Archinect - News

Revisiting "A Pattern Language"

2019-07-12T13:09:00-04:00

“A Pattern Language” is not about architecture, but about how specific design choices can help us build better relationships. By fitting a series of those choices—the patterns—together, you get a room, a house, a neighborhood and eventually a city.

Curbed architecture critic Alexandra Lange takes us on a journey through some of the key lessons from Christopher Alexander's seminal work, A Pattern Language.

The book, originally published in 1977 has long been out of fashion in architecture schools, but, Lange argues, with the rise of smart cities and other quick-fix approaches to contemporary urban and global design problems, now is perhaps a good time to revisit Alexander's earnest, methodical, and people-centered tome.

Lange writes, "As New York, Toronto, Singapore, and more places around the globe build so-called smart cities, maybe we need to read “A Pattern Language” again in that context," adding, "Who is the audience for the smart city? Who has access to the data? Who has the ability to make design decisions based on that data? Is this city going to build better relationships? People are the scoring system, whether you’re deciding on a rug for the living room, or a light rail system for the city."

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Getting a headache from staring at all those buildings? This study explains why

2018-07-09T14:17:00-04:00

Because the repetitive patterns of urban architecture break the rule of nature, it is more difficult for the human brain to process them efficiently. [...] over the last 100 years, the design of buildings has been departing further and further from the rule of nature; more and more stripes appear decade by decade, making the buildings less and less comfortable to look at.

Preserving Central Asia's ancient architecture through code

2016-04-07T13:58:00-04:00

It is not enough to just catalogue these [structures] in photos and videos, it is our aim to break down the logic of these patterns, and recreate them in code in order to make them more accessible and possibly allowing them to find new life in contemporary applications. By building an open source library, accessible to architects, artists, mathematicians, and software engineers, we can carry these patterns and traditions forward for future generations.

Lauren Connell (architect at BIG), Alexis Burson (associate at Pei Cobb Freed & Partners), and Baris Yuksel (Google senior engineer) share their architectural and computer engineering perspectives on Project Agama. The collaboration aims to document and digitally preserve the intricate geometric patterns and tilework of ancient Central Asian architecture by converting the patterns to code, which will eventually become a accessible resource for architects to potentially apply in new applications.

The 27 patterns that make up the world's cities and suburbs

2015-10-09T12:30:00-04:00

What's interesting about these 27 categories that Wheeler has defined, covering the full range of development patterns in two dozen metropolitan regions he has studied worldwide, is that most of them are new. [..] "We have had an explosion of different types of built landscapes in the last century," says Wheeler, who is working on a book about these patterns.

An example of the patterns identified by Stephen Wheeler, professor at UC Davis' Department of Human Ecology, culled from meticulous work with Google satellite imagery:

You can view more of his maps here.

SCI-Arc Pavilion “League of Shadows” by P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S

2012-10-10T20:49:00-04:00

League of Shadows, a pavilion concept by Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich of P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, recently emerged as winning entry from an architectural design competition at SCI-Arc. [...] An exhibition documenting the SCI-Arc Graduation Pavilion Competition opens next Friday, October 19 at the SCI-Arc Library Gallery.