E.g., Problem occuring over and over in our environment = how to get from point A to point B

Solution: direct the traffic---- stepping stones, asphalt driveway, grass, weeds, tarzan swinging vine, swimming pool, tunnel, bridge, bike path, ski lift, etc.--all of them accomplishing the same thing, none of them repeating

I have _A Pattern Language_ and besides being VERY dry, it contains chapters that tell you things like why to use a fence gate and how a gate works, and what a gate connects to. It's fun, but I think a bit dated. It evokes an earlier time when Esperanto was going to solve all our problems and postmodernism hadn't made us sarcastic about Big Solutions.

Brent,
Had a few minutes and put the title of your posting 'Patterns in Landscape Design' into Google. I would urge the DIY gardeners to do the same. Page after page of helpful reading on patterns in landscape plus other very useful information. Thanks for starting this topic.

"Pattern Language" sounds like a repackaging of design basics, almost like a marketing ploy.

All we have to do is look and see what is design things have been done in similar situations over the years and then try to understand what those things do. Basic things like placing vertical plants in front of architectural corners, basic foundation plantings, and such. Some people want to run from these claiming that they have no logic and are just suburbanism that is forced upon us. Are they? Or are they "Patterns in Landscape Design"? Certainly they are not the only answer to the problems that they mitigate, but certainly valid responses to them. I would call them patterned responses.

Patterns work, but not all are into following patterns. there are many who reject patterns as cookie cutter.

There is a "not my father's landscape" mentality out there that want to turn it all upside down and reject these patterned responses. The "I don't want a lawn, but now what the heck am I going to do?"crowd or the "foundation plantings don't make sense, where did that come from? My house looks too tall, what can I do?" contingent would be rejecting such patterns.

It is all a matter of perspective.

Nandina: Funny. I tried three or four variations at Google but just got a lot of hits that dealt with geometric patterns in landscape, drainage and traffic patterns, or references to software engineering topics where "landscape" is used to mean viewpoint. I just tried "Patterns in Landscape Design" (no quotes) and that seemed to turn up a couple hits.

Patterns have had a huge impact on software engineering, despite the fact that they do not really introduce any new concepts. They are basically a way to give a name to a technique that people have used over and over again. But then once a technique has a name people can talk using a common language and start to discuss the pros and cons, the various implementations and the alternatives.

I am sure that landscape designers have encountered very similar situations over and over again. And while the end results may look very different, I bet the core solution was very similar.

- Brent

susanargus:
Eble vi ne bone komprenas la kialo de Esperanto. :).

I share profession with Brent, and have followed the pattern movement in software closely. It's funny that in (physical) architecture many of the ideas have been forgotten or never caught on. It's not just about patterns, but also about Alexander's "Quality without a name" (hints of Robert Prig anyone?), as written about in "The Timeless Way of Building".

Something I've always found interesting is that the of architects whose work I admire (among others Santiago Calatrava, Miles Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Luis Barragan, etc) I haven't seen anything of Alexander's. Was he just a theorist?
I have paged over Alexander's work, not being an architect by profession (though my dad is, and I grew with art and architecture aronud me) I did find it dry, but it is the idea of establishing a pattern language for your own work that is important and revolutionary, not necessarily the patterns themselves. It's establishing reusable solutions at the framework level instead of at the specific level.

I'd love to hear what professionals around here (Michelle?) have to say on this, and about what patterns can be discerned in landscape design, having only one landscape to worry about I cannot think about reusing frameworks.

I have this handy dandy 1170 page book and it is the best cure for insomnia that I have in my library or medicine chest.

Basically, it is all common sense stuff that if you just took the time to think about, it would be obvious.

Try as I might for over the last dozen + years I have tried to get through at least one or two chapters but find myself wet in drool after about a dozen pages or so and can't remember what I had just read.

Maybe if I was totally clueless or went through life not compulsively + obsessively trying to figure why things work I would find this book more engaging.

I think this book would appeal to people who are not intrinsically inquisitive.
But for those who are constantly questioning the 'who, how, what and where' of the world, most of the contents is rehashed common sense.

I dare anyone to find a copy of this book that doesn't have drool stained pages.
It's one of those books that you just can't give away to the free library though.
It does have some great obvious insight, and I guess that is why I reach for it at 2 am.
I've slept with Christopher Alexander longer than just about any body I know, and I still haven't figured out what's so darn special about this guy, except that he had the wherewithall to actually write all his musings down.
Gotta give him credit for that.

I guess that must be me - "Maybe if I was totally clueless or went through life not compulsively + obsessively trying to figure why things work I would find this book more engaging." - clueless going through life ;)
I found this book less than a year ago, I believe by reference on one of the forums here and treated myself for my birthday by buying it. There are no drool marks and I never fell a sleep reading it. But I am not professional and for me it was great pleasure to at least pretend that I now understand why some of the things work so well in the house that I designed. I have not used any of it in my designs, just learned why some of the things that I did subconsciously might be working so well.
In my futures projects I am planning to use this as one of my references. I love this book.

Christopher Alexander described patterns as: "Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use the solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice."

The Problem: I live in a huge brand new house on a tiny lot with a very narrow side yard. My neighbors house is only 12' from mine. I do not want to see the neighbors giant brand new house and I certainly don't want them to see what I am doing. I need something to block them tomorrow, now, ASAP. I can not wait for something to grow in.

The Solution: Plant a hedge of minimum 8' tall Areca Palms (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens), $125 each. Repeat a million times at every home where this can be afforded.

One year later....

New Problem: I have no side yard. The palms took the whole space. All the rubbish won't fit in the can. The gardener won't haul it away the the trash guys won't pick it up. The palms are starting to block my view or the neighbors are suing me because the palms are starting to block their view.

If only the solution was applied in a million different ways and not the same way over and over and over.

ilima

I thought of A Pattern Language more as an urban planning book than gardening book, Ilima - I think following it would ensure you wouldn't build so close in the first place.

punamytsike, we all know you're a savant and frankly, your devouring of this book merely confirms it :)

I'm with mich on this book - don't want to live without it, but golly its dull. Perhaps it needs a re-editor.

I studied Alexander's "Pattern Language" in graduate school. My understanding of it is that it, like all of his books, comes out of his belief that the human self needs to be the core of all designs. There is a set of universal human "truths" that have to do with the nature of the human soul. Because these truths are universal, human reaction or relationship to any given design situation will always follow certain parameters.

Michelle saying that it is "basic common sense" would probably make Alexander very happy, because it substantiates what he's saying. :)

Alexander has designed and built dozens of projects, not all of which are very well documented. The bulk of his work appears to be in housing, both single family and multi-family. He's simply better known for his theory. One current architect who has become very well-known outside of architectural circles, Sarah Susanka ("Not So Big House"), draws heavily on Alexander's patterns.

His "Pattern Language" does talk about landscape as well as building design. I think that's because he sees them both as part of a continuous environment that surrounds and interacts with humans. Like any design theory, there will probably be some things in it that speak to you and others that don't.

And like any design theory, it's pretty darn dry (unless, of course, you've been drooling on it). ;) I don't own it, but sometimes wish I did. I like the idea of keeping human needs/soul/desire at the core of my design - goes back to Nandina's "inner garden."

Sorry for the novel. Not trying to pontificate, hopefully just adding another facet to the discussion.

The Problem: I live in a huge brand new house on a tiny lot with a very narrow side yard. My neighbors house is only 12' from mine. I do not want to see the neighbors giant brand new house and I certainly don't want them to see what I am doing. I need something to block them tomorrow, now, ASAP. I can not wait for something to grow in.

The solution: Don't buy a huge house that is only twelve feet from your neighbor's huge house.

Now that wasn't very helpful nor showed any understanding of the unfortunate plight of most homeowners here on the LEFT coast .

If the solution was as easy as not purchasing an affordable home ( in my hood an affordable house is a 2 bedroom , 1 bath 1200 sq. foot home built in the 1940's and is selling at a fixer upper rate of $ 750 thousand dollars ) do you think most people would be happy as pie if they could afford to to shell out an additional million or two so that they could have a generous buffer zone between their neighbors ?

I bet most people would love to have a pleasant buffer zone, but that is simply not the reality for most middle to upper econonic incomed families.

So we have to find a 'pattern' that will address this very common situation.

In Alexanders' book he writes about the critical effect on people's comfort and well being when faced with living within the confines of an over crowded or densely populated area.

There is not a lot of options that one has if your neighbors viewing corridor looms directly over and into your personal space but there are ways to address this dilemma by patterning your own viewing corridors and providing a sense of intimacy by using a variety of green growing structures as walls and green ceilings ; trees, hedges, vines, trellis, awnings and pergolas so that one can create their own feeling of private space.

The use of a green ceiling is one of the most effective ways of creating privacy within a closely set yard.
And the height of this ceiling ( a pattern ) will have a great impact on how this space will feel.
Taller ceiling heights for larger gatherings ( 10 + feet) and lower ceiling heights ( 8 ft. ) for a very intimate space between two people

I just finished reading both A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building. I bought the former a couple of years ago, and the latter went back to the library without any new drool marks. I didn't find either one dry so much as densely packed; I took them in very small bites and made it through over the course of a couple of months.

The Timeless Way is basically an extended argument for integrating the design of any given structure with the environment it is part of, asserting that "designing" places as lists of features and specifications, as if they were isolated objects that could be boxed and shelved, bought and plopped down anywhere, is a good way to get miserable, lifeless results. He advocates a way of developing the built environment organically, through "pattern languages" that whole cultures evolve and use to guide the growth of the built environment. The individual patterns of a given language are sort of like nailing schedules or rules of thumb; they are loose guidelines, and each pattern helps you take a baby step towards a developing a whole place. He thinks (and intuitively it seems right to me) that this is how all sorts of cultures over most of the history of mankind have shaped the places they've lived, how the individual buildings characteristic of various cultures have been formed. Any given society will develop it's own language, it's own series of patterns that, explicitly or implicitly, guide it's members through the problems that commonly crop up when places are shaped and built.

It's important to note that the title of the second book is "A Pattern Language" not "The Pattern Language." Alexander (and his many co-writers) went to a lot of trouble to assert that theirs in only one of any number of possible pattern languages, and even at that contains a lot of holes and opportuinities for improvement. But they did their best, it seems, to define as complete a language as possible, and struggled to identify problems and suggest workable solutions all the way from very large-scale issues of regional divisions and the shapes of cities, down to very fine issues like the shaping of paving tiles and decorative trim. As I was reading the book, I was alternately stunned at the audacity of its scope -- it can come off as a vast utopian plan -- and frustrated that many of the common-sense, intuitively true ideas it conveys would be very hard to implement today, with city planners, architects and building inspectors standing (not without reason, mind you) between people and the buildings they want to make for themselves. Taken individually, as when you just dip into the book at random or interesting points, each pattern, i.e. each statement of a problem and a solution coupled to other related problems and solutions, can certainly seem like common sense. It's easy to miss the larger idea that building can and ought to be a direct, personal and ongoing process facilitated by pattern languages that are embedded in cultures, rather than isolated projects begun, overseen and ended in professional offices. It's easy to miss that forest for its trees.

And yeah, I like Pirsig too.

Ahh...remember the good old days of the forum when Michelle would throw in her wit and useful threads would scroll off the end of the board in just a few months! With the recent mention of Valerie Easton's new book "A Pattern Garden" I did a search and low and behold this thread is still alive.

Anybody else have thoughts to share on patterns?

- Brent

OO! This was here all the TIME. Lots for the interested. For one example, Nandina's suggested search is fruitful. I found there a link to SULIS - "Sustainable Urban Landscape Information Series" - on pattern design, which has examples of turning line patterns into gardens. Right up my interest alley! I know Pam, for one, has mentioned SULIS in other threads. Forgotaboutit.

Thanks, Brent.