Pattern Language: Old People Everywhere   I discovered this pattern a few days after writing “Disease of Greece – Polikatikia,” where it’s briefly mentioned how high density housing units split traditional households into generational pockets, that can be...

Pattern Language: Small Panes When plate glass windows became possible, people thought that they would put us more directly in touch with nature. In fact, they do the opposite. They alienate us from the view. The smaller the windows are, and the smaller the panes are, the more intensely...

  Pattern 21: Four-Story Limit There is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy. High buildings have no genuine advantages, except in speculative gains for banks and land owners. They are not cheaper, they do not help create open space, they destroy the townscape,...

Pattern 207: Good Materials There is a fundamental conflict in the nature of materials for building in industrial society.   On the one hand, an organic building requires materials which consist of hundreds of small pieces, put together, each on of them hand cut, each one shaped to be...

  Pattern 115: Courtyards Which Live The courtyards built in modern buildings are very often dead. They are intended to be private open spaces for people to use — but they end up unused, full of gravel and abstract sculptures. There seem to be three distinct ways in which...

“When they have the choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.” - A Pattern Language (page 747)   I wanted to start off the Pattern Language subject with a pattern...