3.1 A city is a not a tree: it is a landscape
Contents list
Fig 3.1 Plans can master sites, unfortunately. This master-plan type was used for ‘business parks’ all over the world in the late twentiety century. Generally,
it killed the genius loci.
Complexity is one of the great problems in environmental design. Adequate information about the existing environment and about the types of place that it
is desirable to make cannot be kept inside one brain. The invention of design-by-drawing made a significant contribution to the problem. Drawings help
people to work out intricate relationships between parts. Mathematical calculations are facilitated. Many designers can cooperate on one project, each
working on a part of the whole. This requires one person to produce a Key Plan, or Master Plan, which coordinates the phasing and drawings (Figure 3.1).
The people who produced these drawings became known as Master Planners, and, in environmental design, the art of producing overall layout drawings came
to be known as Master Planning. If one is attracted to being a master, or having a master, this prospect may be alluring.
Christopher Alexander, an Austro-English-American mathematician who has been described as "the worlds leading design theorist, proposed two radically
different ways of dealing with complexity in design. Let us begin with a caricature. After leaving England to study architecture at Harvard, Alexander
became a classical East Coast highbrow, applying cold reason and higher mathematics to design. His Notes on the Synthesis Of Form envisaged a modernist,
computerized and wholly rational design method (Alexander, 1964). It did not work. After moving to the West Coast, Alexander grew his hair and applied
group creativity and folk wisdom to design. The Pattern Language was the result of this work. It was conceived as "the archetypal core of all possible
pattern languages, which can make people feel alive and human (Alexander,1977).
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A city is not a tree: it is a landscape
3.2 Computer design analysis
Contents list
Alexanders East Coast solution to the problem of complexity in design dates from the 1960s, when electronic computers first became generally available.
It seemed that well-programmed impersonal machines could take the place of fallible masters with a zest for tyranny. Maybe the computers could even become
superior masters. Alexanders Notes suggested that large-scale forms could be synthesized after analysing large problems into small problems, so that they
could be picked off one at a time. Appropriately, the first example was a vacuum cleaner. The design problem was divided into a series of binary relationships
(for example, between "jointing and simplicity or "performance and economy) so that they could be dealt with. The largest example was the determinants
of form in an Indian village. They were broken down into 141 components and classified as religion, social forces, agriculture, water, etc. Here are seven
of the 141 components:
1. Harijans regarded as ritually impure. [Harijan (Children of God) was Gandhis term for the Untouchables, now known as the Scheduled Castes]
6. Wish for temples.
16. Women gossip extensively while bathing and fetching water.
18. Need to divide land among sons of successive generations.
79. Provision of cool breeze.
107. Soil conservation.
141. Prevent migration of young people and harijans to cities.
Before anyone takes offence at "women gossip as a "design problem, it should be noted that the list contained both design objectives and design problems.
The full sequence was described as a tree of diagrams (Figure 3.2).
Two years later, Alexander had a change of heart and published his seminal essay "A city is not a tree (Alexander, 1966). By "tree he meant a hierarchy.
Alexander emphasized that cities are not hierarchies, and that when planners believe they are, they produce the horrors of "planned towns with road hierarchies,
business areas and useless open space. The example of a bus stop was used in "A city is not a tree to show that a bus stop is not merely a stage on a
bus route. It also figures in patterns of shopping, walking, waiting, talking etc. These considerations led Alexander to argue against artificial cities
and in favour of organic cities. He stated that cities are semi-lattice structures, not tree structures. As shown, the argument can be taken further (Figure
3.3, below). The city is not a tree. It is not even an object. It is a set of landscapes. Every characteristic overlaps a host of other characteristics.
Thinking about city structure led Alexander to recommend a second approach to the problem of complexity in design.
Fig 3.3 ‘A city is not a tree’. It is a landscape. The top four diagrams are based on Christopher Alexander. The lower two diagrams, by Tom Turner, show
that the ‘semi lattice’ of urban structure needs to be related to the lattice of the existing landscape (shown in green).
3.2 The synthesis of form, for an Indian village (based on Christopher Alexander’s diagram
3.3 Christopher Alexanders Pattern Language
Contents list
Alexander launched the California answer to the problem of design complexity in 1977. The theory was explained in three books: The Timeless Way of building
(1979), A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), and The Oregon Experiment (1975). Although colloquially described as "Alexanders,
the Pattern Language has six authors, numerous collaborators and was the result of eight years work at the Centre for Environmental Structure. If one
came across the Centres title in a telephone book, one might take it for a geological research centre. As geologists also look for structures, one could
learn from ones mistake.
The central argument of the Pattern Language is that, in the face of complexity, humans have evolved archetypal designs, which solve recurrent problems.
These solutions are called patterns. In primitive societies, birds and humans had ways of using mud and grass to make dwellings. They remained constant
from generation to generation. In modern societies, a greater range of patterns is available. Yet, the Pattern Language argues, there are still ways of
doing things that, over an endless period of time, have satisfied complex human requirements. An ancient example is finding a choice location for an outdoor
seat. Neglect of this pattern has led to a modern tragedy. Most outdoor seats in most towns are woefully sited: their locations are unprotected, isolated,
noisy, windy, claustrophobic, too hot or too cold. The ancient pattern was to place a seat near a tree, with its back to a wall, in a sunny position with
a good view (Figure 3.4). The archetype for this solution balances prospect with refuge. Jay Appleton, in The Experience of Landscape, sees this as a fundamental
human need: it satisfies human desires for safety, comfort and a good vantage point ( Appleton, 1975). To avoid blunders, planners and designers must have
this information.
Fig 3.4 An archetypal pattern for a seat place
Using the ancient patterns will, Alexander asserts, produce "the quality without a name. He explains:
The first place I think of, when I try to tell someone about this quality, is a corner of an English country garden, where a peach tree grows against a
wall. The wall runs from east to west. The sun shines on the tree and as it warms the bricks behind the tree, the warm bricks themselves warm the peaches
on the tree. It has a slightly dozy quality. (Alexander, 1979) (Figure 3.5)
Fig 3.5 A dozy country garden
In seeking to describe the quality, Alexander considers the following adjectives: alive, whole, comfortable, free, exact, egoless and eternal. But each
is rejected. The Pattern Language is described as "timeless. Most of the book is devoted to accounts of the 253 patterns. As archetypes for good places,
they have great theoretical importance for planners, architects and landscape designers. Tony Ward is quoted on the dust-jacket of the Pattern Language
as saying "I believe this to be perhaps the most important book on architectural design published this century. Every library, every school, and every
first-year student should have a copy. With regard to the social aspect of design, I wholeheartedly agree.
3.4 Enemies of Christopher Alexanders Pattern Language
Contents list
Kimberly Dovey, in an article on "The Pattern Language and its enemies, praises the language as "a very powerful ideology indeed, perhaps the most rigorous
single knowledge-base in current environmental design theory (Dovey, 1990). But he then reviews a savage host of 13 -isms charging downhill upon the language.
The line of battle stands as follows: Dualism, Positivism, Empiricism, Capitalism, Consumerism, Individualism, Postmodernism, Formalism, Relativism, Gigantism,
Puritanism, Totalitarianism and Pessimism. Like a good general, Dovey places the foes in four groups (Figure 3.6):
Fig 3.6 Enemies of Christopher Alexanders Pattern Language: political guards; ideological calvary, epistemological dragoons,; aesthetic hussars
Epistemological: Alexanders Taoist assertion, that the aim of environmental design is to produce "the quality without a name, attracts opposition from
Western Dualism, Positivism and Empiricism. None of these philosophical movements has room for a quality that cannot be put into words but which is supposed
to be objectively verifiable.
Political: Some of the patterns are in opposition to Capitalism, Consumerism and Individualism. They imply a reorganization of society along socialist lines,
with controls on the property market and compulsory acquisition of private land.
Ideological: Alexanders piecemeal approach to development is opposed to the Gigantism, Totalitarianism and the Puritanical desire for order that characterizes
large corporations and government departments.
Aesthetic: In emphasizing the human context of environmental design, Alexander goes against the Postmodernism, Formalism and Relativism of current architectural
theory. These tendencies emphasize style as the central objective in building design.
In this foul horde, some enemies oppose Alexander, some oppose individual Patterns and some oppose the interconnecting Language. This makes them easier
to deal with. In a short essay one can only propose strategies for deflecting the force of the charge:
Epistemological enemies can be defused by letting go of the claim that patterns have objective certainty. For example, I disagree with Pattern 144s instruction
to "Concentrate the bathing room, toilets, showers, and basins of the house in a single tiled area, but I can see that others may give it their support.
Political enemies can be thrown off the scent by removing a few patterns from the list. For example, Pattern 79, which would make life difficult for students,
could go: "Do everything possible to make the traditional forms of rental impossible, indeed illegal.
Aesthetic enemies can be accommodated by accepting, as Alexander has done, that there is an aesthetic dimension to environmental design. For example, Pattern
134 states: "If there is a beautiful view, dont spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it.
b can be dealt with by accepting that there are roles for both piecemeal and comprehensive approaches to planning. Some patterns, number 68 for example,
actually incite us to comprehensive planning: "Break the urban area down into local transport areas, each one between 1 and 2 miles across, surrounded
by a ring road.
Instead of dealing with the Pattern Language at the level of high theory, I recommend scrutiny of the individual patterns. Each is set out according to
an eight-part rule:
a number and a name;
a photograph, which shows an archetypal example of the pattern;
a paragraph on upward links, explaining how the pattern in question can help to complete larger patterns;
a statement of the problem, giving its essence;
a discussion of the empirical background to the pattern;
a statement of the solution, giving its essence;
a diagram, to show the main components of the solution;
a paragraph on downward links, explaining how it can provide the context for smaller patterns.
Let us take two examples, both of which I have abbreviated and labelled:
Name: Pattern 92 Bus stop
Upward links: Pattern 20 Minibuses
Problem: Bus stops must be easy to recognize, and pleasant, with enough activity around them to make people comfortable and safe.
Empirical background: Bus stops are often dreary, shabby places where no thought has been given to "the experience of waiting there. They could be comfortable
and delightful places, forming part of a web of relationships.
Fig 3.7 Pattern 92 Bus stop
Example of a good bus stop
Solution: Build bus stops so that they form tiny centres of public life. Build them as part of the gateways into neighbourhoods, work communities, parts
of town. Locate them so that they work together with several other activities, at least a news-stand, maps, outdoor shelter, seats, and in various combinations,
corner groceries, smoke shops, coffee bar, tree places, special road crossings, public bathrooms and squares.
Diagram: Figure 3.7.
Downward links: Pattern 53 Main gateway; Pattern 69 Public outdoor room; Pattern 121 Path shape; Pattern 150 A place to wait; Pattern 93 Food stand; Pattern
241 Seat spots.
Pattern 92 is a delightful pattern. Multiple use is a necessity if bus stops are to provide personal security. With well-planned bus stops, cities would
be better places.
Name: Pattern 105 South-facing outdoors
Upward links: Pattern 104 Site repair
Problem: People use open space if it is sunny, and do not use it if it isnt, in all but desert climates.
Empirical background: If a building is placed right, the building and its gardens will be happy places, full of activity and laughter. If it is done wrong,
then all the attention in the world, and the most beautiful details, will not prevent it from being a silent and gloomy place. Although the idea of south-facing
open space is simple, it has great consequences, and there will have to be major changes in land use to make it come right. For example, residential neighbourhoods
would have to be organized quite differently from the way they are laid out today.
Fig 3.8 Pattern 105, South-facing outdoors
Fig 3.9 The start of the cold war
South-facing seat
Solution: Always place buildings to the north of the outdoor spaces that go with them, and keep the outdoor spaces to the south. Never leave a deep band
of shade between the building and the sunny part of the outdoors.
Diagram: Figure 3.8.
Downward links: Pattern 111 Half-hidden garden; Pattern 106 Positive outdoor space; Pattern 107 Wings of light; Pattern 128 Indoor sunlight; Pattern 162
North face; Pettern 161 Sunny place.
A moments reflection on the above patterns will reveal that the 13 -isms are paper tigers. Though a Taoist, a Christian, a Capitalist, a Communist, a Positivist,
and a Great Dictator may disagree about many things, they will surely agree that sitting in the sun is pleasant, while sitting in the cold or queuing for
a bus on an exposed street corner is unpleasant. As though to prove the point, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill are shown in the famous Yalta photograph
looking wrapped but miserable (Figure 3.9). It is heartening to see three old men, with the fate of the world in their hands, lamenting the simplest of
human pleasures. In a sunny place, they might have taken better decisions. If the Alexander patterns can attract broad support from diverse political and
philosophical standpoints, they have sufficient truth to justify their use by environmental designers, without worrying too much about their epistemological
and political status.
The Yalta photograph also illustrates that in one critical respect the patterns are relative truths, not absolute truths: they depend upon characteristics
of the natural environment. Sitting out of doors is not always pleasant. Sunny places are loved in cool conditions. Shady places are necessary in hot arid
conditions. Breezy places are desired in hot humid conditions. In the Arctic, shelter is essential and outweighs the need for sun. These climatic points
can be broadened into the general proposition that the Alexander Patterns must be integrated with characteristics of the natural environment if they are
to succeed. However well Pattern 52, Network of paths and cars, may be implemented, it will not succeed if it ignores the patterns of wind, rain, snow,
floods and geological hazards. This consideration argues against the streak of absolutism that, it cannot be denied, exists in the Pattern Language. Many
of the patterns seem to say: "Do this. It is right. No other way exists.
Another point arising from the individual patterns is that they cannot be divorced from aesthetics. Alexander writes that if an outdoor space is badly oriented
then "the most beautiful details will not prevent it from being a silent and gloomy place. Nor will beauty sell many cars if they are unsafe, uncomfortable
and unreliable. Yet who can doubt the importance of looks in marketing cars, houses, clothes, holidays and most consumer products? If the patterns in the
Pattern Language are to reach their full potential, they must be integrated with aesthetic judgements. The high artistic standard of the photographs in
the Pattern Language demonstrates the authors deep awareness of this point. Alexanders 1993 book on the colour and geometry of Turkish carpets provides
further evidence on this point. The Pattern Language can gain considerable strength by linking arms with other types of pattern.
3.5 Structuralism as a friend of the Pattern Language
Contents list
The Pattern Language has abundant structural friends, which also happen to be its relatives (Figure 3.10).
Fig 3.10 Friends of Christopher Alexanders Pattern Language: ecology; hydrology; geomorphology; ethology; gestalt; stories; art; design; geometry
They come from psychology, ecology, geomorphology, art, design, geometry, planning and other subjects too. Each of these disciplines identifies structures
of a particular kind. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definition of structuralism:
Any theory or method in which a discipline or field of study is envisaged as comprising elements interrelated in systems and structures at various levels,
the structures and the interrelations of their elements being regarded as more significant than the elements considered in isolation; also, more recently,
theories concerned with analysing the surface structures of a system in terms of its underlying structure.
The OED goes on to give three uses of structuralism, which overlap: general (e.g. Piaget), linguistic (e.g. Saussure) and anthropological (e.g. Lévi-Strauss).
Alexanders theory of environmental structure, which led to the Pattern Language, is closest to being within the first of these categories. His "language
can discover friends in other disciplines, which have looked for patterns in surface structures, deep structures and superstructures. Knowledge of structural
patterns, of their grammars and their vocabularies, helps one to deal with the complexity of environmental planning and design.
3.6 Psychological patterns
Contents list
Psychology is the study of the psyche. Aiming to find out about the workings of the mind, modern psychology divides into a number of topics: perception,
motivation, emotion, learning, thinking, intelligence, personality and innate patterns. It is a large subject, which has often been dominated by individuals.
Carl Jung regarded the psyche as an operational whole with three important levels: the conscious, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.
Consciousness is the only part of the mind that we know. The personal unconscious, which was a great interest of Freud, comprises all those experiences
that are not recognized by the conscious part of the mind. Discovery of the collective unconscious was Jungs most important contribution to psychology.
It can be thought of as a reservoir of primordial images, inherited from mans evolutionary past. As innate patterns, they form predispositions towards
responding to the world in ways that were developed by our remote ancestors. Fear of the dark, of isolation, of separation from a refuge, come from countless
generations of human experience.
Jung believed that the collective unconscious may be thought of as a series of archetypes. Among those he described, some related to living things, some
to natural objects and some to man-made objects. They included birth, death, power, magic, the hero, the wise old man, the earth mother, trees, the sun,
wind, rivers, fire, animals, rings, tools and weapons. The archetypes are not images: they are patterns, which become focused through experience. For example,
every infant is born with a mother archetype, which becomes a definite image after experience of the mothers appearance and behaviour. Jung believed that
symbols are the outward manifestation of collective archetypes (Jung, 1964). He therefore spent the latter part of his life analysing symbols, dreams,
myths and art as a way of finding out about the collective unconscious (Figure 3.11).
Three mazes
3.11 These examples, of a Finnish stone maze, a nineteenth century turf maze and a tiled maze on the floor of Chartres Cathedral, are from Car Jungs Man
and his Symbols.
It is useful for creative artists, and designers, to understand symbols and their relationship to the unconscious mind. When Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe addressed
the Architectural Association on his ninetieth birthday he remarked that "You may wonder what I have been doing since I resigned as principal of this school
fifty years ago. I would like to tell you: I have been exploring the unconscious. Fifty years earlier, the AA school had been engulfed by abstract modernism.
Jellicoe realized that if designers were to see their work as symbol-free compositions of abstract lines, colours and patterns, they would be making a
major departure from everything that their predecessors had done. In turning back, from vacantly abstract art, Jellicoe was one of the first postmodernists.
Gestalt psychology is also concerned with relationships. In German, the word gestalt is used to describe the way a thing has been shaped, formed, configured
or put together. In psychology, gestalt is often translated as "pattern. Gestalt psychology began in Austria and South Germany towards the end of the
nineteenth century, as a counter-movement to the practice of analysing experience into ever-smaller elements. Typical phrases used to summarize gestalt
psychology are "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts and "Understanding the parts cannot provide an understanding of the whole. If 100 light
spots are projected onto a wall at one second intervals, they will be meaningless. If projected at 0.003 second intervals, they can form a recognizable
pattern. Similarly, a melody is more than a series of notes. Designers are often engaged in creating forms that can be read, as static patterns or serial
patterns.
Jean Piaget developed a theory of learning that is related to gestalt psychology. He believed that thinking arises in situations where reflex actions and
learned routines are insufficient. Piaget identified separate stages in the development of a persons thinking. As children become adults, they learn to
classify objects and to think in logical and experimental ways. By trial, error and experience, they formulate mental structures to deal with new situations.
The psychological properties of structures were identified as wholeness, relationship between parts and homeostatic adjustment in the light of new experiences.
Structural thinking of this type was applied to other fields. Noam Chomsky identified structures in language. Christopher Alexander, who knew Chomsky at
Harvard, applied gestalt ideas to design theory. In his introduction to the Pattern Language, Alexander writes:
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 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. (Alexander, 1977)
This is a gestalt approach to environmental design.
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
3.7 Landscape ecological patterns
Contents list
Ecologists study relationships between living things and their environment. As a discipline, ecology was a reaction to the concentration of biologists and
botanists on individual species, just as gestalt psychology was a reaction to the focus on individual perceptual elements. Both disciplines emerged in
late-nineteenth century Germany. Landscape ecology is a further development of ecology. Instead of examining individual habitats, the discipline looks
at landscape structures and patterns (Figure 12). Forman and Godron introduce the concept by comparing the patterns of an agricultural landscape in Winsconsin,
a coniferous forest in Canada, a tropical rainforest in Colombia and a Mediterranean landscape in southern France. Despite their differences, each is found
to share a fundamental structure composed of patches, corridors and a background matrix:
Fig 3.12 Botany is concerned with individual species, ecology with relationships between species, landscape ecology with relationships between habitats
(often studied as patches and corridors, as in this prarie landscape).
The agricultural and coniferous landscapes had small distinct patches, the rain forest landscape indistinct patches, and the Mediterranean landscape contained
a mixture of large, small, distinct, and indistinct patches. Geomorphic controls predominate in the rain forest, natural disturbances and geomorphology
in the coniferous forest, human influence in the agricultural landscape, and all three in the Mediterranean case. Corridors and linearity are most pronounced
in the agricultural landscape and least evident in the rain forest and the coniferous forest. The background matrix is field in the agricultural landscape,
forest in the next two, and hard to determine in the Mediterranean case. (Forman and Godron, 1986)
Landscape structures can be used to inform landscape planning and management decisions. If, for example, an ecological corridor is to contain a housing
area, it is necessary to assess the interactions between the proposed new patch and its surroundings. Is the corridor a route for wildlife movement? Does
it detain flood water and protect downstream areas? Will the new patch cause a discharge of pollutants into adjoining patches? Landscape ecological patterns
help in answering these questions.
Landscape ecology
3.12 Landscape ecology
3.8 Behaviour patterns
Contents list
The study of animal behaviour developed in the first half of the twentieth century, with Conrad Lorenz as the pioneer. He applied the systematic methods
of comparative anatomy to the study of animal and human behaviour. This subject became known as ethology. Lorenz early work was on the process of imprinting,
by which young geese learn to follow their parents. Later, he argued that animals are genetically constructed to learn other behaviour patterns that are
important for their reproduction and survival.
Much can also be learned about human nature from the study of observable behaviour patterns. Lorenz published a book On Aggression in humans and animals
(Lorenz, 1963). He speculates as to what conclusions might be drawn by a Martian who could observe human behaviour only through a telescope. Detailed behavioural
studies, which are a way of studying the mind "from the outside, have since had an impact on design and planning. It has, for example, been discovered
that:
burglars are more likely to force entry to a house that has access to the rear windows;
other things being equal, vehicles and pedestrians will always take the shortest route between two points (the line they take is known to planners as a
"desire line);
in choosing a place for a picnic, people prefer to lay out their cloth near the edge of a space;
pedestrian spaces are most likely to attract people when they are at the focal points of circulation networks;
access to water is the chief goal of recreational trips;
despite the existence of pets and supermarkets, people yearn for contact with wild animals and to collect wild food.
Such behaviour patterns, which can be verified either by personal observation or by systematic data collection, are essential knowledge for those who plan
outdoor space.
Conrad Lorenz studied the behaviour of geese.
3.9 Story patterns
Contents list
In the days when stories were passed on by word of mouth, from generation to generation, details became blurred and structural patterns were laid bare.
Vladimir Propp initiated the structural analysis of wonder tales, or fairy tales, which others have taken up. An amazing worldwide uniformity has been
found in such tales. Their themes are hope and tragedy. Paradise is lost and paradise is found again. Cinderella is a classic example. She lived in paradise
until her mother died. Then came trials, tribulations, mysterious happenings and, eventually, a happy ending.
3.13 The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen is one of the worlds most popular statues
Cinderellas Castle in Disneys Magic Kingdom
In other tales, a young man sets off from home, encounters evil, remains steadfast, is helped by magic powers, passes tests, marries the kings daughter
and lives happily ever after. Various elements in the stories have symbolic content. Wood depicts the wholeness of the primordial state; birds change into
women; dark forests symbolize terror; animals represent instinctive forces; water may lead to a magic kingdom. Spiritual adventure is the subject of wonder
tales. People identify comparable patterns in their own lives and discover more about their inner natures. Elements of wonder tales can appear in the physical
environment. Scandinavian cities are filled with statuary but only one of them is world-famous: the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen (Figure 3.13). She was
inspired by Hans Christian Andersens tale of that name. She is beautiful in herself but it is her position on the waters edge, consequential upon the
story and exposing her to sea, sun, wind, tides and frost, that so greatly enhances her appeal. She is the pitiful creature who rescued a prince, fell
in love with him, died when he married a mortal and turned to foam. She is part of an exceedingly powerful pattern system. She is not, in the crude phrase
that critics apply to misplaced sculptures, a turd in a plaza.
3.10 Geomorphological patterns
Contents list
It is now accepted by almost everyone that the world evolved by slow degrees over an immense period of time. Geomorphological patterns result from the natural
processes that made the world: heating, cooling, erosion, deposition, wave action, water flow, air flow and others. Some of these patterns can be seen
with the human eye at ground level. We love to gaze at the sand patterns on a beach or the patterns formed by rocks (Figure 3.14). Sea birds, though all
have the optical capacity to detect such patterns, will only "see patterns if they are important to their feeding or breeding habits. Sylvia Crowe wrote
about visible landscape patterns, as seen by humans, in The Pattern of Landscape (Crowe, 1988).
Geomorphological patterns can inspire design
Other natural patterns can be detected with special equipment, including telescopes, satellites and microscopes. Remote sensing can reveal the distribution
pattern of a mineral on the earths surface. High-power lenses, used with polarized light, can reveal the internal patterns of rock crystals. The Hubble
telescope (see image below) can photograph stars that ceased to exist before our sun came into existence. Geomorphological patterns are traces of the forces
that made the earth and which continue to shape its evolution. Environmental designers benefit, functionally and aesthetically, from an understanding of
geological patterns.
3.14 Geomorphological pattern
3.11 Growth patterns
Contents list
DArcy Thompson was interested in the relationship between mathematics and the generation of form. He wrote that
the harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept
of mathematical beauty. (Thompson, 1961)
This relationship, which must be of interest to designers, is beautifully illustrated by the nautilus shell, which grows as a geometrical progression (Figure
3.15 and below).
3.15 The geometry of the nautilus shell, based on D’Arch Thompson.
3.12 Visual design patterns
Contents list
Asked to say what "pattern means, most people will think first of visual patterns. In a book on The Language of Pattern (Albarn et al., 1974) four Western
designers write about their interest in Islamic patterns. As students they "had learnt to regard pattern as superficial decoration of form, and form dictated
by function. In the body of their book, they examine the use of numbers and mathematical systems in design. "Transformation is used as a term to describe
the process of creatively transposing a pattern from one context to another, making use of changes of scale, dimension and viewpoint to generate fresh
perceptions. The Vedic Square, an arrangement of
Fig 3.16 The Vedic Square
numbers (Figure 3.16), was transformed into lines, planes, brickwork, glazed tiles, garden plans, buildings and even town plans. The authors conclude that
"patterns structure our thinking, i.e. pattern is the ""structure of mind, therefore to evolve our knowledge of pattern is also to evolve ourselves.
Patterns can be created from numbers. The Vedic square is formed on a 9-by-9 grid, with the products of the numbers in the top row and left column placed
at each intersection point. When the product exceeds 9, the two digits are added to form a single digit. The completed square exhibits many patterns, such
as that formed by the sevens and ones, which can be transformed into other patterns. Much Islamic decoration was generated in this way.
3.13 Design patterns
Contents list
Designers have used pattern books for centuries. The design ideas of the Italian Renaissance circulated in northern Europe by means of pattern books, which
influenced metalworkers, plasterers, furniture makers and other craftsmen. Most of the houses in Georgian London were adapted from architectural pattern
books. But as nineteenth century romanticism and the cult of the individual reached their heights, it came to be thought that there was something morally
disreputable, if not indictable, about "copying from the work of others. All praise was heaped upon the heroic innovator. Pattern books became despised.
3.14 A pattern classification for planners and designers
Contents list
The foregoing examples, selected from different fields of knowledge, can be conceived as structures. But for designers, "pattern is a more natural term
than "structure. Patterns are of different ages and can be classified, like geological formations, using the terms Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary
(Figure 3.17, below). The sequence of this classification is dictated by the following considerations: primary patterns existed before man; secondary patterns,
as traces of Stone Age man, are the oldest signs of human life on earth; some tertiary patterns, like cave paintings, are very ancient; quaternary patterns
are more recent. The foregoing types of pattern can therefore be grouped as follows.
Fig 3.17 A pattern classification, showing ‘primary’ (natural) patterns, ‘secondary (social) patterns, ‘tertiary’ (aesthetic) patterns and ‘quaternary’
(archaetypal) patterns.
Primary/Natural patterns are found in the existing landscape, resulting from flows of energy, from geology, from the nature of materials, from the processes
of growth and decay. They might be represented in words and numbers, but maps and drawings are likely to be the most useful format. McHargs map overlays
represent the primary patterns of the existing landscape (McHarg, 1971). The emerging patterns of landscape ecology are of great importance (Forman and
Godron, 1986). Dame Sylvia Crowes book, on the Pattern of Landscape (1988), considers natural patterns from both geomorphological and aesthetic points
of view.
Secondary/Human patterns are found in the urban and rural landscape. They result from the behaviour of humans, who adapt places to satisfy needs for food,
shelter, transport, comfort and security.
Tertiary/Aesthetic patterns result from the artists imagination or the aesthetic appreciation of nature. They may derive from geometry, mathematics, decoration,
representation, mythology, symbolism, allegory, metaphor, abstraction, philosophy, poetry, music and narrative. There are creative artists with expertise
in all these areas. Environmental designers can work with them and learn from them.
Quaternary/Archetypal patterns are tried and tested combinations of the other patterns. They are prototypes that have proved successful, like plant associations,
house types, farm types and settlement types. Their place in outdoor design, which is a site-specific art, is as components. Like a sundial, no outdoor
design can be exactly right for more than one point on the earths surface.
Alexanders Pattern Language is made of quaternary patterns. The following examples draw upon primary and secondary patterns: Pattern 64, Pools and streams,
arises because "We came from the water; our bodies are largely water; and water plays a fundamental role in our psychology; Pattern 168, Connection to
earth, arises because "A house feels isolated from the nature around it, unless its floors are interleaved directly with the earth that is around the house;
Pattern 74, Animals, states that "Animals are as important a part of nature as the trees and grass and flowers, and there is evidence that "animals may
play a vital role in a childs emotional development.
The Pattern Language aims to avoid tertiary/aesthetic patterns, though some of them clearly do involve visual judgements. Pattern 249 states that "All people
have the instinct to decorate their surroundings. Pattern 235, Small panes, recommends users to "Divide each window into small panes because "the smaller
panes are, the more intensely windows help connect us with what is on the other side. The subject will be discussed in a forthcoming book on the Nature
of Order and is previewed in a 1993 book on the colour and geometry of very early Turkish carpets: A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art. He finds in carpets
"what the work of Bach and Monteverdi is in the world of music -- a realm of pure structure, in which the deepest human emotions have their play (Alexander,
1993). Yet carpets deal almost entirely with pattern and ornament. They are an exercise in colour and geometry.
The hidden strength of the Pattern Language lies in its imaginative appreciation of secondary patterns. They redirect designers attention away from style
and back towards human behaviour. For example, Pattern 119 values arcades because they "play a vital role in the way that people interact with buildings;
Pattern 164 recommends street windows because "A street without windows is blind and frightening, and because "it is equally uncomfortable to be in a
house which bounds a public street with no window at all on the street. Some of the patterns derive from what an earlier generation of psychologists would
have called instincts: Pattern 181, Fire, observes that "The need for fire is almost as fundamental as the need for water. Pattern 129, Common areas at
the heart, states that "No social group -- whether a family, a work group, or a school group -- can survive without constant informal contact among its
members. The converse of this proposition is (Pattern 141, A room of ones own): "No one can be close to others, without also having frequent opportunities
to be alone. The proposal for a teenagers cottage, in Pattern 154, seems part of an initiation rite: "To mark a childs coming of age, transform his
place in the home into a kind of cottage that expresses in a physical way the beginnings of independence.
3.15 Recommendations for the use of patterns in planning and design
Contents list
The full set of patterns required for outdoor planning and design depends on the nature of the proposals that are to be made. There is no finite set of
"survey information that can be assembled before starting work, and there is no one inescapable starting point for a design project. When making a new
place, planners and designers must know what factors made the existing place, how places can be changed, and what makes people judge places as "good or
"bad. Specialized vocabulary is required. Patterns can use words, diagrams, models and drawings to describe complex processes and qualities. The language
will not be symbolic, like computer code, but nor will it be a predominantly spoken language. For planning and design, it is most likely to be diagrams
supported by words.
Many patterns will be appreciated by the general population; others will be particular to special groups; others will be unique to individuals. Words provide
a common currency with which to interrelate the different structural approaches to the design and analysis of place. Diagrams can have a similar role,
and are more readily transformed into designs. Structures reside in the environment but they are visible only to people and animals who have reasons to
look for them. Each situation can be analysed within different structural frameworks. Ideas lead to surveys, to analyses and to designs. Patterns help
designers to handle the complexity of environmental design.
Patterns come from geometry, philosophy, animals (eg the zebra) and designers (eg William Morris) and human behaviour
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www.whyte.net.au Andrew Whyte Landscape Designer Telephone: 1300 554 390 Mobile: 0407 338 788 In todays world of unlimited communication ...
