See the README for an explanation and discussion about this project and how to use it.

The Patterns

A pattern language has the structure of a network. […] The sequence of patterns is both a summary of the language, and at the same time, an index to the patterns. — p. xviii

Town Patterns

We begin with that part of the language which defines a town or community. These patterns can never be designed or built in one fell swoop — but patient piecemeal growth, designed in such a way that every individual 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. — p. xix

Network of Lattices

Do what you can to establish a world government, with a thousand independent regions, instead of countries;

Independent Regions

Regional Policies

Within each region work toward those regional policies which will protect the land and mark the limits of cities;

City Policies

Through city policies, encourage the piecemeal formation of those major structures which define the city;

Communities

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

Community Networking

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

Community Policies

Establish community and neighborhood policy to control the character of the local government according to the following principles;

Local Centers

Both in the neighborhoods and the communities, and in beween them, in the boundaries, encourage the formation of local centers;

Housing Clusters

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

Work Communities

Between the house clusters, around the centers, and especially in the boundaries between the neighbourhoods, encourage the formation of work communities;

Local Networking

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

Community Recreation

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

Local Recreation

In each house cluster and work community, provide the smaller bits of common land, to provide for local versions 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;

The local shops and gathering places.

Building Patterns

This completes the global patterns which define a town or 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 buildings and spaces between buildings; where we are dealing 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. — p. xxv

Group of Buildings

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

Siting the Buildings

Fix the position of individual buildings on the site, within the complex, one by one, according to the nature of the site, the trees, the sun: this one of the most important moments in the language;

Building Layout

Within the buildings’ wings, lay out the entrances, the gardens, courtyards, roofs, and terraces: shape both the volume of the buildings and the volume of the space between the buildings at the same time — remembering that indoor space and outdoor space, yin and yang, must always get their shape together;

Between the Buildings

When the major parts of buildings and the outdoor areas have been given their rough shape, it is time to give more detailed attention to the paths and squares between the buildings;

Light and Space

Now, with the paths fixed, we come back to the buildings: within the various wings of any one building, work out the fundamental gradients of space, and decide how the movement will connect the spaces in the gradients;

Private Rooms

Within the framework of the wings and their internal gradients of space and movement, define the most important areas and rooms. First, for a house;

Public Rooms

Then the same for offices, workshops, and public buildings;

Outbuildings

Add those small outbuildings which must be slightly independent from the main structure, and put in the access from the upper stories to the street and gardens;

Liminal Space

Prepare to knit the inside of the building to the outside, by treating the edge between the two as a place in its own right, and making human details there;

Gardens

Decide on the arrangement of the gardens, and the places in the gardens;

Minor Rooms

Go back inside of the building and attach the necessary minor rooms and alcoves to complete the main rooms;

Shaping the Rooms

Fine tune the shape and size of rooms and alcoves to make them precise and buildable;

Thick Walls

Give all walls some depth, wherever there are to be alcoves, windows, shelves, closets, or seats;

Construction Patterns

At this stage, you have a complete design for an individual building. If you have followed the patterns given, you have a scheme of spaces, either marked on the ground, with stakes, or on a piece of paper, accurate to the nearest foot or so. You know the height of the rooms, the rough size and position of windows and doors, and you know roughly how the roofs of the building, and the gardens are laid out. The next, and last part of the language, tells how to make a building directly from this rough scheme of spaces, and tells you how to build it, in detail. — p. xxxii

Emergent Structure

Before you lay out structural details, establish a philosophy of structure which will let the structure grow directly from your plans and your conception of the buildings.

Structural Layout

Within this philosophy of structure, on the basis of the plans which you have made, work out the complete structural layout; this is the last thing you do on paper, before you actually start to build;

Erecting the Frame

Put stakes in the ground to mark the columns on the site, and start erecting the main frame of the building according to the layout of these stakes;

Fenestration

Within the main frame of the building, fix the exact positions for openings — the doors and windows — and frame these openings;

Frame Adjustments

As you build the main frame and its openings, put in the following subsidiary patterns where they are appropriate;

Interior Details

Put in the surfaces and indoor details;

Outdoor Details

Build outdoor details to finish the outdoors as fully a the indoor spaces;

Ornamentation

Complete the building with ornament and light and color and your own things;

A Pattern Language

Explorer

List of Patterns