_____                                                     __   _   _            _                                              
     /\      / ____|                                                   / _| | | | |          | |                                             
    /  \    | (___  _   _ _ __ ___  _ __ ___   __ _ _ __ _   _    ___ | |_  | |_| |__   ___  | |     __ _ _ __   __ _ _   _  __ _  __ _  ___ 
   / /\ \    \___ \| | | | '_ ` _ \| '_ ` _ \ / _` | '__| | | |  / _ \|  _| | __| '_ \ / _ \ | |    / _` | '_ \ / _` | | | |/ _` |/ _` |/ _ \
  / ____ \   ____) | |_| | | | | | | | | | | | (_| | |  | |_| | | (_) | |   | |_| | | |  __/ | |___| (_| | | | | (_| | |_| | (_| | (_| |  __/
 /_/    \_\ |_____/ \__,_|_| |_| |_|_| |_| |_|\__,_|_|   \__, |  \___/|_|    \__|_| |_|\___| |______\__,_|_| |_|\__, |\__,_|\__,_|\__, |\___|
                                                          __/ |                                                  __/ |             __/ |     
                                                         |___/                                                  |___/             |___/

Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-KingShlomo Angel

NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1977

Find part two here

SUMMARY OF THE LANGUAGE

A pattern language has the structure of a network. This
is explained fully in The Timeless Way of Building.
However, when we use the network of a language, we
always use it as a sequence) going through the patterns,
moving always from the larger patterns to the smaller,
always from the ones which create structures, to the ones
which then embellish those structures, and then to those
which embellish the embellishments ....

Since the language is in truth a network, there is no
one sequence which perfectly captures it. But the se­
quence which follows, captures the broad sweep of the
full network; in doing so, it follows a line, dips down,
dips up again, and follows an irregular course, a little
like a needle following a tapestry.

The sequence of patterns is both a summary of the
language, and at the same time, an index to the patterns.
If you read through the sentences which connect the
groups of patterns to one another, you will get an over
­ view of the whole language. And once you get this over­
view, you will then be able to find the patterns which
are relevant to your own project.

And finally, as we shall explain in the next section,
this sequence of patterns is also the "base map," from
which you can make a language for your own project,
by choosing the patterns which are most useful to you,
and leaving them more or less in the order that you
find them printed here.

+ + +

We begin with that part of the language which defines
a town or community. These patterns can never be "de­
signed" or "built" in one fell swoop-but patient piece­
meal growth, designed in such a way that every indi­
vidual 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.

I. INDEPENDENT REGIONS

within each region work toward those regional policies
which will protect the land and mark the limits of the
cities;
through city policies, encourage the piecemeal forma­
tion of those major structures which define the city;

build up these larger city patterns from the grass roots,
through action essentially controlled by two levels of
self-governing communities, which exist as physically
identifiable places;

connect communities to one another by encouraging the
growth of the following networks;

establish community and neighborhood policy to con­
trol the character of the local environment according to
the following fundamental principles;

both in the neighborhoods and the communities, and m
between them, in the boundaries, encourage the forma­
tion of local centers;

around these centers, provide for the growth of housing
in the form of clusters, based on face-to-face human
groups;

between the house clusters, around the centers, and
especially in the boundaries between neighborhoods, en­
courage the formation of work communities;

between the house clusters and work communities, allow
the local road and path network to grow informally,
piecemeal;

in the communities and neighborhoods, provide public
open land where people can relax, rub shoulders and
renew themselves;

in each house cluster and work community, provide the
smaller bits of common land, to provide for local ver­
sions of the same needs;
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;

the workgroups, including all kinds of workshops and
offices and even children's learning groups;

This completes the global patterns which define a
town or a community. 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 "designed" or
"built"-the patterns which define the individual build­
ings and the space between buildings; where we are deal­
ing 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.
The first group of patterns helps to lay out the overall
arrangement of a group of buildings: