Pattern language(ing) as a dance of knowing for the college

Pattern language is a design approach to complex lived situations, developed in the 60s and 70s by a group around architect Chris Alexander \[Alexander xxxx]. Alexander’s pattern language engaged the design of urban and interior space, a span from regional planning in-the-large to the detail design of interiors in-the-small; and through to the in-situ construction of buildings.

Alexander's language addressed this as a hierarchy of physical space, open to more and less direct intervention in any individual design-and-build project. Higher in the hierarchy, spaces - and the lives lived in those spaces - were clearly subject to evolution over generations, while spaces and dimensions of living low in the hierarchy were open to relatively direct transformations. Here we consider these aspects of pattern language: - Pattern language - formal characteristics - A template for a pattern - Pattern as language - Pattern as doing - Genre and skill - Pattern language(ing)

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