THE PATTERNS OF ARCHITECTURE

NIKOS A. SALINGAROS

Published in Lynda Burke, Randy Sovich, and Craig Purcell, Editors:

T3XTURE No. 3, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016, pages
7-24.

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION
Pattern theory has not as yet transformed architectural practice—despite the acclaim for A Pattern
Language, 1 Christopher Alexander’s book, which introduced and substantiated the theory. However, it
has generated a great amount of far-ranging, supportive scholarship. In this essay Nikos Salingaros expands
the scope of the pattern types under consideration, and explicates some of the mathematical, scientific and
humanistic justification for the pattern approach.
The author also argues for the manifest superiority of the pattern approach to design over Modernist
and contemporary theories of the last one hundred years.
To a great extent Dr. Salingaros’s conviction rests on the process and goals of the pattern language
method which have as their basis the fundamental realities of the natural world: the mathematics of nature
(many that have been studied since the beginning of human history); the process of organic development; and
the ideal structural environment for human activity. For Salingaros, Alexander, et al. aesthetics in
Architecture derive from these principles rather than from notions of style or artistic inspiration.

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION — KEY PATTERN CONCEPTS

Pattern. A pattern is a discovered organization of space, and also a coherent merging
of geometry with human actions. In common usage “pattern” has an expansive definition. In
Architecture “pattern” often equates with “solution”. In any discussion of architectural
pattern theory the word “pattern” itself is used repeatedly, often with reference to somewhat
different concepts. This can be confounding.
As a rule the patterns catalogued in A Pattern Language:
• represent the successful designs that Alexander and his team found recurrent in
their extensive architectural research across time, cultures, and climates (as a
historian might find, say, a pattern of population density near bodies of water);
• as such these designs are also patterns in the sense of prototypes, or templates,
freely available to be emulated, and modified (much as a dressmaker’s pattern);

1Christopher Alexander, S. Ishikawa, M. Silverstein, M. Jacobson, I. Fiksdahl-King & S. Angel, A

Pattern Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

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 • With reference to Spatial Patterns: “pattern” often refers to designs or
arrangements of figures (for example “the geometrical pattern of a rug”).

This essay primarily concerns the two principal pattern categories: “Spatial Patterns”
and “Living Patterns” defined below.
Living Patterns. The term Living Patterns refers to the socio-geometric patterns in A
Pattern Language. These are detailed, contextualized presentations of: the component parts of
a structure, its immediate environment—a town or select region, et cetera—and their
integration into the larger project. An architect can consult the book for solutions to a full
range of design dilemmas.
In this essay the term more often refers to the Living Pattern concept—its
requirements, the design techniques for its realization, and other tools for Architects to use
to begin compiling their own pattern language.
Both A Pattern Language and this paper are grounded in the sequential, combinatoric
nature of the pattern method in which each step evolves from the step before, creating a
harmonious whole.

Spatial Patterns are outside the scope of A Pattern Language but are necessary
unifiers of the different elements of any Living Pattern. Spatial Patterns combine structural
and visual elements coherently. Generally a Spatial Pattern is a two-dimensional design
perceived at the level of human sight, whose smaller scale supports and unifies—cognitively
or visually—the larger structure. Examples are the Spatial Patterns of ornament or
decoration. Spatial Patterns on a building’s interior surface help orient the user to the scale
and navigation of the whole. On a building’s exterior surface Spatial Patterns provide
necessary coherence and appeal.

Complexity. This word—and versions of it—is among the most frequently

occurring in this essay. Architectural design is a highly complex undertaking, combining
many components that may also each be complex. Heretofore, the basic creative processes
that generate complexity have not been made clear despite many attempts to do so.
Comprehensive and humanistic, pattern theory is a major contribution to the field of
managing complex systems. Decomposing a living city into simplistic Spatial Patterns
destroys its essential complexity; the correct decomposition is into its component Living
Patterns.
There are many examples of non-evolved (that is, non-sequential, non-combinatoric)
patterns from the twentieth century that fall below the complexity threshold found in all
evolved complex forms. The most suitable, harmonious designs are inherently complex.

Process. The reader will note throughout this paper that intrinsic to the pattern
approach to Architecture is the step-wise, adaptive process for designing each element of a
structure. This process results in structures and environments that are adaptive both to initial
conditions and human physical use and sensibilities A close analogue to this process is the

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development of biological organisms. This is the opposite of the commonly used “all-at-
once” design method. Regardless of a building’s size it is impossible at the beginning of the
process for an Architect to envision let alone resolve all of the critical decisions that emerge
only as the design develops. Designing without an adaptive process defaults to forcing the
result to conform to formalism.

Christopher Alexander specifies an algorithmic method (that is, a set of instructions

for step-wise design development) to achieve integrality. Following this iterative system a
determination is made at each juncture as to, for example:
• the scale of the just drafted component;
• the degree to which it reinforces the designs of same-scale elements; its geometrical
congruence with the higher and lower scales of the scaling hierarchy;
• its contribution to wholeness (overall coherence and connectivity); its fulfillment of
human-adaptive goals; and the need to modify any weakness so identified in the component
(that may lead to adjustment elsewhere).
Coherence of the entirety depends on the feedback from these systematic
computations. 2 The step-wise, algorithmic method ensures both the integration of each
discrete part into the whole (and vice versa), and a whole that is more than the sum of these
parts. In time, Artificial Intelligence may be available to perform some of these functions
with the designing Architects integrating nuance and judgment from their experience.
Another indication of the immanence of this pattern process is its expansion into
fields beyond Architecture, most notably software engineering. For example, Alexander’s
process is the basis for the development of Wikipedia. 3

SYMMETRIES CREATE SPATIAL PATTERNS

Our bodies and brains have evolved to deal with an enormous amount of
environmental information, if that information is ordered properly. People are overwhelmed
by the disordered information such as is represented in deconstructivist buildings. The
opposite case is visually empty environments: the sheer, flat surfaces common in minimalist
structures lack the information a person needs to connect to the world. Both extremes cause
psychological, often physiological discomfort.
Architecture, as indeed all of life, is the result of complex computational processes
and, just as with organismic development in nature, each step supports—and is informed
by—the step before. Thus an ordered structure evolves that efficiently channels the energy
that drives the life process. The simplest Spatial Patterns are visual representations of

2 For more information on this process see Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros “The Wholeness

Generating Technology of Christopher Alexander”, Metropolis, October 2011,

http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/October-2011/The-Wholeness-Generating-
Technology-of-Christopher-Alexander/
This is Chapter 20 of Michael W. Mehaffy & N. A. Salingaros, Design for a Living Planet: Settlement,
Science, and the Human Future (Portland, Oregon: Sustasis Press, 2015).
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham last consulted November 12, 2016

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relations, where units with some form of symmetry generate a larger whole that is rich with
information easily assimilable by the human brain.

Figure 1. Components generate a larger-scale Spatial Pattern via symmetries. The larger-scale
pattern has emergent properties not expected from the basic components.

TABLE 1. THE THREE PRINCIPAL SYMMETRIES AND THEIR

SIMPLEST COMBINATION:
1. Reflectional symmetry about an axis joins a pattern’s mirror image to the original
pattern to create a bilaterally symmetric object.
2. Translational symmetry shows invariance after displacing a pattern in one direction
by a specified length.
3. Rotational symmetry shows invariance after rotating the pattern by a specified angle
around a central point.
4. A glide-reflection is the simplest way to combine translations with reflections: move a
unit, and then reflect it across the glide axis.
Altogether, there exist 17 symmetry groups (called “wallpaper groups”) that include
the three basic plane symmetries and their 14 possible combinations in two dimensions.
Most of the classic two-dimensional tiling patterns can be found throughout human history
in both Art and Architecture until the early twentieth century.
Symmetries generate even more complex patterns in three dimensions. The key again
is to repeat non-empty units on the smaller scales to generate coherent structures on a larger
scale.

There are biological reasons for using symmetries in what we make, as witnessed
over our entire cultural evolution. Symmetries significantly reduce the amount of
information that needs to be processed by the brain. 4 In a random design, by contrast, every
single point has to be coded for representation, which is too much information for the
human cognitive system to handle simultaneously.
The rules of symmetry regulate the creation and scaling of Spatial Patterns.
Components on the same scale are related using various common forms of symmetry.
Spatial Patterns on different scales relate though scaling symmetries creating logical,
predictable changes along the hierarchy.

4 Nikos A. Salingaros, A Theory of Architecture (Portland, Oregon: Sustasis Press, 2014).

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 The evolved Spatial Patterns of Architecture function as connectors of the different
levels (scales) of the whole. Crucially they also provide focal points to orient the user. Our
eyes connect to surfaces by focusing upon specific points. We thus rely upon details (among
other factors) to experience an architectural space.

Figure 2. Ornament, which is coherent, ordered structure on the smallest scales, connects us to the
larger-scale structure.

Because each scale of a structure needs to be well defined, Spatial Patterns cannot
just repeat indefinitely but, following the designer’s mathematical model, become
incorporated into patterns on a higher scale. This leads to system coherence. As the scale
increases new patterns should emerge. This “emergence” is exhibited in both living systems
and artificial complex systems, where increasing complexity gives rise to new structures on
higher levels of scale. As wonderful as mathematical fractals are, they do not provide a good
model for adaptive design because the same rule generates every scale.
Our objective should be to enable a positive visceral connection between the user
and the built environment. That cannot be achieved through the studied disconnection of
minimalist spaces and surfaces, on the one hand, or through shattered forms and twisted
geometries, on the other. As Mark Anthony Signorelli states in his critique of Modernism,
and endorsement of evolved traditions:
[W]e may correctly distinguish between pre-modern traditions and the modernist
tradition. Whereas earlier traditions of artistic creation embraced symmetry within
complexity, Modernism has embraced extreme simplicity, dislocation, and
imbalance… Whereas pre-modern Architecture employed scale and ornament,
modern Architecture aggressively promotes gigantisms and barrenness. 5
The key to a positive emotional response is the coherent cooperation of Spatial and
Living Patterns from many different scales. Ornament can be essential in articulating this
cooperation. It is never something that’s merely “stuck on”.

5Mark A. Signorelli and Nikos A. Salingaros, “The Tyranny of Artistic Modernism”, New English
Review, August 2012.

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 LIVING PATTERNS AND BIOPHILIA
Going beyond the purely visual realm, Living Patterns are found on both the
architectural and urban scales. Because meeting human needs is the sine qua non of Living
Patterns, by definition they contain a core, or invariant, element—one historically proven to
enhance people’s interaction with the built environment. (See paragraph below, and
“PATTERN 106: POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE”)
In one striking example, A Pattern Language researchers tested—and identified as
fundamental—people’s invariable preference (tantamount to a need) for a room with natural
light from at least two sides, over a room with light from one side only (a bad example being
the notoriously dreary apartments in Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation), or no natural light at
all. 6 It’s hard to overstate the importance of meeting this need when making a healthy
environment. Many Living Patterns have a solid biological basis, which is now being
discovered through the new discipline of Biophilia. 7
Once discovered, this valuable information should be documented as a “Pattern”,
otherwise the successful combination will be forgotten. This is how life works: when a life
form or metabolic mechanism is discovered, they are encoded in DNA so that the solution
will not be lost.

TABLE 2. PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF BIOPHILIC PATTERNS:

1. A complex ordered structure of decreasing scales.
2. Self-similarity/scaling symmetry.
3. Spatial Patterns following the symmetry principles described above.
4. Sophisticated fractal and cellular automaton patterns (See Figure 5).
5. Ordered complexity embodied in Spatial Patterns on a small scale that coordinate
through symmetries to produce a coherent whole.

Adaptive design is highly dependent upon initial conditions: existing structures,

surroundings, different human needs, et cetera. The same adaptive design process will result in
drastically distinct end products. Thus Living Patterns are never imitative. Designing
according to pattern theory leads to original, adaptive results because the design develops
organically: each step accepts feedback from the existing structure, mimicking the biological
development of the embryo. 8 This is the opposite approach from generic, industrial design,
which relies on a self-contained, strictly structural computation that cannot accommodate
any human needs beyond the bare minimum. Adaptivity is the fundamental reason it is
imperative that Living Patterns become part of any formal design method.

6 Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language, Pattern No. 159.

7 Stephen R. Kellert, J. H. Heerwagen & M. Mador, Editors, Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science, and
Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life (New York: John Wiley, 2008).
8 Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order. Book 1: The Phenomenon of Life, 2001; Book 2: The Process

of Creating Life, 2002; Book 3: A Vision of a Living World, 2005; Book 4: The Luminous Ground, 2004
(Berkeley, California: Center for Environmental Structure, 2001-2005).

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 Living Patterns satisfy all the requirements of Spatial Patterns: a set of relationships;
the ability to combine patterns on the same scale; and the emergence of new patterns on a
larger scale.
Biophilic principles make explicit the intuitively understood human need to connect
to other living organisms and the firmament for essential nourishment. 9 Numerous
experiments privilege an environment rich in biophilic patterns over plain industrial surfaces
that might be preferred by Architects on the basis of style.

Figure 3. The curves and colors of Art Nouveau architecture make it intrinsically biophilic.

These general attributes are also observed in geometries that encompass the entire
spectrum of biological structures.
In his later work, Alexander joined Spatial with Living Patterns into a universal
geometric framework codified as Christopher Alexander’s “fifteen fundamental
properties”. 10 Having grasped the separate meanings of Spatial and Living Patterns, the
interested reader is then in a very good position to appreciate these newer results, which
reveal the reasons why patterns work. 11
Minimalism and deconstruction used for shock effect eschew biophilia and Living
Patterns. 12 They obviously violate all of Alexander’s fifteen fundamental properties as well.
We would like to believe that, with a more educated public, those are no longer serious
options in design: they were fads that flopped. The richer and more ordered the
environment, the more human beings feel alive and enjoy being there. This assessment is
backed by scientific knowledge, not architectural or aesthetic opinion.

9 Nikos A. Salingaros, Biophilia and Healing Environments (Portland, Oregon: Sustasis Press, 2015),
available online from Terrapin Bright Green LLC, New York.
10 Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order.

11 Nikos A. Salingaros, Unified Architectural Theory: Form, Language, Complexity (Portland, Oregon:

Sustasis Press, 2013), Chapter 19: “Alexander’s 15 Fundamental Properties”.

12 Pattern thinking was co-opted recently in an attempt to boost the work of currently popular star-

architects. But their buildings have absolutely no relationship to either Spatial or Living Patterns.
Coming from contemporary art, writers who evidently misunderstood what an architectural pattern is
participate in public relations stunts masquerading as scholarship. This leaves any reader wishing to
learn about patterns totally confused.

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 Reversal of Spatial and Living Patterns. Ever since Modernism abandoned
Architecture’s evolved foundations, Spatial versus Living Patterns have become confused
and may trip up even the best intentioned Architects and Urbanists. In pursuit of the eternal
“new” at all costs, modernists reversed the scales on which patterns are applied leading to
disastrous results. For example, an attractive repeating visual pattern might be appropriate
for ornamenting the frame of a door; but such a Spatial Pattern taken out of context,
magnified, and applied to the ground plan of groups of buildings may well cut across Living
Patterns that those buildings must satisfy to be useful living environments.
Miniature models used ubiquitously in architecture school studio and to win
competitions are judged predominantly by their visual (or Spatial) patterns; by how
aesthetically interesting the shape is on the actual miniature scale. No thought is given to
how Living Patterns may or may not be satisfied when such a structure is built on the real
scale. Today an Architect who wishes to build for human sensibilities, would refer to the
Living Pattern techniques that evolved over generations of adapting to human use. 13
Whereas these methods are freely available as shared patterns, their implementation is
discouraged or even illegal. Architectural culture, working strictly within a formalist industrial
design paradigm, has embedded its rituals into law.
Mainstream practice erects structures that are poorly adapted to life. Yet today’s
Architects are easily able to convince their clients to fund monstrous abstract sculpture, in
what has become the reigning architectural paradigm. Without instruments such as Living
Patterns very few of these buildings provide good, or even adequate human environments.
This startling conclusion can be proven by reference to architectural patterns in A Pattern
Language and abundant related literature.

THE NATURAL HIERARCHY OF SCALES

In physics, positive nuclei couple with negative electrons to create atoms. The
process continues when atoms couple into molecules, molecules couple into crystals, and so
on to generate all the elements. Elements form minerals, which combine into planets and
stars, and stars collect into galaxies. Galaxies themselves coalesce into galactic clusters. At
every scale, there is a mechanism for organizing otherwise scattered matter into coherent
wholes.
Drawing an analogy with Architecture, design that appears coherent is neither
minimalist nor simple, but reveals a much richer substructure and scaling information upon
close examination. Employing symmetries and symmetry-breaking mechanisms (See Figure
4) along with scaling strategies generates the requisite variety on smaller scales.

13 Nikos A. Salingaros, Living Structure Should Come From Living Patterns (New York: Metropolis, 2016),
a series of online essays.

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 Figure 4. Alternating repetition with symmetry-breaking creates an irreducible hierarchy in which
the individual units are approximately yet not exactly the same.
Natural materials usually show fine-grained structure around ¼ mm to 1 cm. Next,
traditional ornament serves an essential mathematical function, defining the scales from
4 mm to 20 cm between the microstructure in the materials and the tectonic components,
thus completing the spectrum of smaller sizes. From 20 cm on up, tectonics usually generate
their own hierarchical system of scales. Minimalist design does away with all of this, even
going to great lengths to remove natural detail and to hide tectonic subdivisions. This is the
reason for an unreasonable insistence on industrial materials: they are manufactured without
micro symmetries and so they lack identifiable structure even on the scales ¼ mm to 1 cm.
This aesthetic preference has unfortunately become embedded in misguided ideological
constructs that discourage pattern implementation.
Fractals, also cellular automata (See Figure 5), make possible a new generation of
innovative ornamentation to define a building’s hitherto neglected scales from 1 mm to
20 cm. A renaissance in craftsmanship, as advocated by Léon Krier 14 and others, would also
contribute important design options. (Perhaps paradoxically education in hand-crafting is
being introduced in a few rust-belt school systems in the US to teach skills that may provide
students with opportunities lost after the flight of industrial jobs to automation and lower
wage countries.)

Figure 5. A pattern resembling “Rule 30” appears on the shell of the widespread Conus textile
species. Cellular Automaton Rule 30, introduced by Stephen Wolfram in 1983, is of particular interest
because it produces complex, seemingly random patterns from a simple, well-defined rule. At a cellular level
the Conus textile obeys Rule 30, developing this exquisite pattern. (Rule 30 is also used as a random
number generator, with possible applications to cryptography.)

14
Léon Krier, originally published as Architecture: Choice or Fate (Windsor, England: Andreas
Papadakis, 1998). New edition with 3 additional chapters, The Architecture of Community (Washington,
DC: Island Press, 2009).

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 There is simply no way to create a coherent hierarchy of scales if the lower scales are
suppressed or are otherwise missing. 15
Moving beyond restrictive ideological limitations to design, contemporary Architects
can begin to apply a vast new toolbox of symmetries, patterns, and a system of ornament
based on mathematics to link the small scale to innovative forms on the larger scales of their
buildings, thus creating a biophilic environment.

INFORMATIONAL DELIGHT VERSUS MONOTONOUS REPETITION

With the aid of Artificial Intelligence we might expect a hierarchy of scales in future
buildings, in which an intense and well-defined small scale is repeated in new patterns to
generate the larger scales. This generates emergent properties, that is, the larger scales invent
new information not present in the smaller scales. A person should experience informational
richness (but not overload) on every scale of structure. Different scales in the hierarchy, each
one equally interesting, give a distinct but equally rich experience at every distance of
approach.

Figure 6. A more abstract explanation for one part of biophilia is that we connect informationally
to every scale in a structure.

This process also avoids the mindless repetition to which people have a natural
aversion. Consider prized traditional artifacts from all over the world—we rarely find a case
of simplistic repetition: pottery, carvings, textiles, and carpets with repeating patterns reveal,
upon closer inspection, that every unit has been made slightly different in order to prevent
informational collapse. Failing to understand this principle, architects err by simply repeating
units creating immensely boring façades and plans of buildings.
Since the 1920s design monotony has been pushed to the limit. The small scale is
usually wiped out while, at the other extreme, large-scale symmetry is violated with
disconcerting effects on the user. The worst results occur on the urban scale, where one
urban unit is endlessly repeated, interspersed with parking decks, to create a city region of
deadly monotony.
We see “fashionable” asymmetries in recent buildings everywhere. The futility of this
visual game is intuitively obvious to users, who can instantly tell when a lack of symmetry is
an irrational and wasteful artistic gesture that frustrates human movement. When asymmetry
arises from adaptation, however, the configuration may be surprising but it is “comfortable”
to our perceptual system.

15 Nikos A. Salingaros, A Theory of Architecture.

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 PATTERNS ON THE URBAN SCALE
Why are regions of historic urban fabric around the world, all very different from
each other, perceived as more human than almost everything that has been built after the
end of the Second World War? The usual stylistic criteria of evaluation used by Architecture
professionals are useless as an answer. Only the emotional response identifying a positive
state of wellbeing by ordinary residents and tourists has genuine value. The universal appeal
of these regions—the basis for a major portion of the world’s economy—is driven by
unquestionably attractive, inviting qualities of the urban fabric. Yet this emotive evaluation
most often runs counter to what we are supposed to like based on modernist architectural
and urban theories.
For most of the twentieth century, cities have been planned following simplistic
ordering, even though that approach can lead to an unlivable environment. It is not only
monotonous to experience, but it can never define the multiple scales necessary for human
life. Traditional urban fabric is, by contrast, endlessly complex and fascinating, with the
result that it harbors and promotes a much livelier manner of life for its inhabitants.
Let us ask instead: “How can we reproduce today the human qualities of historic
urban fabric?” A general computational method for doing so is based on previous work of
Christopher Alexander’s. 16 Living urban fabric possesses an extremely high degree of design
complexity, whereas dead urban fabric (like Brasilia and Los Angeles) is the result of
simplistic or random design operations. An urban region or entire city designed with
negative geometrical qualities—either excessive simplicity or randomness—is instinctively
perceived as dead. As a consequence its residents cannot lead fulfilling lives there. They may
tolerate that environment, but will be forced to seek their environmental nourishment
elsewhere.
Urban design that violates Living Patterns fails as a human environment. Countless
examples of image-based design that looks “charming” on a plan or on a computer screen
turn into dysfunctional urban insertions when implemented. That is painfully obvious to
users. Yet this occurs repeatedly despite well-developed techniques of observing the human
use of urban spaces applied over decades to distill practical design rules. Those empirical
findings are totally ignored by an architectural culture that insists on imposing its aesthetic of
mega structures and “junk-space” on the city.
It is necessary to explain why some urban regions criticized herein as being almost
dysfunctional at first sight appear to function adequately. People are there, goods are
exchanged, et cetera. The reason that they do work, at least superficially, is simply because of
enormous energy expenditure. In those cases, connectivity and movement that are the
essence of urban life are not facilitated by the geometry of the built environment, but are
achieved by wasting human energy and fossil fuels. 17 As long as these are easily available,
and inexpensive, then poorly planned cities that totally neglect Living Patterns can continue
to work.

16 Nikos A. Salingaros, “Urbanism as Computation”, Chapter in: Juval Portugali, H. Meyer, E. Stolk
& E. Tan, Editors, Complexity Theories of Cities Have Come of Age (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2012), pages
245-268.
17 Michael W. Mehaffy & N. A. Salingaros, Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, and the Human

Future (Portland, Oregon: Sustasis Press, 2015)

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 Which brings us to a second important point with serious sociological ramifications.
Wealthy residents are sufficiently mobile to be able to afford to reside in such a dead
environment because they can easily get their environmental nourishment elsewhere. Poorer
residents, however, are pretty much restricted in their movements, and their only
environmental nourishment is from right where they live. Since Post-War environments tend
to be dead, this essential source of emotional nourishment has been denied to several
generations of people who are less well off.
How should we design living urban environments today? By following a sequence of
interactive steps, each one of which is checked against adaptation to human needs and
sensibilities. Living Patterns play a key role in this adaptive method. The design complexity
should mirror the correct sort of adaptive complexity and avoid randomness.
Consider the main pattern for designing outdoor urban space—paraphrased from
Pattern 106 in A Pattern Language. 18
Pattern 106: Positive Outdoor Space. The built structures partially surrounding an
outdoor space, be it rectangular or circular, must define, in its wall elements, a concave
perimeter boundary, making the space itself convex overall.
As an example:

Figure 7. Morphing of a tall building’s footprint and shape to create a semi-enclosed urban space
saves what was psychologically unusable exterior space. The usable interior building volume nevertheless
remains the same.

This typical Living Pattern establishes a very definite geometrical criterion for usable
urban space. The open space has to be surrounded partially, but not totally, by attractive
building façades. Urban space should feel like a giant open room to users, with attractive
“walls”. 19 Façades enclosing urban space, in order to be themselves coherent, cannot be
minimalist glass or shiny undifferentiated metal. Furthermore, the surrounding perimeter of
an urban space has to be semi-permeable, with doors, windows, and passages to enable
pedestrian flow. Looking at successful urban spaces throughout history reveals precisely
these qualities.

18 Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language.

19 Nikos A. Salingaros & Pietro Pagliardini, “Geometry and Life of Urban Space”, Chapter in: Back to
the Sense of the City, 11th Virtual City & Territory International Monograph Book (Centre of Land Policy and
Valuations/Centre de Política de Sòl i Valoracions, Barcelona, Spain, 2016), pages 13-31.

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 Nevertheless, Living Patterns such as this one are not taught in architecture school
because they supposedly “restrict creativity”! As a consequence, designers don’t know how
to create a living urban space. Worse yet modernist Architects intentionally reverse the
above Living Pattern because they wish their own buildings to stand out from the urban
fabric—to draw attention to themselves. A building is surrounded by open space instead of
the opposite and correct topology where urban space is enclosed partially by built fabric. No
compromise is possible here.
The world has erected thousands of useless modernist open spaces ever since urban
planners reversed the correct pattern. When a design rule damages the human use of the
built environment, yet is repeated widely regardless, it is called an “anti-pattern”. A careful
investigation of urban planning codes reveals that anti-patterns such as the one where a
building stands alone are set into the legislative basis for planning post-war cities.
Consequently, it is often illegal to design and create cities with living qualities. There is no
hope of improving our built environment without a massive change of legislation that
dictates what one is, or is not allowed to build. Revising modernist urban and building codes
to accommodate Living Patterns requires political action.
Evolved solutions based on Living Patterns were fruits of strong continuity in
history. This practical creative tradition led up to supreme creations of buildings and
adaptive urban components. But design in the twentieth century reversed the goal of
adaptation, deliberately cutting itself off from its historical roots. In the last century many
design and planning “innovations” have been introduced and, although much of the world
accepts them as such, they are in reality anti-patterns. Applying them negates architectural
and urban solutions that had evolved over millennia, reaching superbly adapted expressions.
(Yet that negation was the very aim of modernist political ideology.)
The answer to the question of why some cities degraded whereas others have grown
relies upon design and construction priorities. Conceiving the environment in terms of
simplistic industrial geometries ignores socio-geometric Living Patterns. Those, in turn, link
to social and behavioral patterns, which are responsible for the life of the city.

CONCLUSION
Showing how architecture and urbanism are essentially tied to Living Patterns breaks
a suffocating stranglehold that ideas of style have had on Architecture since the 1920s.
Despite all the specious rhetoric declaring that Architecture was responding to profound
social, political, and scientific discoveries, it in fact was driven by a rather narrow agenda,
obsessed with style, and used to promote a small group of people in power. The road to
achieving hegemony was through the imposition of a certain identifiable style that had
nothing to do with human needs and sensibilities, but everything to do with successful
marketing and the clever use of advertising techniques. Its phenomenal success is due to the
continuous mutation of the original industrial style so as to appear forever “innovative”.
Technocrats now in charge wield the power to alter our environment drastically for
better or for worse. Design and building treated as an exercise of imposition and
intervention, without any possibility for the system to respond, degrade the life of the city.
Decision-makers expect people to conform to whatever spaces are designed for them—just
as these people park their cars in designated spots in the landscape’s ubiquitous lots and

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garages. A trillion-dollar extractive global industry supports this hegemony, trying to
convince us that our fancy new buildings are wonderful. Anchoring this mechanistic outlook
is the desire to dominate our environment in exactly the same way we control machines. To
admit the validity of Living Patterns is to relinquish total control, yet this is precisely what
enlightened developers and government agencies must do from now on.
Any discussion of this controversial topic leads immediately to polemics and nasty
accusations. The public sees and hears a highly polarized architectural debate, whose
acrimony confuses us without offering clarity as to which side is correct, and which side is
practicing deception (or has foolishly deceived itself). The only way out of this recurring
battle is to approach the subject with scientific detachment. That is the aim of the present
explanation of patterns and their applications. The question can be settled by describing
Architecture in biological and pattern terms. This approach removes us from the hollow
rhetoric and confused vocabulary of contemporary architectural discourse, and keeps us
fixed solidly on ideas and results that can be judged true or false by means of experiment.

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