The birth of a concept
Since the publishing of A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander in 1977, a handful of enthusiasts
have taken an appreciation not only to the content of the book, but also the
process by with Alexander and other Architects approached when thinking about
how humans could design better cities.
Alexander and his colleagues traveled the globe in search of
patterns, specifically patterns of human settlement, that could be defined as
successful by “making people happy” and improving their experience of a city.
Patterns that repeated themselves became noted and if they appeared universal,
that is, to exist despite cultural, religious, economic, and other differences,
they were declared fit for the publication.
Thus, Alexander's definition of a
pattern, one that is, "A pattern is a careful description of a perennial
solution to a recurring problem within a building context, describing one of
the configurations which brings life to a building". (Alexander et al,
1977) provided others with a compelling template for future design.
Most compelling about this proposal
is the idea that the individual patterns Alexander and his team observed were
like individual words – and like a language they were flexible in how hey were
used. The idea of assembling the patterns and also noting the connection of one
pattern to a next allows any designer to craft their own language of patterns.
In Alexander’s words:
“…a pattern language
is about patterns being like words. They stay the same but can be combined in
different ways like words in a sentence. They can be used as in a network where
one will call upon another (like a neuron network). When you build something
you can put patterns together to form a language. So a language for your house
might have patterns about transitions, light, ceiling height, connecting the
second floor to the ground.
A community might put
together a language including patterns about public and private spaces, cars,
pedestrians and parking. Using languages helps you to visualize and think about
what will really make you comfortable, really comfortable.
Good languages are in
harmony with geography, climate, and culture. “
Alexander’s work is a incredible
testament to the potential to name and articulate these patterns. He and his
team did a rather detailed analysis and assessment in their inquiry, with
several notable features:
1) The scholars traveled the world and looked for patterns
which repeated themselves "across context"
2) Patterns were rated based on how accurate the authors
believed them to be
3) Patterns were arranged from larger scale to smaller
scale. Thus a reader could think of patterns on a city-wide scale, down to the
details of light or trim in the room of one building
Pattern Languages
& Permaculture
The concept parallels Permaculture
thinking, which seeks to observe ecosystem patterns and apply them in landscape
and farm design. In Alexander’s case, he was focused on cities and people's
relationships to the spaces in them. Through this lens he created a complex
network of good ideas & templates for urban planners and architects.
Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren, notes a similar benefit to pattern thinking in his book
"Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability"
“Whether we are
designing a garden, a village, or an organization, we need a broad repertoire
of patterns of relative scale, timing, and geometry that tend to recur in
natural and sustainable human systems…
…Further, we need to
relearn pattern recognition because cultural innovation, especially media
technologies, have scrambled the pattern thinking that was common in
pre-industrial societies. This loss of ability to see, hear, and otherwise
recognize the patterns of nature may be our greatest impediment in our attempt
to adapt to the realities of energy descent…"
We do indeed have a long way to go
in improving our abilities to see and implement patterns, one of the challenges
being the inherent variability in scale. The principle "Design from
Patterns to Details" which Holmgren propose in the same book always makes
me think of tooling around on Google Earth, where a user can zoom into a site
or landscape feature and with equal ease zoom out to see the large hillside, watershed,
or land base the site is a part of. As farmers and permaculture designers, we
need to hone these skills to the point where we are making decisions about
water systems for our livestock or mushroom log soak tanks while being able to
consider the decision in the context of the landscape hydrology, and larger
network of streams, rivers, and lakes we are a part of.
While individual farmers,
permaculturists, and others may be a ways off from devoting life, as Alexander
did, solely to the pursuit of naming patterns in natural and human-designed
agricultural systems, we can begin at least by naming the common experiences
and observations that support our success. Farmers who cross paths at the local
bar or a conference do this all the time, comparing notes about how they did
this or what they learned from that. We could consider pattern languages for a
number of key systems, for example:
Poultry Forage Systems
Rotational Grazing of Ruminants
“Mycoscaping” or Managing Fungus in the Landcape
Catchment & Storage of Water
And so forth.
The
benefit of such an exercise is to help dispel a complex concept or body of
knowledge into more sizable chunks. Or, as Dave Jacke writes in the
introduction to his pattern language, “A Forest Garden Pattern Language,” (Edible Forest Gardens, Vol 2, Pg 63)
“It crystallizes many
issues and ideas….It serves as both a resource for deisgn ideas and
inspiration, and a springboard into the following “how-to” chapters.”
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| Visual of Jacke's Pattern Language, by Ethan Roland (click to see larger) |
The
idea that Pattern Languages offer a template for bridging the gap between
theory and practice is compelling. Or, another way to think of it – how do we
take what we learn from books, teachers, and classrooms and apply it to our
daily grind as we labor on the landscape?
The
maps, sketches, and notations that are part of successful design of systems are
also well supported by Pattern Languages, which offer a checklist against
design work.
More
recently, a second pattern language emerged via Peter Bane, a Permaculture
designer and teacher who wrote The Permaculture Handbook. Peter’s
language is named “A Garden Farming Pattern Language” and offers “an aid to
designing Permaculture systems on urban and suburban properties and for the
creation of garden farms at whatever distance from city centers.”
Both
Jacke and Bane’s languages offer some templates for future language
development: they both arrange the collection of patterns from large to small
in terms of scale. Both also acknowledge the reality that design is not linear
but a network of ideas and concepts. And both offer a provides some context, a
problem statement, and a solution statement. Patterns exist independently, in
connection to other patterns, and in connection to other pattern languages.
Pattern Languages
moving forward
I
have some proposals for developing pattern languages. First off, the idea that
many Permaculturists might simultaneously be developing pattern languages for
subjects I am less familiar with to share with the network is exciting – but
the challenge remains to offer these synthesis as a proposal – that is,
something to be offered as a gift for feedback from the community.
Alexander
and his team traveled the globe to see if proposed patterns did indeed appear
“across context.” This is a reasonable pursuit in studying cities and buildings
as they have been developed in various forms for thousands of years.
Permaculture and other integrated agricultural systems don’t necessarily have
that benefit – at least in the modern context. We have examples from indigenous
cultures to draw on but still lack an understanding of what really works in
post-modern agricultural ecosystems.
In addition, we do not want pattern
languages to be simply lists of good ideas. They should be grounded in research
or at least positive affirmation from numerous sources. “Crowd-sourced” and
“Participatory” are words that come to mind. As we author these languages we
must proceed with a humble caution, and design methods for collecting feedback
so that our pattern languages can evolve. This is true for much of
Permaculture, where ideas come from advocates often without the ground-truthing
to back it up.
A template to follow
In
Edible Forest Gardens, Dave Jacke provides an excellent analysis of pattern and
pattern languages in relationship to design and Permaculture. This section of
text is a “must read” for anyone thinking of writing their own pattern
language. It is important to build knowledge on the basis of other knowledge,
and thus we need to look at preceding Pattern Languages and build upon their strengths
and weaknesses.
For starters, we can use the following template when writing
an individual pattern:
Name: of the
proposed pattern
Context:
describing the circumstances in which the problem is being solved
Problem Statement:
describing the issue to be revolved
Solution: Offering
single or multiple solutions and relevant commentary
As patterns are assembled, they can
be linked together. Patterns as a language should be arrange in order from
large to small in scale, and grouped as deemed necessary by the author into
similar themes.
The specific context and
limitations in developing the pattern language should be expressed clearly at
the beginning. And finally, the methods for encouraging the language to exist
as a participatory effort should be described.
Imagine a group of languages that
help landowners, farmers, and gardeners more efficiently assemble elements and
the connections between them. Imagine the potential to discuss and develop a
language over time that gets stronger and more transparent in its message.
Toward this end, I am offering to begin develop two pattern languages, which I
will gladly share with anyone wanting to participate in their development.
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| Book website |
The first will be part of an
upcoming book I am co-authoring with Ken Mudge on Forest Farming.
(www.farmingtheforest.com) The pattern language is in the beginning states and
will offer patterns for the practice of Forest Farming in the Eastern Hardwood
Forest type. We will be consulting with case study farms we visit as well as through
an online directory of forest farmers we are creating to discuss and receive
feedback so that the language may be further developed.
Second, as part of the culmination
of a grant I received to study ducks through NE-SARE, I will begin to offer a
pattern language for raising ducks. I have found that duck rearing is
considerably different from chickens and other poultry and see a pattern
language as a good method to distinguish those differences.
Pattern Language writing offers an
exciting and creative way to describe our experiences and have meaningful
discussions about our work in such a way that is documented so that we can grow
as we learn. Like many things it is the process of crafting a language that is
of most benefit; indeed the end product is merely a synthesis of that
process. I hope you will join me
in writing a pattern language of your own someday.
Steve Gabriel, steve@agroforestrysolutions.com
