It has been a long time since I picked up the small thick volume entitled A Pattern Language written over the course of seven years by architect Christopher Alexander (and a long string of other architects). It was one of those books that many a reader can identify as the one that changed the course of things and it did it, for me, with small type, tiny pencil drawings and the rare black and white photograph.
I’ll write further on it later, but when I came across this profile in the site PPS Project for Public Spaces it brought to mind that feeling of heady expansiveness – imagine, designing homes, streetscapes and towns (community) that people, who live in them and use them, can help to design themselves. Alexander has spent his life pursuing his passion for creating meaning and community through a built environment.
