2/18/12

The future of the original Pattern Language

Ideas should not be claimed as property
Small minds attempt it and succeed
But ideas have a life beyond small minds
They germinate and grow new times to feed

Pattern language as originally enunciated has been seen as brilliant but undoable.  It needed a presentation that could allow it to implicitly blend with a high tech cyber approach to design of future settlements. It needed to be car free.

The original Pattern Language was beautifully presented on a usable site called downlode.org

But the original copyright holder evidently swooped down and downlode was forced to fold.

Well, the ideas of pattern language existed in a Platonic sphere long before Christopher Alexander set them down. And they will be elaborated as time goes on by persons not bound by the narrow dictates of those who took downlode down. It would be well if they relented so the world could have the benefit of thought that is now sequestered and largely unavailable.

The situation has not been helped by the appropriation of patten language by cyber-folk and applied to communications and such. 

I call this Infrastructure Avoidance. Beyond this and its original limitations, pattern language underlies the articulation of the cyber-community.

No comments:

RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press