildings, and unless this common pattern language is alive itself.
In this book, we present one possible pattern language, of the kind called for in The Timeless Way. This language is extremely practical. It is a language that we have distilled from our own building and planning efforts over the last eight years. You can use it to work with your neighbors, to improve your town and neighborhood. You can use it to design a house for yourself, with your family; or to work with other people to design an office or a workshop or a public building like a school. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction.
The elements of this language are entities called patterns. Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.
For convenience and clarity, each pattern has the same format. First, there is a picture, which shows an archetypal example of that pattern. Second, after the picture, each pattern has an introductory paragraph, which sets the context for the pattern, by explaining how it helps to complete certain larger patterns. Then there are three diamonds to mark the beginning of the problem. After the diamonds there is a headline, in bold type. This headline gives the essence of the problem in one or two sentences. After the headline comes the body of the problem. This is the longest section. It describes the empirical background of the pattern, the evidence for its validity, the range of different ways the pattern can be manifested in a building, and so on. Then, again in bold type, like the headline, is the solution—the heart of the pattern—which describes the field of physical and social relationships which are required to solve the stated problem, in the stated context. This solution is always stated in the form of an instruction—so that you know exactly what you need to do, to build the pattern. Then, after the solution, there is a diagram, which shows the solution in the form of a diagram, with labels to indicate its main components.
After the diagram, another three diamonds, to show that the main body of the pattern is finished. And finally, after the diamonds there is a paragraph which ties the pattern to all those smaller patterns in the language, which are needed to complete this pattern, to embellish it, to fill it out.
There are two essential purposes behind this format. First, to present each pattern connected to other patterns, so that you grasp the collection of all 253 patterns as a whole, as a language, within which you can create an infinite variety of combinations. Second, to present the problem and solution of each pattern in such a way that you can judge it for yourself, and modify it, without losing the essence that is central to it.
Let us next understand the nature of the connection between patterns.
The patterns are ordered, beginning with the very largest, for regions and towns, then working down through neighborhoods, clusters of buildings, buildings, rooms and alcoves, ending finally with details of construction.
This order, which is presented as a straight linear sequence, is essential to the way the language works. It is presented, and explained more fully, in the next section. What is most important about this sequence, is that it is based on the connections between the patterns. Each pattern is connected to certain “larger” patterns which come above it in the language; and to certain “smaller” patterns which come below it in the language. The pattern helps to complete those larger patterns which are “above” it, and is itself completed by those smaller patterns which are “below” it.
Thus, for example, you will find that the pattern accessible green (60), is connected first to certain larger patterns: subculture boundary (13), identifiable neighborhood (14), work community (41), and quiet backs (59). These appear on its first page. And it is also connected to certain smaller patterns: positive outdoor space (107), tree places (171), and garden wall (173). These appear on its last page.
What this means, is that identifiable neighborhood, subculture boundary, work community, and quiet backs are incomplete, unless they contain an accessible green; and that an accessible green is itself incomplete, unless it contains positive outdoor space, tree places, and a garden wall.
And what it means in practical terms is that, if you want to lay out a green according to this pattern, you must not only follow the instructions which describe the pattern itself, but must also try to embed the green within an identifiable neighborhood or in some subculture boundary, and in a way that helps to form quiet backs; and then you must work to complete the green by building in some positive outdoor space, tree places, and a garden wall.
In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world, only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it. This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.
Now we explain the nature of the relation between problems and solutions, within the individual patterns. Each solution is stated in such a way that it gives the essential field of relationships needed to solve the prob lem, but in a very general and abstract way—so that you can solve the problem for yourself, in your own way, by adapting it to your preferences, and the local conditions at the place where you are making it.
For this reason, we have tried to write each solution in a way which imposes nothing on you. It contains only those essentials which cannot be avoided if you really want to solve the problem. In this sense, we have tried, in each solution, to capture the invariant property common to all places which succeed in solving the problem.
But of course, we have not always succeeded. The solutions we have given to these problems vary in significance. Some are more true, more profound, more certain, than others. To show this clearly we have marked every pattern, in the text itself, with two asterisks, or one asterisk, or no asterisks. In the patterns marked with two asterisks, we believe that we have succeeded in stating a true invariant: in short, that the solution we have stated summarizes a property common to all possible ways of solving the stated problem. In these two—asterisk cases we believe, in short, that it is not possible to solve the stated problem properly, without shaping the environment in one way or another according to the pattern that we have given—and that, in these cases, the pattern describes a deep and inescapable property of a well-formed environment.
In the patterns marked with one asterisk, we believe that we have made some progress towards identifying such an invariant: but that with careful work it will certainly be possible to improve on the solution. In these cases, we believe it would be wise for you to treat the pattern with a certain amount of disrespect—and that you seek out variants of the solution which we have given, since there are almost certainly possible ranges of solutions which are not covered by what we have written.
Finally, in the patterns without an asterisk, we are certain that we have not succeeded in defining a true invariant—that, on the contrary, there are certainly ways of solving the problem different from the one which we have given. In these cases we have still stated a solution, in order to be concrete—to provide the reader with at least one way of solving the problem—but the task of finding the true invariant, the true property which lies at the heart of all possible solutions to this problem, remains undone.
We hope, of course, that many of the people who read, and use this language, will try to improve these patterns—will put their energy to work, in this task of finding more true, more profound invariants—and we hope that gradually these more true patterns, which are slowly discovered, as time goes on, will enter a common language, which all of us can share.
You see then that the patterns are very much alive and evolving. In fact, if you like, each pattern may be looked upon as a hypothesis like one of the hypotheses of science. In this sense, each pattern represents our current best guess as to what arrangement of the physical environment will work to solve the problem presented. The empirical questions center on the problem—does it occur and is it felt in the way we have described it?—and the solution—does the arrangement we propose in fact resolve the problem? And the asterisks represent our degree of faith in these hypotheses. But of course, no matter what the asterisks say, the patterns are still hypotheses, all 253 of them—and are therefore all tentative, all free to evolve under the impact of new experience and observation.
Let us finally explain the status of this language, why we have called it “A Pattern Language” with the emphasis on the word “A,” and how we imagine this pattern language might be related to the countless thousands of other languages we hope that people will make for themselves, in the future.
The Timeless Way of Building says that every society which is alive and whole, will have its own unique and distinct pattern language; and further, that every individual in such a society will have a unique language, shared in part, but which as a totality is unique to the mind of the person who has it. In this sense, in a healthy society there will be as many pattern languages as there are people—even though these languages are shared and similar.
The question then arises: What exactly is the status of this published language? In what frame of mind, and with what intention, are we publishing this language here? The fact that it is published as a book means that many thousands of people can use it. Is it not true that there is a danger that people might come to rely on this one printed language, instead of developing their own languages, in their own minds?
The fact is, that we have written this book as a first step in the society-wide process by which people will gradually become conscious of their own pattern languages, and work to improve them. We believe, and have explained in The Timeless Way of Building, that the languages which people have today are so brutal, and so fragmented, that most people no longer have any language to speak of at all—and what they do have is not based on human, or natural considerations.
We have spent years trying to formulate this language, in the hope that when a person uses it, he will be so impressed by its power, and so joyful in its use, that he will understand again, what it means to have a living language of this kind. If we only succeed in that, it is possible that each person may once again embark on the construction and development of his own language—perhaps taking the language printed in this book, as a point of departure.
And yet, we do believe, of course, that this language which is printed here is something more than a manual or a teacher, or a version of a possible pattern language. Many of the patterns here are archetypal—so deep, so deeply rooted in the nature of things, that it seems likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years, as they are today. We doubt very much whether anyone could construct a valid pattern language, in his own mind, which did not include the pattern arcades (119) for example, or the pattern alcoves (179).
In this sense, we have also tried to penetrate, as deep as we are able, into the nature of things in the environment: and hope that a great part of this language, which we print here, will be a core of any sensible human pattern language, which any person constructs for himself, in his own mind. In this sense, at least a part of the language we have presented here, is the archetypal core of all possible pattern languages, which can make people feel alive and human.