permaculture

[Judith Hanna <jehanna@gn.apc.org>]

Dear John

Alexander's neighbourhood/town patterns not the best available model -- so
an update highlighting this would be useful.

I've misplaced references for work on 'spatial syntax' at the Bartlett
School of Architecture, university College London. These relate to quite a
lot of work on town planning for pedestrian and public transport
accessibility -- designing out car dependence and domination. Two relevant
publications:

Harley Sherlock: Cities are for People, Macmillan (1992 or so)
Appleyard, Donald et al 'Liveable Cities' (U San Fancisco Press, I think,
1979)

also, of course, Jane Jacobs 'Life and Death of American Cities'

The gist of these is that Alexander's neighbourhood/town street designs are
not the right approach -- but ignore the effects of car dominance on both
livability of streets as public space and of course, on environmentaally
sustainable mobility. A great deal of European work and examples of more
civilised alternative approaches -- and some relevant Californian work too,
on cluster settlements linked by rail lines (can't recall ref or
terminology). I think the people who developed Davis were linked to the
latter. 

Also from Australia -- Adelaide's 'eco-city' block development.

And of course, Alexander didn't start to think about what sort of 'pattern
language' would make sense of internet connectivity and global chat...

sounds intersting


At 00:15 07/10/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Aloha,
>
>I am contemplating working on creating some pattern language patterns
>relevant to permaculture.  Anyone know of any existing work of this nature
>in the realm of permaculture, and/or interested in messing about with such
>also?  It will be a sort of experiment at first, to see how Alexander et
>al's patterns for formulating pattern languages can be used (as they clearly
>feel they can) in other similar yet different contexts.
>
>I suspect an activity of this sort could also help with what some apparently
>see as splinterings and/or divergences in various "permaculture" curricula.
>An ongoing collaborative effort to create a collection of relevant patterns
>might lead to a pattern language foundation for a more consistent consensual
>core curriculum (say that ten times fast... ;-).  (What is the "original"
>curriculum, anyhow?  Where and how is it written down?)
>
>For those who wonder what the heck I'm talking about...I'm talking about
>pattern languages as described and exemplified in "The Timeless Way of
>Building" by Christopher Alexander and "A Pattern Language" by Alexander,
>Ishikawa and Silverstein with Jacobson, Fiksdahl-King and Angel.  Great
>stuff!  I think their approach could be of benefit to perma-culture.
>
>John Schinnerer
>----------------------------------------------
>Cultural & Ecological Designing
>Human Habitat Design
>john@eco-living.net
>http://eco-living.net
>
>
>
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>
Judith Hanna
jehanna@gn.apc.org
15 Jansons Rd, Tottenham, London N15 4JU