Adaptive Design Method: Pattern Language, and Form Language
Adaptive Design Method: Pattern Language, and Form Language © Nikos A. Salingaros

(extract 1) Pattern Language vs. Form Language1

Design in architecture and urbanism is guided by two distinct complementary languages: a pattern language, and a form language.  

The pattern language contains rules for how human beings interact with built forms — a pattern language codifies practical solutions developed over millennia, which are appropriate to local customs, society, and climate.  

A form language, on the other hand, consists of geometrical rules for putting matter together. It is visual and tectonic, traditionally arising from available materials and their human uses rather than from images. Different form languages correspond to different architectural traditions, or styles. The problem is that not all form languages are adaptive to human sensibilities. Those that are not adaptive can never connect to a pattern language. Every adaptive design method combines a pattern language with a viable form language, otherwise it inevitably creates alien environments. 

Architectural design is a highly complex undertaking. Heretofore, the processes at its base have not been made clear. There have been many attempts to clarify the design process, yet we still don’t have a design method that can be used by students and novices to achieve practical, meaningful, nourishing, human results.  

In the absence of a design method and accompanying criteria for judging a design, things have become very subjective, and therefore what is built today appears to be influenced largely by fashion, forced tastes, and an individual’s desire to garner attention through novel and sometimes shocking expressions. 

This Chapter puts forward a theory of architecture and urbanism based on two distinct languages: the pattern language, and the form language.  

The pattern language codifies the interaction of human beings with their environment, and determines how and where we naturally prefer to walk, sit, sleep, enter and move through a building, enjoy a room or open space, and feel at ease or not in our garden. The pattern language is a set of inherited tried-and-true solutions that optimize how the built environment promotes human life and sense of wellbeing. It combines geometry and social behavior patterns into a set of useful relationships, summarizing how built form can accommodate human activities.  

The importance of a pattern language for architecture was originally proposed by Christopher Alexander and his associates. A fairly general pattern language was discovered and presented by Alexander, who emphasized that, while many if not most of the patterns in his pattern language are indeed universal, there actually exist an infinite number of individual patterns that can be included in a pattern language. Each pattern language reflects different modes of life, customs, and behavior, and is appropriate to specific climates, geographies, cultures, and traditions. It is up to the designer/architect to extract specific non-universal patterns as needed, by examining the ways of life and tradition in a particular setting, and then to apply them to that situation. 

Living architecture is highly dependent on patterns, which shape buildings and spaces accordingly. A pattern is a set of relationships, which can be realized using different materials and geometries. Architects, however, confuse patterns with their representation, i.e., what an arrangement looks like. Patterns are not material, though we experience them with our senses. It is far more difficult to understand them intellectually, and almost impossible to grasp patterns from within a world-view that focuses exclusively on materials.  

A pattern language for work environments can be put together by examining the components of successful emotionally-comfortable work environments from different cultures and periods around the world. A software developer today has many requirements in common with a distant ancestor looking for a comfortable place to sit and carve a bone or paint a piece of pottery. Being able to work in an emotionally-supportive environment boosts morale and productivity, and cuts down on workplace errors.  

For several decades, however, architects and interior designers have insisted on applying formal design rules to office environments. Such rules tend to give a standard compromise that satisfies almost none of the fundamental requirements for a good working environment. Their occupants usually characterize them as ranging from sterile to oppressive. Here is a fundamental disconnect between what architects imagine office space should look like, and the characteristics of the kind of space that users actually require to be productive in. 

In the theory of pattern languages — actually developed more extensively in computer architecture than in buildings architecture — the concept of “antipattern” plays a central role. An antipattern shows how to do the opposite of the required solution. An ineffective solution is often repeated because the same forces that gave rise to it in the first place recur in other similar situations. Assuming that the futility and counterproductive nature of such a solution is evident (which is not always the case), its occurrence can be studied to see what went wrong.  

Antipatterns do not comprise a pattern language, just as a collection of mistakes do not comprise a coherent body of knowledge. It is therefore not appropriate to talk of a language of antipatterns, but simply a collection of antipatterns. Nevertheless, antipatterns could (and often do) substitute for, and displace a genuine pattern language, with very negative consequences.  

Documenting an antipattern can save future designs from the same mistakes by identifying a problematic solution before it is adopted. However, knowing the antipattern does not automatically indicate the pattern, since the solution space is not one-dimensional. Doing the opposite of the antipattern will not give the pattern, precisely because there can be many different “opposites” going out in many different directions in the solution space. 

Pattern languages have evolved, and, as with all evolved systems, they have developed an extraordinary degree of organized complexity. It is not possible to understand all this complexity, let alone replace it by a design method based on deliberately simplified rules. And yet, that has been the basic assumption of twentieth-century architects: that we can simply replace all the evolved architectural solutions of the past with a few rules that someone has made up (and which don’t even have the benefit of experimental verification). 

The form language, on the other hand, is strictly geometrical. It is defined by the elements of form as constituted by the floors, the walls, the ceiling, the partitions, and all the architectural components or articulations, which together represent a particular form and style of building. A form language is a repertoire of forms and surface elements that can be combined to build any building, and so it represents more than just a superficial style.  

The form language depends on an inherited vocabulary of all the components used in the assembly of a building; rules for how they can be combined; and how different levels of scale can arise from the smaller components. It is a particular and practical conception of tectonic and surface geometry. One extremely successful form language, the “Classical Language”, relies on a wide range of variations of the Classical style of building based on Greco-Roman ancestry. 

After centuries of Classical buildings, even with varied and successful adaptations to local climates, conditions, and uses, the Classical form language remains intact. Every traditional architecture has its own form language. It has evolved from many different influences of lifestyle, traditions, and practical concerns acting together to define the geometry that structures take as the most natural visual expressions of a particular culture. A form language is a set of evolved geometries on many different scales (i.e., ornamental, building, urban) that people of a particular culture identify with, and are comfortable with. It is highly dependent on traditional and local materials — at least that was the case before the global introduction of nonspecific industrial materials.  

My present aim is to be able to discern whether a pattern language is genuine, so that it can be connected to a form language and thus define an adaptive design method. It is imperative not to be fooled by a collection of antipatterns, otherwise our resulting design process will be non-adaptive, even though this may not be known at the beginning of the process. We will eventually see it in the non-adaptivity of the results, at which time it will be too late to do anything about it (i.e., after an unnatural city such as EUR, Milton Keynes, or la Défense has been built).

(extract 2) The Adaptive Design Method2

Proposition: An adaptive design method arises out of a complementary pair consisting of a pattern language and a form language. 

I have indicated very briefly what a pattern language and a form language are; we still need to understand what an adaptive design method refers to. Out of many contemporary approaches to design, there are very few that result in structures and environments that are adapted both to physical human use, as well as to human sensibilities. In the past, the opposite was true. Human use is straightforward to understand: the physical dimensions and geometry have to accommodate the human body and its movement.  

By accommodating human sensibilities, I mean that environments should make human beings feel at ease; make them feel psychologically comfortable so that persons can carry out whatever functions they have to unselfconsciously, without being disturbed by the built environment in any way. This imposes a strong constraint on the design process to adapt to the many factors (both known and unknown) that will influence the user on many levels, including emotion. An adaptive design method should accommodate all these criteria, and this Chapter shows how this may be accomplished. 

A major source of confusion is that a design method could adapt to a style, but not to human use and sense of wellbeing. For example, it might adapt to (conform to) a set of predetermined geometrical prototypes, such as cubes and rectangular slabs. It takes on that particular form language. Minimalist modernism has a clearly-defined geometrical goal; i.e., its peculiar crystalline form language. It is successful on its own terms while at the same time ignoring, or not trying to accommodate, human patterns of use and the sensory response to built form and surface. This is the reason why minimalist modernism is incompatible with Alexander’s Pattern Language. In this Chapter, I will use the term “adaptive” to refer strictly to fitting the built environment to human beings, and not to abstract ideas or geometries. 

Since there exist an infinite number of patterns that can contribute to a pattern language, and an infinite number of form languages, there are of course an infinite number of adaptive design methods that combine two languages. Each adaptive design method is unique. The crucial point is that there are also an infinite number of design methods that act against adaptive design by producing structures which are not suitable to human needs. In the absence of an accepted term for design that ignores human needs, I will call such actions “non-adaptive design”. 

Post-industrial design is not fundamentally adaptive. Its form language (or rather, set of related form languages) produces structures that are often hostile to human sensibilities. Studies by environmental psychologists have confirmed physiological reactions such as the onset of anxiety and signals of body stress in such environments. I want to look for systemic causes of this non-adaptivity. For reasons already discussed in Chapter 6, minimalism effectively precludes the use of patterns, both visual and Alexandrine patterns. That means that patterns of human activity cannot be accommodated within its design canon, thus characterizing it as non-adaptive. To proudly proclaim such a design method as “functional” is a mockery of the term, but it is admittedly a remarkably effective propaganda ploy that helps in its proliferation. 

Architectural form languages survive because they often acquire non-architectural meaning, after which they can ignore the need to be adaptive to human needs. In that case, a form language is no longer part of an adaptive design method; it becomes split from its complementary pattern language. Instead of expressing an adaptive tectonic culture, the form language becomes a set of visual symbols that operate under the guise of moral principles (and thus become emotionally loaded). Using that form language then becomes an end in itself, detached from human life. This architecture has little to do with buildings that accommodate human beings, or with tectonics, but is a statement using a formal visual vocabulary. Such an architecture has its own purpose, disguised with moral precepts that together define a completely different world-view for those who accept them. 

An adaptive design method requires the union of a pattern language with a form language. If either the pattern language or the form language is flawed, then the design method will fail to create adaptive structures. For example, high-rise towers set in vast open spaces satisfy neither a viable form language nor a pattern language — they are iconic design failures that get repeated because architects make a lot of money building them. One may claim to employ a pattern language together with a primitive form language to create structures barely suitable for human habitation and use, such as contemporary buildings that try to use Alexandrine patterns. Those buildings may partially satisfy some functional patterns, but the more they stick exclusively to a minimalist or high-tech form language, they more they will feel dead and alienating, so that their users are uncomfortable. 

Two instances of partial success come to mind. In the mixed example of central Tel Aviv, an early modernist form language is tied to a traditional European urban pattern language, as laid out by Sir Patrick Geddes, with successful results. The buildings do not connect so much on an architectural scale, yet they do connect well on the urban scale to create a lively environment. Other illustrative examples with mixed success include dwellings built by alternative “counterculture” architects soon after the Pattern Language appeared. They satisfy all the patterns, but they look somewhat chaotic and unbalanced — far from satisfying Alexander’s original intent of ordered geometrical coherence. The reason is that their builders had no form language to draw upon. These buildings were built within a culture that did not wish to refer to any tradition, and did not have the capacity to create a new form language (the multicolored “psychedelic” art of that culture was never applied to architecture in a way that would help the geometry). 

In the opposite instance, one can use antipatterns together with a form language to damage both built and natural environments. Twentieth-century buildings were built using a distorted version of the Classical form language that are inhuman either because of scale, megalomania, or the desire to intimidate. They may look nice from a distance, but are hostile in actual use. This is a characteristic of Fascist architecture.  

Some modernist architects were also very fond of employing parts of a form language of rich, detailed materials, but to intentionally create alien forms. The surfaces are adaptive in these cases, but the geometry is not (sending a mixed message of attractive materials in a hostile setting). Another failed example is found in recent traditional-looking mansions isolated in American suburbia. They use a form language (that happens to be irrelevant to the site) but no urban pattern language, so those buildings remain disconnected. They have a great image, but no functionality on the urban scale. It is only the correct pairing of pattern language with form language that results in an adaptive design. 

The architecture of squatter settlements is an interesting case of genuinely adaptive application. Those slum dwellers use a form language that is determined by available scrap materials to build their own houses. Residents are preoccupied with basic survival, and have no wish to copy elements of a form language that was generated outside their immediate circumstances. There are simply no resources available to make an architectural “statement”, although ornament and surface decoration appear on the most modest structures because they are felt to be essential. The human need to make a building adapt through form, surface, and ornament is innate. Everyday people who own and build their own homes definitely apply a pattern language (albeit unknowingly) because they want their dwellings to be as comfortable as possible. Here we have an adaptive design method, which, were it not for the miserable conditions of life represented by the overcrowded slums of the world, is an excellent example for architecture schools to study. 

As the above examples make clear, an adaptive design method provides the means of creation, but not the product. It gives one the framework and tools for creative expression. It still requires a talented architect or sensitive non-architect to use the language to design a building. Working with a complete, richly-expressive language makes that task immeasurably easier. Great architects can use an existing form language in an innovative manner to create new architectural expressions, or they can invent their own form language. (A pattern language, however, cannot be invented: it has to be discovered). A primitive form language severely reduces architectural expression. With a flawed form language, new or old, even the greatest architect has trouble making something useful and adaptive.

(extract 3) Why Primitive Form Languages Spread3

Independently of their technological achievements, all groups of human beings have developed a richly complex spoken language. Differences arise in specificities, in the breadth of vocabulary for concepts important to that culture, and in their transition to a written language, but those do not affect the general richness of the language. Every language’s internal structure has to obey general principles that are common to all languages. A primitive language or non-language, by contrast, is characterized by the reduction or absence of such internal complexity and structure. The complexity of human thought sets a rather high threshold for the complexity that any language has to be able to express through combinatoric groupings. 

Turning now to architecture, a viable form language is also characterized by its high degree of internal complexity. Furthermore, the complexity of different form languages has to be comparable, because each form language shares a commonality with other form languages on a general meta-linguistic level. A primitive form language severely limits architectonic expression to crude or inarticulate statements. 

So, while each form language may be distinct in its components, it is not really a complete form language unless it possesses a complex internal structure. The exact details of this structure must necessarily parallel the internal structure of any other fully-developed language, and in particular, that of a pattern language. Roughly, these properties can be described as combinatorial, connective, and hierarchical features, which we see in our own written and spoken language.

A form language that adapts to human beings contains and codifies certain very specific geometrical properties such as fractal structure, connectivity, coherence, and scaling (as discussed in the previous Chapters of this book). Again, a form language that does not contain these mathematical properties is a primitive” form language, or “non-language, because it is too sparse to define a rich language of forms. There exists a range of form languages, from non-languages, to primitive form languages, increasing in complexity of combinatoric expression up to genuine form languages. 

This argument is borne out by the enormous number of distinct form languages developed independently by different peoples around the world. It is reasonable to claim that for each spoken language, there is also a form language that those people use to build and to shape their environment. The means of verbal expression and accumulated culture defining a literary tradition has a parallel in an ornamental tradition and material culture, which includes a form language that is an expression of inventiveness in geometry and tectonics. Each traditional form language is distinct, yet possesses a comparably high degree of organized complexity in terms of visual vocabulary and combinatoric possibilities. Erasing a form language erases the culture that created it. It is no different than erasing a culture’s literature, or its musical heritage. 

It is only in recent years that the mathematical sophistication of traditional form languages has begun to be documented. Mathematicians and ethnologists are doing this work, while the architectural establishment continues to ignore indigenous building cultures and the human value of what they represent. For example, traditional building and urban geometry in sub-Saharan Africa is now revealed to be essentially fractal, thus revising our customary (and totally erroneous) conception of those cultures as mathematically under-developed — fractals were re-discovered in the West only very recently. Loosely (and deprecatingly) classed together as “vernacular architectures”, this vast body of diverse and complex styles, geometries, and ways of understanding space and structure shames the poverty of contemporary architectural styles. Traditional form languages are rich, complete, and technically (not industrially) advanced. In terms of richness and underlying substance, which are crucially important to life, contemporary form languages promoted by the Western architectural design magazines would seem to represent an evolutionary regression. 

Separate from preserving traditional form languages for their informational and cultural value, the inevitable evolution of form languages makes possible entirely innovative architectural expressions. Such an evolution is possible only if a form language retains the high level of its internal complexity. Traditional form languages around the world were dismissed as “primitive” by Western colonial and economic powers, and were replaced by variants of Neo-Classical or Beaux-Arts form languages. Cultural colonialism in architecture comes about by destroying languages that are thousands of years old, as an affirmation of superiority and power.

The linguistic analogy makes it difficult to understand why a primitive form language would ever survive, let alone dominate another more evolved form language. Why maintain a system in use that severely limits one’s expression? The reason we do this is that every form language has extra-linguistic attributes that help in its proliferation. Once invented, the limited visual vocabulary of a primitive form language may be copied unthinkingly by more and more persons. Unlike a true language, which survives through its linguistic utility, a form language can survive strictly through its iconic properties (and not its linguistic ones). Indeed, constant repetition through visual copying is the key to its transmission, promotion, and acceptance by an increasing number of architects. 

We know of biological entities that split from more complex organisms so as to propagate freely and with enormous success: they are the viruses. Because of its nature, the virus can exist in an inert, easily-transmittable form such as a powder. This is possible because a virus is a biologically simple structure with very low informational overhead.

In the propagation of architectural images, the media play a key role, showing and praising carefully selected structures and urban projects (and ignoring everything else). Our architectural schools and press have also done a very effective job of promoting primitive form languages while unwittingly suppressing true form languages. Familiarity makes people overlook a form language’s linguistic deficiencies.

Someone who has been raised in the twentieth century and has been taught through association that “beautiful” objects have no hierarchical organization will then apply this rule subconsciously to design a building or a city. Even though people might find such environments intellectually acceptable, they can never overcome the negative sensations that such an architecture brings into play.

Why did this occur only at the beginning of the twentieth century and not before? I believe that it had to do with radical social changes spurred by population pressure and political oppression so that for the first time, many people saw a chance of radical social improvement through technology. They were willing to sacrifice adaptive design in exchange for the (false) promise of a better future offered by industrialization. Prior to that, people on all socioeconomic levels shaped their environment as far as they could to provide physical comfort and emotional wellbeing.

Another contributing factor was the creation of a new communications network formed by the convergence of telephone, telegraph, newspapers, magazines, and film. The new media tied the world together as never before, yet also made possible the rapid proliferation of advertising and political propaganda. The spread of modernism, combining visually simple images with the promise of a new utopian world, could never have occurred were it not for the new media. Advertising created the desire for industrial products that we didn’t really need. Just as in the case of internet computer viruses, which could not exist before the internet, primitive architectural form languages could spread only through the first architectural picture magazines. At the same time, advertising favors the transmission of simplistic messages, slogans, images, and ideas. 

As a result of its tremendous power to shape people’s minds, advertising quickly transformed from a medium for transmitting commercial information to an instrument of social change and control. Its first target was cultural traditions that blocked the consumption of inferior new industrial products. These inhibitions were overcome by making individuals ashamed of their instinctive preferences, labeling them as “backward”, and thereby opening up the public to market influence. Thus, form languages that threatened the supremacy of the post-industrial aesthetic of glass, steel, and concrete slabs were stigmatized by the architectural critics. This style based on a specific industrial “look” could not be sold to the world until traditional form languages were eliminated. The way the built environment looked anywhere in the world would henceforth be controlled by the advertising media; all traditional form languages condemned to extinction in the interest of Western industrial and ideological dominance.

  • 1. Nikos Salingaros. "A Theory of Architecture Part 1: Pattern Language vs. Form Language" 23 Mar 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed 11 Dec 2015.
  • 2. Nikos Salingaros. "A Theory of Architecture Part 2: The Adaptive Design Method" 30 Mar 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed 11 Dec 2015.
  • 3. Nikos Salingaros. "A Theory of Architecture Part 3: Why Primitive Form Languages Spread" 06 Apr 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed 11 Dec 2015.