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4 1 Pattern Assisted Design

4.1 Pattern Assisted Design
Contents list

Patterns in use

Design on an environmental backcloth differs from other types of design, in two crucial respects. First, it compares with drawing on sand or on the bark
of a tree, rather than with drawing on white paper. Second, it differs because "the environment is not one thing or a thousand things: it is interpreted
and used by each species and each individual in different ways, depending on their niche in society and in the ecosystem. You may think of your garden
as a rectangle; babies, birds, worms and spiders will have different conceptions of the "same space. Ideas about what the environment is lie at the heart
of the design process. They may be viewed as structures and represented by patterns, as discussed in the previous chapter. Three analogies (Figure 3.1),
each concerned with purposive change, can be used to illustrate aspects of the environmental designers predicament.

[Fig 4.1 ] Analogies for the environmental designer’s predicament: a coach, a doctor and the flight of a honeybee – see discussion below.

Design on the bark of a tree

4.2 Stagecoach Analogy
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Environmental planning is but a stage in a journey. At best, planners can aspire to hold the reigns and guide the horses over rough ground. They may leave
footprints on the sands of time. Others will then take over. The process is never finished, and land characteristics affect ones ease of travel. From
the top of a precipice, vertical travel requires little effort. Making ones way through a mountain, horizontal travel requires great energy. From the
heart of a volcano, upward motion is fast but risky. Traversing quicksand can be slow. According to the nature of the land and the intended direction of
travel, planners require different information, different tools and different skills.

4.3 Medical Analogy
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One difference between doctors and stagecoach drivers is that the latter have a clearer view of where they are going. Staging posts can be defined but health
is a nebulous concept. Doctors must use the relative notion of "improvement, instead of any absolute measures of fitness, obesity, blood pressure or whatever.
Yet without a vision of what constitutes "a healthy person a doctor would have as much difficulty as an environmental designer without a concept of "a
good place. To recommend a course of action, doctors must have ideas about human behaviour, about the environment, about the look of a healthy person
and about the archetypal patterns of treatment. Environmental designers must have comparable knowledge of places. Diagnosis comes before treatment.

A landscape requiring treatment.

4.4 Honey Bee Analogy
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Bees also have clearer goals than doctors: to collect nectar and make honey. Yet they do not fly in straight lines. They proceed in a spiralling and apparently
chaotic manner. The process of environmental design is closer to the flight of a honey-bee than to the path of a stagecoach. It passes between four types
of pattern, before settling on a proposed course of action.

Fig 4.2 Ideas are at the heart of the design process. The dotted line shows the flight of a bee, collecting nectar from a selection of flowers.

Each analogy indicates that the planning process must begin with an idea, or a vision, of some future state, not with a survey. In fairness to Geddes, who
began the survey--analysis--plan method, it should be said that he fully recognized that goals have precedence in the planning process:

Our whole life is governed by ideals, good and bad, whether we know it or not. North, south, east and west are only ideals of direction: you will never
absolutely get there; yet you can never get anywhere, save indeed straight down into a hole, without them. (Tyrwhitt, 1947)

Without a vision of the future, one does not know what type of survey to conduct. A need, a want or a desire for power leads to the formulation of concepts,
which are then used in the collection and analysis of survey material. The stagecoach analogy illustrates this point. Ones first decision is about a destination.
Nothing can be done until this is known: that is why ideas lie at the heart of the design process. Then comes an analysis of the possible means of travel.
When a horse-drawn coach has been chosen, a survey of routes can be made. In the terminology of linguistic philosophy, the types of analytical concept
to be employed are constructs. The process can be represented as:

Desideratum -> Idea -> Survey -> Analysis -> Plan

This sequence can and should be applied to each characteristic of the environment. Desiderata, the things that are desired, lead to ideas about future states
of affairs. Figure 2 shows thinking, represented by a nexus of arrows, at the heart of the design process. The ideas upon which it operates are placed
in one of four stacks: Primary Patterns relate to the natural environment; Secondary Patterns relate to human behaviour; Tertiary Patterns relate to aesthetics;
Quaternary Patterns relate to design archetypes, so that the four pattern types can also be described as Natural, Social, Aesthetic and Archetypal. A similar
diagram could show a doctors vision of a sick and healthy patient, with mediating concepts of physiology, environment, behaviour and aesthetics. There
is no such thing as "a survey that will serve for every purpose. Treating a nervous disorder requires different information from that required to treat
a broken leg. Planners too must define their starting and finishing points, though they can begin at many points and travel in many directions. This principle
applies at every scale, from placing a garden seat to designing a house or planning a town extension.

4.5 Planning a garden Seat
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Placing a garden seat is the elementary task in outdoor planning and should be the first assignment for every student. Some of the patterns that govern
the decisions are shown in Figure 4.3.

[Fig 4.3 ] Placing a garden seat is elementary, but requires careful thought.

The circulation layer shows four alternative locations for the seat, as B, C, D and E, with the most commonly used routes. The shadows layer shows the noon
and 6 pm shadows at the spring solstice. In a temperate climate, this rules out position B and favours position E, as the family like inviting their friends
for evening barbecues. The views layer shows the direction of a view to the sea, making position D unattractive. The archetype layer shows an Alexander-type
pattern for a garden seat, which could work in a variety of locations but is shown in position E. The geometrical layer shows an idea for the plan geometry:
there is a transition from a regular paved area, which is the realm of Art, through a serpentine curve to an irregular area, which is the realm of Nature.
Finally, there is a story underlying the garden. It belongs to a couple who remember walking along a coastal path on a fine summers evening. The girl
slipped. The man caught her. They fell into each others arms and later became engaged to marry. This garden, being within sight of the sea and having
a bank behind the gardens prime seat, reminds them of that evening.

What was the design process? One cannot say which idea formed the starting point for locating the seat: the natural patterns of sun, shade, and views, the
social patterns of how the seat was going to fit into its owners lives, or the geometrical idea for the garden plan. They came together. Because of its
personal and social aspects, the design does not entirely satisfy Christopher Alexanders pattern 176, Garden seat:

Make a quiet place in the garden -- a private enclosure with a comfortable seat, thick planting, sun. Pick the place for the seat carefully; pick the place
that will give you the most intense kind of solitude. (Alexander, 1977)

4.6 Planning a water feature
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One might think nothing simpler than planning a fountain and pool. A garden centre can supply one with all the means: a pre-formed liner, a hosepipe, and
a fountain kit. They simplify pool construction, and, more often than not, produce the most hideous results (Figure 4). The pool shapes are ugly, the pumps
whine, the fountains make one think it is raining, the plastic becomes stained and discoloured. But water is the lifeblood of towns and gardens. What can
be done? Good water features require the conjunction of, at least, a social pattern with an aesthetic pattern. As there have been so many abject failures
in pool design, it would be wise to employ a good archetypal pattern, and no bad thing to make a response to a natural pattern.

Fig 4.4 A garden pool, made from garden centre supplies: it is ghastly.

Lawrence Halprin has the unusual distinction of having devised a successful new archetypal pattern that is eminently reproducible: the walk-through canyon
fountain. The first of its type, at Portland in Oregon, has a geometrical character (a tertiary pattern), which was inspired by a primary pattern: the
natural waterfalls of the Sierra Nevada. The secondary pattern upon which it rests is the ancient human desire to be surrounded by water and able to leap
from rock to rock.

Mostly, pool and fountain designers have revealed an outstanding ability to go wrong with each of the pattern types. They ignore the sun by placing pools
in cold shady places; they forget about reflections; they disregard the beauty of ice; they allow water to be blown over pedestrians. They display a lack
of consideration for social patterns by forgetting the different ways in which people enjoy water in different climates: in cold places they design water
features that make people feel colder; in hot places they discourage paddling. They forget the joy of geometrical patterns and they go astray with the
technology of water retention and water-edge detailing. If one has a bad archetype, it is difficult to produce aesthetically pleasing designs.

4.7 Planning a house
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4.5 Alternatives for placing a house on a plot of landPlacing a house on a plot of land deserves more attention than it generally receives (Figure 4.5).
The simplest and worst solution is to dump the building in the centre of the plot, as in A. Though it may give some feeling of aggrandizement to the designer,
or owner, it kills the outdoor space. Another solution, which is almost standard in housing layout, is to place the building near the road on the edge
of the plot, as in B. Except when the road is to the north of the plot, this policy is in conflict with Alexanders pattern 105, South-facing outdoors:

[FIG 4.5 ] Alternatives for placing a house, responding to A. the designer’s ego, B. a desire for shade C. a designer for sun D. a desire to protect an
ecological or scenic resource.

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. (Alexander, 1977)

Position C satisfies this pattern which, in cool climates, has great force. If a garden is to be used for outdoor living or for growing plants, sun is the
vital necessity. Even if there is a magnificent prospect to the north, the desirability of a view is nothing compared with the need for sun and warmth.
However, Alexanders Pattern 104, Site repair, could militate against Pattern 105, South facing outdoors. It may rest, as in D, on ecological and/or aesthetic
considerations:

On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system.
Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, comfortable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which
are the least pleasant now. (Alexander, 1977)

The most appropriate social pattern for planning a house varies with the character of the occupants. Pattern 76, House for a small family, recommends:

Give the house three distinct parts: a realm for parents, a realm for the children, and a common area. Conceive these three realms as roughly similar in
size, with the commons the largest. (Alexander, 1977)

A different social pattern, which hardly suits when land is subdivided into small plots for small houses, is the Place for Living and Working. In an agricultural
context the Family Farm is one of the most enduring patterns in human history. Although the layout must be closely related to the natural patterns of the
environment in which it is set, the starting point in the planning of a family farm has to be the farming pattern by means of which the family will earn
its living. A modern parallel to the family farm is the home office, based on the convergence of video, telephone and computer technologies. This will
create a new kind of "house, in which the operational pattern will differ from that in conventional houses.

4.8 Planning a group of houses
Contents list

Apparently, this is an extremely difficult task. Nobody much wants to live in a "housing tract, a "housing estate, a "housing project or a "subdivision.
They are especially disliked by the planners and designers who make such places, and who are slightly to blame for their repetitious horror. Most of them
would rather live in real country or a real town, or to have a front door on the town and a back door on the country.

US housing subdivision

Many of the errors in housing layout result from the use of bad archetypal patterns. Finance companies have fixed ideas on what sorts of houses will hold
their value. Highway engineers have rigid patterns for the layout of roads. Zoning regulations impose severe restrictions on land use. The fire service
and the refuse collection service have immutable procedures for vehicular access to dwellings. Houses come to be laid out like dominoes beside roads, with
the position of each dwelling fixed either by its predecessor or by the road, in absolute disregard for the spaces between the dominoes.

If the archetypal patterns for housing were good, they could be reused. As few are, it may be better to start with another class of pattern. Any of the
three can be used. Natural patterns can be a superb starting point, as instanced by the following examples: houses built into an existing woodland, earth-sheltered
housing fitted into a hillside, swampland housing with an ecological drainage system, arid zone houses grouped for defence against the sun, coastal housing
designed for defence against the wind. Ideally, each neighbourhood should be associated with a topographic feature: a hill, a wood, a valley, a stream,
a habitat, an orchard. If there is a pond on the site, let it be preserved as the heart of the layout. If there is no pond, make one: it is easy to group
houses around water.

Social patterns also provide good starting points for housing, provided they relate to the actual tastes and preferences of those who will occupy the houses.
Different housing layouts can provide their occupants with good gardens, good views, high security, good communal spaces, good provision for home extensions,
good space for running a home business, good access to schools, shops, recreation or transport. One cannot have all these things in a single neighbourhood,
but one can have a much wider choice of neighbourhood types than is available in mass housing. Ideally, each house and each garden should be planned in
relation to its future occupants.

Aesthetic patterns are also important. Gordon Cullen emphasized the design of space in urban areas, which he called Townscape (Cullen, 1971). For house-buyers,
it is often the built elevation that is more important. Some prefer traditional dress and traditional houses. Others prefer modern dress and modern houses.
It is a question for context theory whether traditional and modern dwellings should coexist in one neighbourhood. The fact that both types have a right
to exist is beyond dispute, surely. Aesthetic patterns can also be used to create harmonies of colour, texture, mass, shape, rhythm and other visual characteristics.

Alexander proposes a range of archetypal patterns for use in housing layout. The following are my favourites:

14. Identifiable neighbourhood. "Help people to define the neighbourhoods they live in, not more than 300 yards across, with no more than 400 or 500 inhabitants...
Keep major roads outside these neighbourhoods.

35. Household mix. "Encourage growth toward a mix of household types in every neighbourhood, and every cluster, so that one-person households, couples,
families with children, and group households are side by side.

36. Degrees of publicness. "Make a clear distinction between three kinds of homes -- those on quiet backwaters, those on busy streets, and those that are
more or less in between... Give every neighbourhood about equal numbers of these three kinds of homes.

40. Old people everywhere. "Create dwellings for some 50 old people in every neighbourhood.

48. Housing in between. "Build houses into the fabric of shops, small industry, schools, public services, universities -- all those parts of cities which
draw people in during the day, but which tend to be ``nonresidential`.

In the above pattern-descriptions, the passage in quotation marks is taken from Alexanders solution paragraphs. In my opinion, these patterns could lead
to great improvements on the present arrangement of mass housing.

4.9 Planning a new town on a marsh
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As towns often develop beside water, and the margins of water are often marshy, urbanization of marshland is common the world over. Normally, the interests
of the town have been placed above those of the marsh, which is only sometimes the best policy. The following examples are of marshland development beside
the River Thames in London.

In the 1870s, Battersea had one of the few surviving marshy areas in Central London (Chadwick, 1966). It was thought to be unhealthy, because of the bad
odours that emanated from the marsh, to be unsightly, because it was neither neat nor tidy, and to be socially undesirable, because licentious public fairs
took place, with singing and dancing. To the Victorians, it was a very unplace. Excavated material was brought in and the land "reclaimed for
Battersea Park
and for housing. It remains a good example of the shortcomings of survey-based, problem-solving design. For what was "the problem at Battersea? To "reclaim
the marshlands, to "improve an unsightly view, to "discourage licentious behaviour, to "improve the value of the surrounding houses, to "dispose of
the excavated material from the dock excavations, or to "create a recreational facility?

Should one seek to make a case for tipping spoil on wetlands, one would survey "noxious odours, "bad drainage, and dead dogs. Should one wish to make
an opposite case, for retaining wetlands, one would make detailed surveys of fauna and flora, as environmental impact assessors do. Survey work is always
selective, and is always carried out for a particular purpose. The only full "survey is the site itself. At Battersea, after surveying all the un features,
the marsh was made into a public park. The social pattern behind the park design was that of dressing up on a Sunday afternoon to look at the flowers and
listen to brass bands The aesthetic pattern was the
Serpentine Style.

Between 1870 and 1940 many other Thamesside marshes were developed for manufacturing industry. As at Battersea, no surveys of fauna or flora were conducted.
Instead, surveyors concentrated on drainage conditions and foundation conditions. Both were judged to be "bad. The Ford Motor Companys plant at Dagenham
is a good example. Almost all the land was hard-surfaced, and the sole layout objective was to create an efficient circulation pattern for motor vehicle
manufacture (see note on
Modernist,
or Fordist, design). The patterns on which the layout was based were those of circulation and drainage.

From the 1950s onwards, other marshes beside the River Thames were developed for residential use. Thamesmead South was developed in the 1960s and 70s. Looked
at retrospectively, it is evident that the planners used a combination of the Battersea and Dagenham approaches. Little or no effort was made to understand
the natural patterns of the ecosystem. The dominant social pattern was that of vehicular circulation. The dominant aesthetic pattern, so far as there was
one, was that of the Serpentine Style. The result was semi-Corbusian. Tower blocks and slab blocks rose from shaven grass mounds interspersed with trees
(Figure 4.8). Similar developments could be found in Sweden, Spain, America, Taiwan and most other countries. This is because the development patterns
did not come from the local site or the local people.

Thamesmead North shows the beginnings of a new spirit (Figure 4.9). A decade of environmental protest, supported by new educational courses in ecology,
led to a serious interest in the patterns of the natural environment. Because of soft foundation conditions, low-rise houses were used instead of high-rise
blocks. Drainage water was collected in canals and ponds instead of underground pipes. Where possible, marshland vegetation was used instead of mown grass
and exotic shrubs. The natural patterns of the site were brought to the surface, and the result differs from Sweden, Spain, America or Taiwan. Aesthetically,
the dominant pattern is that of the
Picturesque Style
of garden design, as used in England between 1800 and 1820.

On the north bank of the River Thames, in East London, is a great expanse of semi-derelict, semi-industrialized, semi-marshland, which was proposed as the
site for a London garden festival (Turner, 1987). Amongst other things, it had been polluted by a sewage works and a coal-burning gas works. The illustrations
were made as glazed clay tiles to dramatise their status as patterns.
Figure 10 shows the existing site as it might be shown on a survey map.
Figure 11 shows this as a diagrammatic primary pattern, with some artefacts included, because man is part of nature.
Figure 12 shows a butterfly. It is an aesthetic pattern, which, as a metaphor for metamorphosis, is the idea that begat the design.
Figure 13 shows a social pattern, for vehicular and pedestrian circulation within a garden festival site.
Figure 14 shows the circulation pattern integrated with the aesthetic pattern
Figure 14 shows the integration of the natural pattern, the social pattern and the aesthetic pattern into a garden festival. It is as described as an archetype
because it could be re-used
Figure 15 shows a metamorphosis of the garden festival into a special type of urban area (a New Town) with a marshy character and an ecological approach
to stormwater and vegetation management (like McHargs plan for Woodlands in Texas). The past, present and future of the marsh can be recounted
as follows.

4.10 One Right Way?
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Metamorphosis on the Thames

On that bright morn of our primal dawn, we fried our wings on the shore.
Soaring from reed and marsh, we copulated and died.
The Angles then the Saxons came. The forests fell but the marsh lived on.
Till dark Bazalgette brought a river of shit, and the cold black rock was burnt for gas.
We all died then.
Now let the marsh revive.
Bring back our butterflies.
Meta morphosis from Father Thames.
Glory was and glory will.
Flutterby.
Carelessly.

The above examples illustrate the point that design sequences can begin at different points and proceed by different routes. Sometimes, the patterns of
the existing site will be the most powerful influence on the final design. Sometimes, the nature of the intended human use will come first. Sometimes,
an artistic conception will take priority. There is no One Right Way.