up:: [[Pattern Language]] tags:: #on/patterns #on/architecture people:: [Salingaros, Nikos A.](https://patterns.architexturez.net/documents?f%5Bauthor%5D=33669) # 2017 - Design Patterns and Living Architecture [Design Patterns and Living Architecture | Architecture's New Scientific Foundations](https://patterns.architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-220737) | | **Table 1. Twelve living patterns for space:** | | -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | _Pattern 61:_ | Small Public Squares. Build public squares with a width of approximately 60 feet. Their length can vary. The walls enclosing the space, whether partially or wholly surrounding it, should make us feel as if we are in a large open public room. | | _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. | | _Pattern 115:_ | Courtyards Which Live. The best courtyards have many entry points, a view to the streets beyond, and enclosing walls that are fenestrated, not blank. These are used most often. | | _Pattern 124:_ | Activity Pockets. The success of urban space depends on what can occur along its boundaries. A space will be lively only if there are pockets of activity all around its inner edges. | | _Pattern 167:_ | Six-Foot Balcony. The minimum depth of social space for a balcony is six feet, preferably with its space partly enclosed, either canopied, protected from nearby observers by side screens, or partly recessed into the facade. Recessed balconies provide an excellent sense of enclosure. But if balconies are narrower than six feet (going out), are totally exposed or entirely cantilevered, they are rarely used. | | _Pattern 179:_ | Alcoves. To heighten the sense of intimacy indoors, build a useful smaller space within a larger space, partially enclosed with concave boundaries and a lower ceiling. Its width and depth could both be approximately six feet. | | _Pattern 180:_ | Window Place. A concave boundary can incorporate windows. Examples range from (small) a window seat where the wall is deepened to create a space around the window, to (medium) a bay window where windows wrap around an extruded portion of the space, to (large) a glazed alcove where windows partially wrap around a room. | | _Pattern 183:_ | Workspace Enclosure. The best place for working has no more than 50 to 75 percent of its perimeter enclosed by walls or windows. A workspace needs at least 60 square feet of floor area for each person. | | _Pattern 188:_ | Bed Alcove. Give the bed its own partial enclosure. The space should feel comfortable, not too small, with a lower ceiling than the main part of the bedroom. | | _Pattern 190:_ | Ceiling Height Variety. Give a building’s rooms different ceiling heights to enhance comfort at every scale of activity. High ceilings contribute to formality, low ceilings to informality, with the lowest height for the greater intimacy of alcoves. | | _Pattern 191:_ | The Shape of Indoor Space. Indoor space should be roughly rectangular in plan with straight, vertical walls for practicality, but with concave wall portions where possible, and a roughly symmetrical vaulted ceiling. One-sided, sloped ceilings and sharp, slanted, or re-entrant angles in walls generate discomfort. | | | **Table 2. How to observe a pattern in existing design:** | | --- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1. | Living patterns usually work together as a group: they are rarely isolated. | | 2. | When patterns appear in a weak form, we need to find the strongest example. | | 3. | Patterns organize complexity and are not found in simplistic environments. | | | **Table 3. Criteria for adaptive design success:** | | --- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 1. | The basis for judgment is both practical and psychological. | | 2. | Created forms and spaces are adapted to the human function they aim to accommodate. | | 3. | The forms and spaces make people feel secure rather than stressed. | | 4. | This complex network of sensations acts subconsciously. | | 5. | Body signals tell the truth, especially when they contradict the user’s expressed opinion. | | | **Table 4. Five patterns on gardens and parks from “A Pattern Language” (Alexander et al., 1977) with my own summaries:** | | -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | _Pattern 60:_ | Accessible Green. People will only use green spaces when those are very close to where they live and work, accessible by a pedestrian path. | | _Pattern 111:_ | Half-Hidden Garden. For a garden to be used, it must not be too exposed by being out front, nor completely hidden by being in the back. | | _Pattern 171:_ | Tree Places. Trees shape social places, so shape buildings around existing trees, and plant new trees to generate a usable, inviting urban space. | | _Pattern 172:_ | Garden Growing Wild. To be useful, a garden must be closer to growing wild, according to nature’s rules, than conforming to an artificial image. | | _Pattern 176:_ | Garden Seat. One cannot enjoy a garden if it does not have a semi-secluded place to sit and contemplate the plant growth. | | | **Table 5. Conditions for emergence:** | | --- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1. | A tectonic framework of volumes and supports whose basic components are additive: i.e. the parts relate to each other. In this setting, other, less permanent additive components can be introduced in a way that maintains coherence. | | 2. | An emotional connection established with spaces, details, and surfaces of the built environment, and with other persons and life forms within that space. This requires a number of positive forces — above some threshold — coming from the surroundings. | | 3. | The coordination and integration of all these forces. If many forces are randomly present and cancel each other, they won’t lead to any emergence. For that to happen, the forces will have to be additive. | | | **_Table 6. The present-day process of choosing canonical buildings:_** | | --- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1. | Canonical buildings are chosen by consensus. | | 2. | There is no consistent set of criteria for choosing canonical buildings. | | 3. | Architectural culture forbids individuals from questioning the validity of canonical buildings. |