I read Christopher Alexander’s opus, A Pattern Language so you don’t have to. It’s intimidating to read the whole book (1,100+ pages) while learning the 253 patterns he describes. So, I started a Twitter handle to help me learn by posting about one pattern each day.

Here, I collected all 253 Patterns in one list to easily reference. Receive a simple PDF version via email below!

I send a monthly letter to fellow curious people with project updates, what I’m writing, reading, and thinking about. It's my effort to digest and make sense of both what I consume each month and what's on my mind.

Get my 📫 Side Notes letter here. 👇

Patterns 1- 94 = Towns

What must be built gradually piece by piece with small individual acts in order to fit within larger global patterns.

1. Independent Regions - Metropolitan regions will not come to balance until each one is small and autonomous enough to to be an independent sphere of culture.

2. The Distribution of Towns - If the pop. of a region is weighted too far toward small villages, modern civilization can never emerge; If the pop. is weighted too far toward big cities, the earth will go to ruin b/c the pop. isn’t where it needs to be, to take care of it.

3. City Country Fingers - Continuous sprawling urbanization destroys life, and makes cities unbearable. But the sheer size of cities is also valuable and potent.

4. Agricultural Valleys - Keep town and city development along the hilltops and hillsides. In the valleys, be a steward of the land and embrace basic ecological responsibilities.

5. Lace of Country Streets - Where city and country meet, place country roads at least a mile apart, so they enclose squares of countryside and farmland. Keep the housing in rows or clusters along the roads, with the working land behind them.

6. Country Towns - A collection of smaller country towns support the larger towns and cities of the region. Each smaller town should build a base of local industry to be self-sustainable. They can’t just be dorms for people who work in other places.

7. The Countryside - The large open areas between towns are needed to maintain balance of the region. Farms, when treated as private property, rob the people of their natural biological heritage - the countryside they came from.

8. Mosaic of Subcultures - A great variety of human groups and subcultures co-existing is crucial for a city to live. Create a mosaic of small and different subcultures, each with its own space, and the power to create its own distinct life style.

9. Scattered Work - Work and Living zones should be distributed among each other; avoid concentrated zones of either. People can meet for lunch, children can be aware, and workers can run home easily. Separation reinforces that work is a toil, and only family life is “living.”

10. Magic of the City - The magic in the specialization of human effort happens where it’s most concentrated. Only the lucky or rich enough get to live with easy access to it. Put the magic within reach of everyone in a metro area.

11. Local Transport Areas - Short local trips should be slow and inconvenient for cars, encouraging alternate forms of transport (foot, bike, mopeds, etc.). Cars are great for long trips but draw people 10x further away from each other and their environment, harming social life.

12. Community of 7,000 - Individuals lose their effective voice in communities larger than 10k people. Organize government to give local control in groups of 5k-10k. Use natural or historical boundaries as often as possible to mark these communities.

13. Subculture Boundary - Different cultures should live directly next to each other (#8), but they have their own character. Physical boundaries must separate the cultures (natural or man-made) to live at their full potential. Include shared meeting spaces that touch both.

14. Identifiable Neighborhood - People need to belong to a distinct area in the city they can identify. Encourage local groups to organize themselves and form these neighborhoods. Major roads through a neighborhood wild destroy it.

15. Neighborhood Boundary - Form a boundary by cutting the normal number of streets in half or closing down streets to through traffic. If the boundary is too weak the neighborhood will lose its own character.

16. Web of Public Transportation - Each public transportation mode must be well connected, which happens if the agencies in charge have incentives to integrate with each other. Primary focus should be on interchanges, where they all connect. Next, focus on the specific lines.

17. Ring Roads - Place high speed roads in a way that they do not damage communities or countryside. Each area should have at least one side not bounded by a high speed road. Neighborhoods must be protected from the noise of high speed roads.

18. Network of Learning - Creative individuals grow up in societies which emphasize learning over teaching. Education happens from decentralized urban design. Living and learning spaces are scattered about. People of all backgrounds offer a class in what they know and love.

19. Web of Shopping - Shops of a specific service should be placed in the biggest gap of existing shops where: 1. There are potential customers 2. Away from similar shops 3. Near other shops that customers already will be seeking.

20. Mini-Buses - Public transportation should be able to take someone from any point to any other point in a metro area. Mini-buses (up to 6 people) can assist with the final stretch of this service.

21. Four-story Limit - High buildings make people crazy and offer no real advantages. They are not cheaper, do not create open space, destroy the townscape, destroy social life, promote crime,are expensive to maintain, and damage the light, air, and view in a city.

22. Nine Per Cent Parking - When more than 9% of the land is devoted to parking, the environment is destroyed. The more parking cities provide, the more difficult it is to maintain many of these patterns; especially those dealing with the local transport areas.

23. Parallel Roads - A system of parallel and alternating one-way roads will carry traffic to the Ring Roads for fast and long-distance traveling. This improves congestion in city centers and decreases the number of cars where children play and people walk.

24. Sacred Sites - The special places that come to symbolize an area (natural or historic landmarks) are essential and should be protected. These sites help maintain individuals' spiritual roots and connect them to their past.

25. Access to Water - People have a desire to be near bodies of water, but the very act of large groups moving toward them can destroy the water. Treat the natural bodies of water with great respect. Dense communities should be directly next to the water at infrequent spots.

26. Life Cycle - The full cycle of life should be represented in each community. Include a balance of people at every stage of life from infants to the elderly.

27. Men and Women - Each environment must have a balance of male and female to reflect both the masculine and feminine sides of life. Keep this balance in any project at every scale.

28. Eccentric Nucleus - To create a coherent pattern of densities, place the high density centers of towns/communities at the boundaries between subcultures.

29. Density Rings - Once the nucleus of a community is clearly placed - define rings of decreasing local housing density around this nucleus. People want to be close to services for convenience yet far away for quiet. This is the balance to try and find.

30. Activity Nodes - Community facilities should be concentrated together. Identify where the action seems to concentrate. Layout paths to bring as many of them through these spots as possible. Pedestrian movement in the community should pass through these nodes too.

31. Promenade - Each subculture needs a center for its public life, where you go to see people and to be seen. The beauty of the promenade = people with a shared way of life gathering together; confirming their community.

32. Shopping Street - Shopping centers depend on access: they need to be near traffic arteries yet also need quiet, comfort, and convenience to be utilized and attractive.

33. Night Life - Places that stay open at night need to be clustered together in order to create any night life scene. Well-lit, safe, and lively places draw all the people out at night to the same few spots.

34. Interchange - Interchanges allow a public transportation system to sustain itself. They need to be extremely convenient to use. Steady users keep it going, but interchanges allow infrequent users access and ease when they need.

35. Household Mix - People should be able to find and see face to face people in every stage of life; it allows us to feel our way through life. Encourage a mix of household types in every neighborhood so that one-person homes, couples & families with children are side by side.

36. Degree of Publicness - People are different. Some want to live where the action is, others want more isolation. Each living area should provide space for 3 kinds of housing options - public, private, and in-between.

37. House Cluster - Arrange houses in rough, but identifiable clusters around shared land and paths. Place them so that anyone can walk through without feeling like a trespasser Common land shared by a cluster of 8-12 houses physically knits the group together.

38. Row Houses - Typical row houses are dark inside and lack variety from one to the next. By making them long and thin along paths, it leaves room for variations to let light in. Place houses along pedestrian paths and give each house a long frontage and a shallow depth.

39. Housing Hill - The most central and desirable areas in town will have demand that increases the house density by 3-4x. For these areas apts. are impersonal, build a hill of houses with stepped terraces, sloping southward, a central stair, and leading to a common garden.

40. Old People Everywhere - Old people need old people. They also need the young, and young people need contact with the old. The very young keep the old engaged and the old teach the young

41. Work Community - If you spend a similar amount of your day at work and home, your workplace should be a community of its own. Including a collection of smaller clusters, courtyards, and common areas with shops and food.

42. Industrial Ribbon - Place industry at the boundaries between communities, where people nearby can benefit from the offshoots of what’s being manufactured. Zoning laws separate industry from urban life completely to create an unrealistic facade of sheltered residential areas.

43. University as a Marketplace - Concentrated universities, with closed admissions and strict guidelines for who may teach a course, kill opportunities for learning. Marketplaces of ideas, all over town, allow people to shop for the ideas and learning which make sense to them.

44. Local Town Hall - Each community should have its own physical town hall to govern its local politics. Place the hall near the busiest intersection. Include areas for public discussion, public services, and space to rent out for one-off projects.

45. Necklace of Community Projects - The local town hall will be a part of the community if it’s surrounded by all kinds of small projects, generated for the people it serves. Lease nearby spaces for political work, research and advocate groups for minimum rent.

46. Market of Many Shops - Establish marketplaces, each made of smaller shops that are autonomous and specialized. Simple structure of roof, columns to define aisles, and basic services. Modern supermarkets have bland food and provide no joy when you go in.

47. Health Center - Network Health Centers with small and independent teams to treat everyday disease (mental and physical). Emphasize health, not sickness Must be decentralized, close to people’s everyday activities, and encourage people in practices that lead to health.

48. Housing in Between - Build houses into the fabric of shops, schools, and public services. This retains even nonresidential areas as “lived-in.” When residential and nonresidential areas have a sharp separation, the nonresidential will turn to slums.

49. Looped Local Roads - Looped roads make it impossible for cars that don’t have a destination on it to use as a shortcut. These are a way to avoid fast traffic going by homes. The looped roads should be narrow and will not be busy.

50. T Junctions - Accidents are much less common where traffic crosses two roads at a three-way T junction compared to four-way intersections. Make the junctions as close to 90 degrees as possible.

51. Green Streets - Plant grass all over local roads that are closed to through traffic. Use paving stones for the wheels of cars. This creates a street so pleasant that it attracts activity to it. Concrete and hot asphalt have a terrible effect on the local environment.

52. Network of Paths and Cars - Lay out pedestrian paths at right angles to roads, so they begin to form a 2nd, distinct network. This is for medium to high traffic density areas. At low densities they can be combined (see #51.)

53. Main Getaways - Boundaries between parts in a town are usually just in people’s minds but it’s better if they are physical as well. Gateways can be many things - a literal gate, a bridge, a narrow passage, or an avenue of trees.

54. Road Crossing - Cars can scare people away from walking near roads even if places that people have the legal right-of-way. Narrow the road where the pedestrian path is, raise the path, put in islanders between driving lanes, and add a canopy to keep the path visible to cars.

55. Raised Walk - Pedestrian paths near fast-moving roads should be ~18 inches above the road, on only one side of the road, include a low wall or railing to mark the edge, and twice as wide as a normal sidewalk.

56. Bike Paths and Racks - Bikes are cheap, healthy and great for the environment, but the environment is not made with them in mind. There needs to be paths designated for bikes - marked clearly, run on the sunny side of local roads and come within 100 ft of every building.

57. Children in the City - Children need to explore the world around them and learn to become adults; yet cities are too dangerous for kids to explore freely. Make parts of the bike network extra safe, with no cars or major road crossing. Homes and shops to keep eyes on the path.

58. Carnival - There is a need for socially sanctioned activities; which are the social, outward expression of dreaming. These experiences allow people to reveal their madness and unleash these desires without being destructive.

59. Quiet Backs - People need quiet natural spaces to refresh themselves after working around noise and people during the day. Buildings in busy areas should have a quiet area behind them with enough space to walk, and far enough from the building so that it gets full sunlight.

60. Accessible Garden - People need green open spaces. Scatter them so they are close to every house workplace, ideally less 3 minutes away. This is usually where parks fall short, they are large and widely spread out through the city.

61. Small Public Squares - Every town needs a square, yet too large and they feel deserted. Build them smaller than you think. The short side (width) should be < 70 ft. across, ideally 45-60 ft. ~70 ft is the max distance people can see facial expressions and easily communicate.

62. High Places - The instinct to climb up to a higher place and look down to survey your world is fundamental in humans. Make the high points in a city landmarks. Can be natural topography or the highest roofs, but they should include a physical climb to reach the top.

63. Dancing in the Street - All over the earth people once danced in the streets as a form of joy. This has died in technically sophisticated parts of the world. Place a raised bandstand in pockets of activity, cover it and have paved surfaces nearby for dancing.

64. Pools and Streams - We are made of water and water plays a large role in our psychology. In order to have the daily access to water that we need, all forms of it (rainwater, streams, reservoirs, etc.) should be exposed and preserved.

65. Birth Places - Childbirth is a family event that is a natural part of the community. It shouldn't be treated as a sickness from which to recover from. Build local places where women go to have children. Educate fathers and provide midwives for support at these places.

66. Holy Ground - Birth, puberty, marriage, and death are fundamental human rites. When they are treated with power and respect, they are given a physical place to act as a needed gateway.

67. Common Land - This space has 2 main functions. 1. Allows people to feel comfortable outside and 2. provides a meeting ground for activities that clusters of houses naturally share. 25% of the land in house clusters should be common use, without cars primarily using the space.

68. Connected Play - Children need other children as much as their own mothers for healthy development. Common land, paths, gardens, and bridges that are connected away from traffic should be established as play space for kids.

69. Public Outdoor Room - Make a part of the common land an outdoor room. Partly enclosed, some roof, columns, few walls, and place it within view of homes and workplaces. People passing through and who live nearby will finish it with whatever they feel is missing.

70. Grave Sites - The presence of the dead interspersed with the living is a daily reminder to encourage people to live. Avoid massive cemeteries. Use small pieces of land throughout the community as grave sites, all with an edge, path, or quiet corner where people can sit.

71. Still Water - People should have the ability to swim daily and access pools or ponds within minutes. The entrance should be on the shallow side and gradually get deeper Natural edges (1-2 inches deep to start) have kept kids safe alongside oceans, rivers, and lakes forever.

72. Local Sports - The human body wears down when it's not used. A natural way to get people using their bodies more is integrating local sports as part of each neighborhood. Make the action visible, inviting passers-by to join in.

73. Adventure Playground - Play is crucial, especially for children; providing:

• - a chance to be together

• - use their bodies

• - build muscles

• - test new skills

• - stretch their imagination.

  Set up a space full of raw materials where children can build their own playgrounds.

74. Animals - Access to animals in a city is just as important as trees, parks, grass, and flowers. They may play a vital role in children's emotional development and ability to connect with other people, friends, and family members.

75. The Family - A nuclear family doesn't work. It's important that a household has ~ a dozen people around them, to find comfort and relationships that sustain them during ups and downs. Humans used to have extended family (~ 3 generations) living as a loosely-knit household.

76. House for a Small Family - To balance the clean and quiet of adult needs with the toys and disarray of children, a small house needs three distinct areas.

1. Couple's realm

2. Children's realm

3. Common area connected to both (1) and (2)

77. House for a Couple - When a house is shared by just two people, the most pressing problem to address is allowing each to have enough opportunity for solitude and privacy when needed. Create a house with both shared and private spaces.

78. House for One Person - The most critical issue is a need for simplicity. Every item in the house is placed for the simplest necessity and should support the person’s life directly. Ideally one central space, with nooks small alcoves around it.

79. Your Own Home - People will not feel genuinely comfortable in a place that they rent. It's important to provide everyone ownership of control over their house and have a space for a garden or terrace. They need the power and opportunity to modify and repair their own place.

80. Self-governing Workshops and Offices - People enjoy their work when they can understand the big picture and feel responsible for the group’s success. Work is instrumental to living and feeling fulfilled in a community. Work teams should be small and focused.

81. Small Services without Red Tape - When public service departments get too large they lose their human qualities, which leads them to break. If they are “fixed” with red tape, they become more bureaucratic, politicized, and inefficient.

82. Office Connections - If teams are placed more than one floor apart in a work space, there will be almost no communication between the two. Figure out the nuisance distance and coordinate teams to remain below this threshold.

83. Master and Apprentice - The most powerful, effective, and simple way to learn is to help someone who really knows what they are doing. Work and learning go hand in hand. A workspace should be divided into clusters, where masters and apprentices can work and meet together.

84. Teen-Age Society - The passage between childhood and adulthood needs to contain time for teenagers to explore the adult world, step back, and then explore again. Teenagers need a space to take on and learn the responsibility and discipline that’s found in the adult world.

85. Shopfront Schools - Children have a need to learn by doing and make their mark on the community. This is an opportunity to teach basic skills and build habits of learning they can use for the rest of their lives. Kids 7-12 should learn in tiny independent. schools.

86. Children’s Home - A place kids can stay for an hour or a week, different than baby-sitting. A space where they are safe and looked after with a full range of social activities that introduce them to society and expose them to adults and children of other ages.

87. Individually Owned Shops - Small, individually-owned shops keep the wealth generated by a community in the hands of that community. Large, absentee-owned shops become bland, less personal, and make it harder for smaller shops to survive.

88. Street Cafe - These cafes and their terraces provide a place to sit, relax, watch a large volume of people pass by and be very public in each neighborhood. The special quality being that a person can sit for hours! There is not a pace to keep up with or pressure to leave.

89. Corner Grocery - The stores are generators of walks. When you want to grab eggs and also feel like a walk, they entice you to get out and accomplish both. Developers think people don't want to walk to local stores; this is wrong.

90. Beer Hall - A public place where strangers and friends can gather as buddies to imbibe, sing, shout, relax, be open, and let go of sorrows. Combine this with a variety of activities (darts, dancing, a fire, etc.) Bars alone can become landing spots for the lonely.

91. Traveler’s Inn - Even for a stranger passing through a new place, there is a need for stories, adventures, and encounters with others in a community. Unlike a motel, make an Inn for travelers to draw energy from communal spaces and meals. Keep the scale of the Inn small.

92. Bus Stop - These spaces should form tiny centers for public life. Interweave them with newsstands, maps, outdoor shelters, seats, coffee shops, etc. They are dreary when set independently with nothing for people to experience while waiting.

93. Food Stands - The best food stands are operated by their owner. The same people prepare and sell the food based on their own ideas and recipes. Place them where cars and paths meet. They are not hidden, but out in the open. The more they smell, the better.

94. Sleeping in Public - Communities feel safe when you can lay down to rest in public places that are comfortable and semi-sheltered. It's natural to nap in public. Homeless people sleeping on public benches feels like loitering because there are very few places to lie down.

I send a monthly letter to fellow curious people with project updates, what I’m writing, reading, and thinking about. It's my effort to digest and make sense of both what I consume each month and what's on my mind.

Get my 📫 Side Notes letter here. 👇

Patterns 95 - 204 = Buildings

What is under the control of individuals or small groups, capable of building entire patterns at once. These patterns give actual 3D shape to buildings.

95. Building Complex - A building comes alive when it is made up of smaller parts which work cohesively together. A large monolithic building is impersonal and undifferentiated, which prevents the people inside from being personal with one another.

96. Number of Stories - Buildings should allow at least 50% of the ground area of any constructed spaces to remain open. Don't let the height of buildings vary too much. Adjacent buildings should especially be roughly the same height.

97. Shielded Parking - Place large parking lots and garages behind some kind of natural wall so that cars and the structure cannot be seen from outside. No one wants to walk by or see a dead building, which is what a parking structure becomes.

98. Circulation Realms - Large buildings should be laid out to pass through different areas (realms), each marked by gateways that get smaller and smaller. Realms should be easily named, so it’s easy to direct someone where to go by describing the realm and gateway to seek.

99. Main Building - "A complex of buildings with no center is like a man without a head." Decide which building is most essential and create it with a central position and higher roof to designate its importance.

100. Pedestrian Street - People "rubbing shoulders" in public forms an important social glue. Build streets with:

1. No cars, except for deliveries and essential cars.

2. Buildings along the street where most circulation happens outside (few indoors staircases, lobbies, etc.)

101. Building Thoroughfare - Colder climates or high densities may force public circulation indoors. In these cases, build an indoor "street" that is nearly continuous with the outdoor street and acts as a shortcut. Line the edges with windows, places to sit, and food stands.

102. Family of Entrances - A complex of multiple buildings can be confusing to someone arriving. Make the entrances for each individual building bold and easy to see, ideally marked by a similar kind of sign or doorway.

103. Small Parking Lots - Large parking lots take over the landscape and create unpleasant places in and around them. Even when parked cars take up less than 9% of the land in a community, they should be spaced out in order to avoid a vast parking lot.

104. Site Repair - Building new spaces is a chance to improve upon less pleasant areas. We want to build only in the best areas, this is wrong. Areas that are already healthy and beautiful should be left alone. Our energy for building should be used in areas that need it most.

105. South Facing Outdoors - Open spaces get used when they are sunny. Place buildings to the north of their outdoor spaces and avoid large shade areas that separate them from the sunny area. In desert climates, people will use spaces that have a balance of sun and shade.

106. Positive Outdoor Space - People feel more comfortable in a space which is partly enclosed, especially in smaller outdoor spaces such as gardens, parks, and plazas. This is seen when a person looks for a place to sit outdoors, they look for a tree or natural covering.

107. Wings of Light - The presence of natural light is essential when deciding their shape. The way to achieve light on two sides is by building long and narrow wings. Wings should correspond with the social groups inside the building.

108. Connected Buildings - In a society where buildings lean against each other physically, people are forced to confront their neighbors, solve issues that arise, and learn to healthily adapt to others. Related to people - we don't stand alone and exist independently.

109. Long Thin House - The shape of a building effects privacy and overcrowding which determines how comfortable people feel. For small buildings, string the rooms out so the distance between them is as far as it can be, either horizontally or vertically.

110. Main Entrance - Placement of the main entrance is critical to controls the layout and evolution of the building. People approaching from main avenues should see the entrance as soon as they see the building itself. It should contain a bold, visible shape that stands out.

111. Half-Hidden Garden - Gardens too close to the street feel too exposed and won't be used. If a garden is fully in the back of a house it's too far away will feel too isolated. A garden needs some privacy while keeping some connection to access the street and the entrance.

112. Entrance Transition - The experience of entering a building influences the way you feel inside. If there is no transition, it will feel abrupt and as if there is no arrival. Transitions can be changes of light, sound, direction, surface, level, or a gateway to pass under.

113. Car Connection - The shortest route from a parked car into the house should be the main entrance. Make the space connecting the house and car a positive space - supporting the experience of coming and going. The car space should also be taken seriously and made beautiful.

114. Hierarchy of Open Space - Outdoors, people will try to find a spot where their backs are protected and they can look out toward a larger opening. People feel comfortable in these spaces. A natural back should be in the smaller space. Here’s an example from a private garden

115. Courtyards Which Live - Place courtyards so have some view out of them to a larger open space. Ideally they are partly open to the activity that surrounds the building, yet still private. Multiple doors from the building should open into to it, creating natural paths through.

116. Cascade of Roofs - The largest and most significant gathering places should have the highest ceilings and be in the middle of the whole building because they are the social centers of activities. Smaller groups, individual rooms, and alcoves naturally fall around the edges.

117. Sheltering Roof - When a roof is hidden, its presence isn’t felt around the building and people will lack a fundamental sense of shelter. Make a vault of the roof so that its entire surface is visible, bringing the eaves down low where people pause, such as entrances.

118. Roof Garden - Make at least one small roof garden in every building to take advantage of the sun and open air. They can be used for planting, sitting, and sleeping outside. It should be possible to walk directly out to the roof garden directly from some lived-in part.

119. Arcades - Arcades are covered walkways at the edge of buildings - partly inside and outside. Use arcades to connect buildings and allow people to walk from place to place under the cover. They create friendly invitations for people to interact with buildings.

120. Paths and Goals - Paths must be compatible with walking. Ideally they are straight or gently curving between goals. Ordinary things outdoors can all be goals - trees, fountains, entrances, seats, statues, swings, or outdoor rooms.

121. Path Shape - Make a bulge in the middle of a path with narrower ends. This will create a place for people to stay in to meander and not just pass through.

122. Building Fronts - Creating buildings to be set-back from the street has discouraged social interaction in the streets. Instead, place buildings right up to paths and streets and let them take on uneven angles to accommodate the shape of the street.

123. Pedestrian Density - The number of square feet per person gives a general estimate of the liveliness of a space. These exact numbers are subjective but at 150 sq. ft./person, an area is lively. If more than 500 sq. ft./person, an area begins to feel dead.

124. Activity Pockets - People naturally gather around a square’s edge. If the edge fails, then the space doesn’t become lively. Fill the edges with pockets of activity. These can include arcades, seats, sitting walls, columns, trellises, outdoor rooms, cafes, food stands, etc.

125. Stair Seats - When there is action in a place, the most inviting spots are high enough to provide a vantage point, yet low enough to feel in the action. Make them accessible from below so that people may gather, sit, and watch what’s going on.

126. Something Roughly in the Middle - A public space should contain something to stand in its middle, otherwise it will likely remain empty. A fountains, tree, statue, clocktower, or bandstand all work. Place it where the paths come together, not exactly in the middle.

127. Intimacy Gradient - Lay out the space in a building to create a sequence that corresponds to the degrees of privateness. Begin with the entrance and the most public parts, eventually leading to the most private domains.

128. Indoor Sunlight - The most important rooms in a building should be placed along the south edge. A house is bright and cheerful when the right rooms are facing south. Sun shining into a room has one of the greatest effects on its feeling. *written for the Northern Hemisphere

129. Common Areas at the Heart - All social groups' survival depends on constant informal contact between its members. Place a single common area for members to frequently pass by, tangentially. They can easily pop in to see what's going on if they want or keep going past.

130. Entrance Room - Create a room to enter through, both inside and outside of the building. This space is used for basic arrival and goodbye tendencies. People want to see who’s at the door, provide shelter, space to take off shoes and coats, and somewhere to place things.

131. The Flow Through Rooms - When possible, use public and common rooms for movement and gathering rather than corridors or passages. Allow for circulation from room to room to pass in wide, circular loops with views of fires and windows.

132. Short Passages - Create passages to be like rooms, with carpets or wood floors, furniture, book shelves, and windows. The ideal case is a one-side hall, lined with windows on its open side.

133. Staircase as a Stage - Place the main stair in a central, visible position. Create the staircase so that it’s one with a room. Include wide stairs at the bottom to encourage stair seating.

134. Zen View - Place the windows and areas to see a beautiful view so people glimpse the view as they pass it. Avoid making it the main view from where people gather. The more open and obvious the view is, the sooner it fades. It becomes part of the building, like wallpaper.

135. Tapestry of Light and Dark - Buildings need alternating areas of light and dark. People are phototropic and attracted to the light. Use light to guide them to important places (seats, entrances, stairs, passages, etc.).

136. Couple’s Realm - Part of a house should be distinct from children’s areas and allow parents to be together in private. When children can run everywhere in the house, they tend to dominate it all. Their role as parents rather than a couple permeates the entire relationship.

137. Children’s Realm - Children need a space to release their large amounts of energy. The space should be a continuum of areas inside and outside of the house to allow their variety of play. Keep the couple’s realm and private spaces entirely separate from these play areas.

138. Sleeping to the East - Position the rooms where people sleep so they wake up with the sun and light. Beyond following our natural rhythm, people want to look out and see what kind of day its going to be. A good morning view can provide this information well.

139. Farmhouse Kitchen - Integrate kitchen work and family activity in one big room. Make the area bright, comfortable, and large enough to hold a big table, long counters, and stove/sink around the edge. Cooking and eating are enjoyable and ways we "take care of ourselves."

140. Private Terrace on the Street - Common rooms in the house should open out to a space that looks into the street, rather directly to the street. Raise the terrace slightly above the street and include a low wall.

141. A Room of One’s Own - Everyone needs opportunities to be alone if they will be close to others. Give each family member a room of their own, including at minimum a desk, alcove, and shelves. Place these at the far end of the intimacy gradient (Pattern 127).

142. Sequence of Sitting Spaces - Corners and alcoves in buildings are all potential sitting spaces. Build them with various degrees of intimacy. The most formal ones to be enclosed entirely and the least formal to be in the corners without any screen or barrier blocking them.

143. Bed Cluster - Children need a private place, many young children feel isolated if they sleep alone. Place the children’s bed in alcoves they can retreat to around a common play space. Avoid walls or doors, instead use curtains for the alcoves if needed.

144. Bathing Room - Bathing needs to be a positive and energizing pleasure. Place the bathing room, toilets, and showers in a single tiled area in the house. Build it beside the couple’s realm (136) and if possible give it access to outside (tiny balcony or walled garden).

145. Bulk Storage - Where people live and work, there is some need for storing items that aren’t used everyday but also not ready to throw out. Plan for this area from the beginning and place it where it costs less to build.

146. Flexible Office Space - Office workers need space that is both well-adapted to specific work arrangements and truly flexible.

147. Communal Eating - Without communal eating, human groups cannot hold together. Make communal meals regular so they become important and comfortable events with room for guests.

148. Small Work Groups - Split up work groups into small, spatially dedicated teams. Each person on the team should at least have partial view of the other members. Create a way for them to easily share common areas such as the entrance, kitchen, equipment, and bathrooms.

149. Reception Welcomes You - A person should feel at ease when entering a building. In the entrance, arrange things to welcome guests - soft chairs, food, coffee, fireplace. Place the receptionist to one side, so they can get up and walk toward the people and greet them.

150. A Place to Wait - The process of waiting creates uncertainties and you can't enjoy the time because it's unpredictable; you don't know when your turn will come. Create positive waiting spaces. Fuse it with activities (reading, games, coffee) or a way to enjoy silence.

151. Small Meeting Rooms - The larger meetings are, the less people will get out of them. Make the majority of meetings spaces small, for 12 people or less. Ideally, in the most public areas scattered around the workspace.

153. Rooms to Rent - The need for space in a building grows and shrinks with time. Create part of the building to be rentable if unused. It will need a private entrance and direct access to a bathroom that will not require passing through the main areas.

154. Teenager’s Cottage - A teenager’s space in the home needs to reflect their desired independence, otherwise they will feel locked in conflict with the rest of the family. Keep it attached to the house but ideally far away from the master bedroom and with a private entrance

155. Old Age Cottage - Old people face a conflict. Life pushes them to be independent (kids move away, neighborhood changes, friends and loved ones die) while they naturally become more dependent on others. Provide a small cottage nearby for them, placed at ground level.

156. Settled Work - Settled work is the activity that becomes an extension of the person. This kind of work that develops gradually over a lifetime. Provide space for a workplace that can grow slowly to accommodate a weekend hobby at first then eventually a complete workshop.

157. Home Workshop - Make a place in the home where work beyond hobbies can be done. A home workshop becomes more important, the more decentralized work is. Allow it to be partially seen from the street so people can see in and interact.

158. Open Stairs - Apartments on the upper floors of a building need direct stair access to the street. This keeps the spaces connected to the world around, open, and free-flowing. Keep the stairs roofed or unroofed depending on climate.

159. Light on Two Sides of Every Room - People will gravitate to rooms with natural light on two sides. Light from two sides limits the glare on others’ faces, allowing people to understand each other better through clear facial expressions and hand motions.

160. Building Edge - Create building edges to have a use on their own. Make them places that invite people to stop, sit, lean, or cover from the weather.

161. Sunny Place - Develop the area immediately outside of a building on the south side into a place for people to bask in it. Create an important room, place to work, or to play here so that it draws people towards using it regularly. Try to shelter the area from the wind.

162. North Face - The North sides of buildings will be dark and gloomy for most of the year. On these sides, make a cascade so that the little sun on that side is not blocked even more. Use these sides for things that don't need the sun, such as car shelter or storage.

163. Outdoor Room - Include a partly closed outdoor room for outdoor needs not met by a garden. Build a space for people to eat, sit in formal clothes, drink, talk, and be still, yet outside. Use different elements (trellis, foliage on walls, columns, etc) to form a room.

164. Street Windows - Buildings along busy streets should have windows to look out onto the street. Ideal street windows are on the second and third floors. Higher up makes them “a view” and at ground level they may have to be covered up for privacy.

165. Opening to the Street - Seeing action encourages more action. Open up a space on the street side and include some part of the activity on the far side of the pedestrian path. People passing by will walk through it and see inside.

166. Gallery Surround - Build balconies and terraces at the edges of buildings. These will help buildings to feel intertwined with both the people walking out onto them and those looking at them from outside.

167. Six-Foot Balcony - Balconies and porches less than six feet deep are hardly used. Ideally make them half-enclosed and recessed into the building slightly too.

168. Connection to the Earth - Deliberately place paths, terraces, and steps around the edge of a building to connect it to the natural landscape surrounding it. Make the boundary of building and earth ambiguous.

169. Terraced Slope - Use terraces along contour lines to control erosion and soil health. Sloping land creates uneven rainwater flow and is affected by erosion more which can kill the soil. Buildings can cross terrace lines.

170. Fruit Trees - Plant small orchards of fruit trees on common land along paths and streets where groups may gather. Preserving them is minimal work if tackled as a community and the trees tend to produce more than one house can consume.

171. Tree Places - Plant trees to form enclosures, avenues, squares, and groves. When trees form places that respond to nearby buildings they become areas that people will use. This will allow the trees to receive the care they need from people and grow naturally.

172. Garden Growing Wild - Grow bushes, flowers, and trees as they would occur in nature. Don’t include barriers, bare dirt, formal flower beds, and polished paths. Keep a quality of wilderness, tamed, still wild and in harmony with the nearby buildings and people who move in it

173. Garden Wall - Protect the interior of a quiet garden from the sounds of passing traffic. The smaller the garden space is the more definite the enclosure should be.

174. Trellised Walk - Building a trellis can protect a path or provide more intimacy. Use these to shape outdoor spaces by placing them on either side of a garden.

175. Greenhouse - The easiest way to harness solar energy is the most obvious, to trap heat in a greenhouse and use it for growing flowers and vegetables. Build a greenhouse on your home so that it's a room and a part of the garden; accessible from inside and outside.

176. Garden Seat - Choose a place in the garden to be a quiet place with a comfortable seat and direct sun. This allows a person to be in touch with nature free of distractions. Pick the place that will provide an intense feeling of solitude.

177. Vegetable Garden - Every family growing vegetables is a fundamental part of human life. We need to recognize this as more than a hobby for enthusiasts. Place the garden in a central, sunny place to its household. Fence it in and have a small space for storing tools nearby.

178. Compost - Our current processes for getting rid of waste rob the land around our buildings from the nutrients they need. Place toilets over a dry composting chamber where organic garbage is also collected. Eventually, use the combined material for fertilizer.

179. Alcoves - For a group to gather together well, there must also be the chance for individuals to be alone. Create small places at the edges of common rooms; large enough for a desk or for 2 people to sit, chat, and play.

180. Window Place - Create at least one window place In any room where you enjoy spending time during the day. Everyone loves window seats, bay windows, big windows with low sills and comfortable chairs nearby. These “places” are necessary to feel comfortable and at ease.

181. The Fire - There is no substitute for fire. It provides a natural focus and allows people to think, talk, and dream. Place it so that even adjacent rooms can glimpse the fire.

182. Eating Atmosphere - Some rooms allow people to eat leisurely and comfortably while others force quickness and a desire to leave Place a heavy table in the center of an eating space, large enough for a group. Place light directly above and enclose the space with walls.

183. Workplace Enclosure - People work effectively when their workspace finds the balance between too enclosed and too exposed.

184. Cooking Layout - Cooking is uncomfortable if the kitchen counter is either too short or too long. Here are 3 critically functional relationships to consider.

185. Sitting Circle - Seating arrangements can become animated and alive or they can be sterile and avoided. Place seats in a loose circle formation with paths and activities around so people naturally are pulled to them when they want to sit. Include a few too many seats.

186. Communal Sleeping - Arrange a sleeping area for children and adults to sleep in the same place at least as an occasional alternative. Near the fireplace with guests or special occasions would be an example.

187. Marriage Bed - Build this as an intimate anchor point for a couple's life. Make it slightly enclosed, low ceiling or canopy, room shaped to the bed, with many windows. For it to have the right feeling, do not buy one until the couple has been through some hard times.

188. Bed Alcove - Place beds in alcoves off rooms with other non-sleeping functions. The bed will become a private haven. Bedrooms make no sense. The bed makes the spaces around it awkward, pushing dressing, working, sitting, etc. all to the corners and side spaces left.

189. Dressing Rooms - Dressing, undressing, and storing clothes are self-contained and need a space which has no other function. Make a space between their bed and bathroom that is for dressing. It should be large enough to stretch your arms and move around.

190. Ceiling Height Variety - Various heights throughout buildings allow intimacy to be felt relatively b/w spaces. Make ceilings high in rooms for larger gatherings (10-12 ft), lower in rooms for small gatherings (7-9 ft), and very low in alcoves for 1 or 2 people 6-7 ft).

191. The Shape of Indoor Space - Make indoor spaces rough rectangles, with roughly straight walls and nearly symmetrical vaulted ceilings. Perfectly square rooms only make sense if people are too preoccupied with systems and rigid desires.

192. Windows Overlooking Life - People need to refresh themselves by looking at a world different than the one they are in. Have windows to look out to activities in the streets or quiet gardens. Rooms without a view can act like a prison if a person has to stay in them.

193. Half-Open Wall - Rooms that are too closed prevent a natural flow and transition. If they are too open, necessary differentiation between spaces is missing. Find the right balance between extremes using columns, half-open walls, indoor windows, sliding doors, etc.

194. Interior Windows - Windows can be used to connect indoor spaces. Put in windows between rooms which tend to be unusually dark causing them to be dead and rarely used.

195. Staircase Volume - Staircases should make a complete structural bay, two stories high. They may be L-shaped, U-shaped, or C-shaped. They may be narrow and steep or wide and shallow.

196. Corner Doors - A room will never allow people to be comfortable if movement through the room destroys what’s happening there. Only in large rooms do doors make sense in the middle of a wall. Most rooms should have the doors near the corners.

197. Thick Walls - Deep walls can contain shelves, cabinets, special lights, built in seats, nooks, window reveals, etc. Homes become personal when each family can leave its mark on the walls. Build walls with structural material allowing them to be carved, yet still strong.

198. Closets Between Rooms - Storage is usually an afterthought. Place closets on interior walls where they can help with acoustic insulation between rooms. They can help frame doors and passages creating transition spaces. Do not place them on exterior walls!

199. Sunny Counter - A kitchen needs the sun more than other rooms. Place the counter near big windows so sunlight can flood in during the morning and afternoon. Dark kitchens are depressing.

200. Open Shelves - Shelves that are too deep waste valuable space. Make them shallow enough so that things can be placed one deep, nothing hiding behind anything else.

201. Waist-High Shelf - Build waist-high shelves around the main rooms. These act as a place to set down and store objects which are handled during daily traffic. Make them long, 9-15 inches deep, with shelves or storage underneath.

202. Built-in Seats - Built-in seats make a space feel comfortable and luxurious. To make sure they will work, test the area before building them. Place an arm chair in the intended area for a few days and change it's position until you find what you enjoy best.

203. Child Caves - Build small caves for children in wherever they play (house, neighborhood, school, etc.). Tuck them in natural spaces left over like under stairs. Keep the ceiling height low and the entrance tiny.

204. Secret Place - People want to live with a secret place in their homes; a place used in special ways, and only revealed at special times. Make a small place in the home that is nearly impossible to discover unless you’ve been shown where it is.

Patterns 205 - 253 = Construction

How to make a building, room, or space in detail so that larger patterns are encompassed from conception.

205. Structure Follows Social Spaces - Allow the function of social spaces (activities and human groups) to direct a building's form. Do not modify social spaces to conform to engineering structures. A building will seem alien unless its structure is thoughtful and intuitive.

206. Efficient Structure - The most efficiently constructed structures typically follow a similar pattern. A system of load-bearing walls, supported at frequent intervals by columns, and floored and roofed by a system of vaults.

207. Good Materials - “Modern” materials tend to destroy the organic quality of natural buildings, flimsy, and hard to maintain leading to buildings deteriorating more rapidly. Default to biodegradable, low energy consuming materials that are easy to cut and modify on site.

208. Gradual Stiffening - Buildings should be uniquely adapted to individual needs. Plans need to be loose in order to accommodate these differences. Structures should start out as a flimsy frame then made more stiff and strong gradually as more materials are added.

209. Roof Layout - Place the largest roof over the largest and most important communal spaces. Each distinct roof should correspond to a social space within the building.

210. Floor and Ceiling Layout - Use vaults, walls, archways, and beams to maintain the integrity of the social spaces in the building. Related: Pattern 205. Structure Follows Social Spaces

211. Thickening the Outer Walls - Walls with depth and volume have character in them that increases with time. Ways to use thick walls can include Alcoves (179), Window Places (180), Sunny Counter (199), Waist-High Shelf (201), and Built-in Seats (202).

212. Columns at the Corners - Draw a dot on your building plans to represent columns at the corners of each room and space. Stake these dots out onto the ground at the building site. Starting simply allows something that lives to be built, everything will follow the columns.

213. Final Column Distribution - Columns should be furthest apart on the ground level and closer together with each layer higher. This ensures a wide and stable foundation that increases as needed with height.

214. Root Foundations - Find a way to make foundation which have the columns go right into the earth and spread out - like a tree root. This will help resist tension, horizontal breaking, and compression.

215. Ground Floor Slab - The slab is the easiest, cheapest, and most natural way to lay a ground floor. Build the slab slightly raised (6-9 inches) by building a perimeter wall and then filling it in with rubble, gravel, and concrete.

216. Box Columns - Columns feel uncomfortable unless they are reasonable thick and solid. Make them in the form of hollow tubes with a stiff outer skin and a solid core.

217. Perimeter Beams - Build a continuous perimeter beam around rooms to support vaults above. It will spread the load from upper stories onto the columns and walls below.

218. Wall Membrane - Build walls to connect the columns, door frames, and window frames. First put up an inner and outer membrane, then pour fill into the wall.

219. Floor-Ceiling Vaults - A ceiling vault shape must be built to support the load from the floor above, form the ceiling of the room below, and generate as little bending as possible.

220. Roof Vaults - Build a roof vault as a cylindrical barrel or a pitched roof, with a slight convex curve on each sloping side. Add undulations along the vault to make it more effective. The bigger the span, the deeper the curves and undulations should be.

221. Natural Doors and Windows - Build each door/window according to its place, do not rely on standard door/window sizes. Windows should become smaller as you get higher up in a building.

222. Low Sill - It's important for windows to put you in touch with the outdoors. If the sill is too high you feel cut off. On the first floor, make the sills you plan to sit by between 12-14 inches high.

223. Deep Reveals - Make window frames deep with splayed edges about 50-60 degrees. This gentle angling of daylight gives a smooth transition throughout the day between the light of the window and the dark of the room.

224. Low Doorway - Don't take for granted that your doors must be 6' 8" and rectangle. Make some doorways lower or rounded. Lower doors are often more profound. They create more deliberate and thoughtful passages.

225. Frames as Thickened Edges - Think of doors and windows as thickenings of the same material of the wall that they are inserted into. Any homogenous membrane will tend to rupture at the holes, unless the edges of these holes are thick and reinforced.

226. Column Place - Free standing columns should be as thick as humans and form places around them where people can sit and lean comfortably. Add a step or small seat built against them.

227. Column Connections - The strength of a structure depends on the strength of its connections. Where columns meet the beams, build strong connections ideally in a continuous curve ~45 degrees.

228. Stair Vault - Build a curved diagonal vault where you want stairs. Cover the vault with your steps following the shape of the vault for a natural and relaxed final result.

229. Duct Space - Locate pipes and conduit around the ceiling of each room with the triangular space of the vault. This makes them all easy to plug into, utilize, and organize.

230. Radiant Heat - Sunlight and a blazing fire are the best kinds of heat. In the rooms where people are going to gather, especially when it's cold, heat the area with more radiant heat than convection.

231. Dormer Windows - There is habitable space just inside the roof. Dormers make this area livable. They bring in light and air and relieve the low ceilings to create alcoves and window places. Make the window areas high enough to stand in and frame them like other alcoves.

232. Roof Caps - Roof caps add a human touch to the top of buildings. They mark the place where the roof penetrates the sky, just as the building needs a connection to the earth. They add detail and relieve the roof from being a single uninterrupted thing.

233. Floor Surface - We want both; floors to be comfortable, warm, and inviting while also hard enough to resist wear and easy to clean. "Public" areas of a house should use hard materials, and "private" areas should use soft materials. Clearly mark the edge between the areas

234. Lapped Outside Walls - The main function of a building's outside wall is to keep weather out. To do this properly, the materials must be joined so they cooperate well. Choose materials that are inexpensive and easy to repair in little patches so the wall is maintained well

235. Soft Inside Walls - Walls are unpleasant to touch if they are too hard, cold, or solid. These make decoration difficult and create hollow echoes. Soft plaster is a good example of a material that is soft to touch with a slight "give" and is easy to touchup.

236. Windows which Open Wide - Windows are your connection to the outside providing a simple way to change the temperature quickly when a room is too hot or cold. Make windows that are easy to get to, near flowers and walking paths opening windows.

237. Solid Doors with Glass - As often as you can, make doors with glazing so that you can see through at least the upper half. They enlarge a sense of connection while keeping the necessary privacy feeling inside. Build doors solid enough to provide acoustic isolation.

238. Filtered Light - Light filtered through leaves is wonderful. It softens the light and reduces glare. This is easily done with climbing plants, vines, and lattices outside of a window.

239. Small Panes - An important paradox, the smaller the panes in windows are the more intensely they connect us with what's on the other side. Small and narrow windows provide different views from different positions in the room.

240. Half-inch Trim - A free and natural building will use finishing trim to cover up minor variations that come up during construction.

241. Seat Spots - Choosing a good location for outdoor seats is more important than how they look. If the spot is right, the most simple seat is perfect. They should face activities always. Hot climate, place in shade. Cool climate, place to face the sun and bloc the wind.

242. Front Door Bench - People like to watch the world go by. Build a bench outside where people can sit comfortably for hours and watch the passersby. Place it behind a low wall or a natural barrier to keep it semi-private.

243. Sitting Wall - Surround natural outdoor areas with low walls, low and wide enough for comfortable sitting. Place them to coincide with other seat spots to keep extra benches at a minimum.

244. Canvas Roof - Use canvas roofs and awnings in a space that needs partial shade in Summer or protection from mist and dew in Fall. Make them so they can fold away and easily opened. Canvas has a softness which is in harmony with the wind, light, and sun.

245. Raised Flowers - Flowers are beautiful along the edges of paths and buildings but in these areas they need protection from the traffic. Raise the flowers on edges so that people can see, touch, and smell them. Build the beds with solid sides so that people can sit by them.

246. Climbing Plants - When plants grow freely over parts of a building it becomes a part of its surroundings. Train climbing plants to grow up sunny walls and around the openings (windows, doors, porches, etc.).

247. Paving with cracks between the stones - On paths and terraces, lay paving stones with 1 inch between them for grass, mosses, and small flowers to grow. Lay the stones directly into the ground without using mortar. This is better for us, walking, the rainwater and plants.

248. Soft Tile and Brick - Use bricks and tile that wear with time and show marks of use. This helps us feel the earth and time passing, especially if they are made with the local clay nearby.

249. Ornament - We have an instinct to decorate our surroundings. An area or decoration feels whole when it can't be broken into parts. Apply simple themes to boundaries, edges, and transition areas. Ornaments will act as seams along the edges to merge 2 items into 1.

250. Warm Colors - The colors in a room make a difference in comfort. Surface colors with natural light should create warmth. Natural wood, sunlight, yellows, reds, and oranges are warm. Blues, greens, and greys can be used for ornament to set off the warmer colors.

251. Different Chairs - People are different sizes and sit in different ways. When furnishing an area avoid chairs that are identical. Choose a variety - large, small, softer, rockers, old, new, w/ and w/out arms, different materials, etc.

252. Pools of Light - Place lights low, and apart to form designated areas which encompass chairs and tables. Light outdoors is almost never even. Uniform lighting makes people feel disoriented. *you can't have pools of light w/out the darker places in between.

253. Things From Your Life - Decor is most beautiful when it comes from your life. Things you care for will tell your story. When we decorate spaces with only interior design trends in mind, we forget our instinct for the things we actually want to have around us.