Pattern language

No.31, 'Promenade' – stube . Each subculture needs a place for its public life: a place where you can go to see people, and be seen. No.74, „Animals‟. Create a piece of protected common land where animals are free to graze with grass and trees and water. There is balance to this pattern worth considering for both the individual and the community. No. 85, „Shopfront Schools‟. This is about an educational philosophy preparing children for the adult world in a local, small scale context. There was a time when your shoes, pottery and baskets came from local crafts people who were part of the community and could be seen by children who would be curious about their skills and more generally about creativity and self-sufficiency. No.87 'Individually Owned Shops'. Streets should be lined with small, individually owned shops. Communities can only get these personal, unique services and products if they prohibit or limit franchise and chain stores and go local. No.109, „Long Thin House‟. The shape of a house affects the privacy and well-being people can find in it. This pattern solves the problem by addressing the shape of the building rather than the size showing branched buildings have higher point-to-point distances than circular or square ones. The point-to-point distance can be achieved in either the horizontal or vertical planes such as by the addition of a tower. The tower in this picture is a recent addition to its home in the Dordogne, France. It was built in oak by the wonderfully skilled Yogan Bredel Samson [www.yogancharpentier.com/]. The tower is used as a small office, the first level of privacy, with space in the roof, the second level of privacy, for meditation. No.112, „Entrance Transition‟. Buildings, especially homes, are more tranquil with a graceful transition between the street and the inside. Bring the path which connects the street and the entrance through a transition space with a change in light, colour, texture and view. This is one of the beautiful cob cottages in Canada by „The Mud Girls‟:www.mudgirls.ca

No.116 'Cascade of Roofs' No.117, 'Sheltering Roof'. The most primitive of buildings are little more than a roof [many examples are here: www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.usedtobe]. If the roof cannot be felt visually around the home it doesn't satisfy the psychological need for shelter. The roof shelters if it embraces, covers and surrounds the process of living. Alexander's advice is to make the entire surface of the roof visible, bring the eaves low to about 6‟6” (2m) where people gather, like entrances and seats and build the top storey of the building right into the roof. No.118, 'Roof Garden'. Alexander recommends that a home should have at least one small roof garden. This is not to be confused with a green roof, which originally came about because of the need to hold down birch bark that would otherwise curl and dislodge. The roof garden is an extension of the living space and should be accessible from the home without having to climb up to the garden. For large buildings Alexander recommends placing roof gardens at different levels on the building. I haven't found a contemporary natural home that demonstrates this pattern so I've turned to Hundertwasser [www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.stowasser], an architect who was concerned about the individual's right to build a home unconstrained, as many natural builders are. This is the Hundertwasserhaus of the McDonald's Kinderhilfe Stiftung [www.mcdonalds-kinderhilfe.org], a guest house for the parents of seriously ill children in the nearby hospital in Essen, Germany. No.133, „Staircase as a Stage‟. A staircase is not just a way to get from one floor to the next. The stairs themselves are a space that should live and connect with the rest of the house. I can‟t imagine I could find a better example of pattern 133 than the dragon bench and stairs in the Madrone House at Emerald Earth, an intentional community in Boonville, CA, USA. Here‟s their website: www.emeraldearth.org No.134, „Zen View‟. If there is a beautiful view, don‟t spoil it by building a huge window that gapes incessantly at it. Ideally the view from a Zen window should not be visible from the place where people sit but only as

a passing glimpse in to the distance. This is the tiny window providing a Zen view from the cob home built by Ziggy at the Dancing Rabbit ecoVillage: www.small-scale.net/yearofmud/ No.135, „Tapestry of Dark and Light‟. To a large extent the places where people want to sit are defined by light. Buildings with uniform levels of light provide few places for socialising. People are drawn to nonuniformities of light, like window seats and fireplaces. Lighter places can only be defined by darker ones so the home needs a tapestry of light and dark areas that fit with the natural flow of movement through the house. If you are an old friend of Natural Homes you may recognise this room. It‟s the other side of a well loved cob fireplace here:www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.fire No.151, „Small Meeting Rooms‟. The larger a meeting room is the less people get out of it. Alexander, the author of „A Pattern Language‟, cites research that shows in a group of twelve people, one person never talks and in a group of twenty four people, six people never talk. To hear a person in casual conversation the distance between you should not exceed 8 feet and to see clearly the subtle details of facial expressions, the limit is about 12 feet. No.152, 'Half-Private Office'. A totally private office has a negative effect on the flow of human interaction within a group. Alexander, the author of 'A Pattern Language', recommends avoiding closed off private offices and work spaces but rather design an office space to be accessible but just beyond a comfortable communal space. In this case that space is the kitchen at Linda and Ianto's home at Cob Cottage [www.cobcottage.com] Coquille, OR, USA. The office/work space is above their beautiful kitchen up the simple and very beautiful spiral staircase. This space is just dripping with patterns: 'Open Shelves'; 'Warm Colours'; 'Things from your Life'; 'Farm House Kitchen'; 'Open Stairs';

'Light on Two Sides' No.166, 'Gallery Surround' – vanjska nadstrešnica za sjedenje. Every building should have at least one place, but preferably a selection of places, where people can still be within the building but have a connection with the outside scene and the people in it. It helps intertwine the home with the larger public world and can contribute to pattern No.112, Entrance Transition [www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.112]. No.167, „Six Foot Balcony‟. Balconies and porches that are less than six feet (1.8m) wide don‟t allow a small group of people to sit together and stretch out their legs. If this is not possible then the balcony may as well not be there. For a person to feel safe the balcony should be included in the mass of the building; not force people out on to a cantilever. So, whenever you are building a balcony or porch make it at least six feet deep and try to include as much of the space within the mass of the building as you can avoiding a wide cantilever. This is the bedroom balcony at Hilde‟s cob cottage in Canada, a building project lead by Ianto Evans [www.cobcottage.com] and Elke Cole [www.elkecole.com]. The house also has a cantilever balcony. Take a look and see what you think…www.cobworks.com/photo-gallery/#hildecob No.168, „Connection to the Earth‟. A house feels isolated from nature unless it is interleaved with the earth around it. Connect your house to the earth by building paths and steps around the edge to make the boundary between the house and the earth ambiguous. This earthen house adds to the sense of connection through its undulating green roof, as if the goddess Cybele [www.naturalhomes.org/fb.softly] had pulled the house up from the ground. It is one of the houses at Crisol de Micael [www.escuelacrisoldemicael.blogspot.com] a Rudolf Steiner community in Lago Puelo, Argentina. The house, and the space around it, demonstrates a wealth of at least nine other patterns which helps to explain why it looks so attractive. I’ll discuss and cross reference the patterns in this picture on the Natural Homes website [www.naturalhomes.org] soon(ish)

No.180, 'Window Place' [more pictures here www.naturalhomes.org/pattern.180.htm] from 'A Pattern Language' by Alexander. Everyone loves window seats, bay windows and big windows with low sills. A room without a place like this seldom allows you to feel fully comfortable. This is the cob window seat from Meka‟s cob cottage www.youtu.be/rLf8J7k69j0 No.188, „Bed Alcove‟. This is the bed alcove in Carole Crews‟ adobe home in Taos, NM, USA. It illustrates how adding individual bed alcoves off a main room can become a tiny private haven. This picture also illustrates pattern No.190, „Ceiling Height Variety‟, the space in the alcove is more intimate with a lower ceiling than the room beside it. You can see more about Carole‟s home in this profile:www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.profile.carolecrews No. 190. 'Ceiling Height Variety' - Ianto Evans kuća , i Carole Crews kuća. Niski strop za spavaću sobu da poveća intimu (Carole) ili visoki strop da poveže kuhinju i privat office (Ianto) No.193, 'Half-Open Wall'. Rooms which are too closed prevent the natural flow of a social occasion and transition from one social moment to another. A closed space makes it hard for people to join activities or leave them naturally. A half-wall or opening allows people to gradually come forward when there is a lull in the activity and become part of what is happening. This half-door is in a home built from 80% recycled materials. It‟s a very special house called the „Story Book House‟ by Dan Phillips [www.phoenixcommotion.com] which you can see here: www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=275935899126148. No.197, „Thick Walls‟. (Ianto evans kuća također) Smooth hard and flat industrialised walls make it impossible for people to express their own identity because most of the identity lies near the surface where most people keep their belongings. The house becomes personal, alive, only when each new owner can make incremental fine adjustments reflecting the variety of thoughts, styles and cultures of the people who lived in the house. To allow for this unique transformation the walls must be deep to

accommodate shelves, niches, deep window reveals, built in seats and nooks. This is one of the windows in Pickard's Mountain cottage:www.ow.ly/5gEPu No.199, „Sunny Counter‟. Dark and gloomy kitchens are depressing. The kitchen needs sunlight more than any other room. If you can, place the main part of the kitchen counter on the south side of the kitchen with a big wide window so that the sun can reach in to flood the kitchen with light. This is the kitchen at Deacon Vale Farm [www.deaconvale.com] on Mayne Island, Canada which was built by Cob Works [www.cobworks.com/photo-gallery/#deaconvalecob] (Ianto evans kuća također) No.200, 'Open Shelves'. The value of storage depends just as much on how easy it is to access your things as on the capacity of the storage. Cupboards that are too deep waste valuable space and often what you want is hiding behind something else. In 'A Pattern Language' Alexander recommends you flatten out your storage, especially in the kitchen, saying, "Cover the walls with narrow shelves of varying depth but always shallow enough so that things can be placed on them one deep; nothing hiding behind anything else". These are the open shelves in Michael 'Meka' Bunch's kitchen in his cob cottage [www.artisanbuilderscollective.org/bio-meka.html]. You can find the cottage on the map here: www.ow.ly/5foYrwith links to more pictures and a video of the cottage if you click the icon in the map. I bet that visitor's book has a lot of complementary comments. No.201, 'Waist-High Shelf'. In every house there is a daily traffic of everyday objects. If these objects are not easily at hand then flow of life through the home becomes awkward, things are misplaced and lost, albeit temporarily. These everyday objects are best kept 'at hand' level so build waist-high shallow shelves, 9-15 inches (22-38cm) deep. These shelves also provide a valuable space to express your personality and history, see pattern No. 253 in this gallery. This picture is from the cob home built by Aime Desponds in San Antonio de las Minas, Ensenada,

Mexico. Aime is a winemaker at Rancho Sol y Barro:www.cobinbaja.blogspot.com No.208, 'Gradual Stiffening'. Buildings should be uniquely adapted to individual needs, the land and the available materials. Necessarily the plans for buildings should be loose to accommodate changes. Alexander sites this as the fundamental philosophy of the Pattern Language. This requires a new attitude to building where the home begins as a loose and flimsy structure allowing easy adaptation before stiffening. No. 220, „Roof Vaults‟. The shape of the roof is influenced by a need to feel sheltered. This is achieved by a highly visible steep slope. It‟s best for it to contain a liveable space, not jus a hat for the rooms below. It must not be a contrived shape but built as a barrel vault or a pitched roof with slight convex curve in the two sloping sides. This is the bedroom under the roof of SunRay Kelley‟s Sky Housewww.sunraykelley.com No. 223, „Deep Reveals‟. Windows with a sharp edge where the frame meets the wall on the same plane create a harsh glare making the room feel uncomfortable. Make the windows deep with a 50 degree splayed edge so the daylight gives a smooth transition like Ianto [www.cobcottage.com] has here. No.224, “Low Doorway”. If it‟s good enough for Ianto Evans [www.cobcottage.com] it‟s good enough for me. Ianto‟s book „The Hand Sculpted House‟ page 224 [yes, page 224], talks about this style of door slowing us down and helping us to pay more attention to the transition between spaces. I‟m quietly confident a stroll through one of his homes would be a feast of patterns. This inviting and beautiful low doorway is the work of Vertical Clay [www.verticalclay.com]

No. 225, „Frames as Thickened Edges‟, which says: Don‟t consider door and window frames as separate rigid structures which are inserted in to holes in walls. Think of them instead as thickenings of the fabric of the

wall, made to protect the wall around the opening. This door is from one of the cottages built by Cobworks in Canada. You can see the rest of the house here: www.cobworks.com/photo-gallery/#patcob No. 230, „Radiant Heat‟. Intuitively we recognise sunlight and a blazing fire as the best kinds of heat. People are most comfortable when they experience radiant heat at a temperature slightly higher than the air around them. This open fire is the artistically stunning work of SunRay Kelley:www.sunraykelley.com No.231 'Dormer Windows'. No. 232, „Roof Caps‟. The roof cap helps to finish a building. The impact of the roof cap can be much greater than its size relative to the rest of the building. A natural, sympathetic cap in keeping with the construction of the building may be decorative but psychologically it penetrates the sky lending style to the whole building. This is a straw bale garden roundhouse built Chug Tugby [www.strawbalebuilding.co.uk/index.php?page=gw] at Capel Manor College, Enfield, England. There are more examples of thatched roof cap with the National Society of Master Thatchers, England [www.nsmtltd.co.uk/Gallery/Gallery.html]. The lime pargeting designs around the entrance to the garden room were done by Inna Savitskaya. No.234, „Lapped Outside Walls‟. Generally natural organisms such as fish, trees etc. have rough outside coats made from a number of similar but not identical overlapping elements. A wall built using the same principals is easy to repair and helps people to relate to the building. This is a log cabin by Steve Gumble of Harts of Oak [www.hartsofoak.co.uk] No.238, „Filtered Light‟. Where the edge of a window or eave of a roof is silhouetted against the sky, make a rich, detailed tapestry of light and dark to break up and soften the sunlight. You can achieve the same effect using climbing plants that hang over the window which also adds

pattern No.246 to your home. This is the work of Kate Edwards a cob builder from Norfolk, England [www.edwardscobbuilding.com] No.239 'Small Panes' – mali prozori . The smaller a window is, and the smaller the panes are, the more intensely the window helps to connect us with what is on the other side. A wide window offers essentially the same view from any point in a room but a small narrow window provides a different view from different positions. Breaking up a view in to smaller panes helps give the impression of a narrow Zen view and the lattice adds to the sense of protection provided by the walls around it. You can see another example of small panes in a Tudor house in England here: [www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.tudor]. This simple narrow arched window with blue bottles is from a cob healing studio in Portland, OR, USA by Sukita Reay Crimmel [www.sukita.com]. No.242 'Front Door Bench' No.244, 'Canvas Roofs'. This is a wash tub at the ecoVillage near Kharkov, Ukraine where the designer Yuri Ryntovt [www.naturalhomes.org/fbr.friendhouse] lived. Generally we think of walls as either being solid or missing, but canvas or cloth lie half way between the two. They are translucent, allow a breeze to pass through and are cheap and easy to move. Alexander lists 'Awnings' for providing shade from hot sunlight, 'Curtains' for half-open outdoor rooms and 'Tent-like' roofs making a courtyard habitable in the spring and autumn. Use cloth where an outdoor space needs softer light or partial shade or protection from mist and dew. No.246, „Climbing Plants‟. There is little doubt that homes that have plants like roses, vines and honeysuckle growing on them are more attractive than homes without. A climbing plant helps to connect a building to the earth providing a smooth transition between the built and natural environments. Plants also help to filter light coming in to the home (see pattern 238). A climbing plant also adds texture to the building that changes from day to day. A building finally becomes part of its surroundings when plants grow over parts of it as freely as they grow along the ground. This picture is from Joe Leonard‟s straw bale house in Taos, NM, USA [www.joeleonard.us]

No. 249, „Ornament‟. Doors and windows are always important for ornament because they are connections between the elements of the building and the life around them. This is the front door to Rob Pollacek‟s cob house in California, USA which you can enjoy here on his website:www.californiacob.com/gallery/gallery.php?gallery=house_gallery No. 250, 'Warm Colours'. Choose surface colours which, together with the colour of the natural light, reflected light and artificial lights, create a warm light in the room. This is some of the work by Fox Natural Building [www.foxnaturalbuilding.com] Relates to www.naturalhomes.org/pattern.252 No. 252, „Pools of Light‟. Alexander‟s advice is to place lights low and apart to form individual pools of light which bathe tables and chairs in light. This is a lovely example from Deanne Bednar‟s home in Oxford, MI, USA [www.strawbalestudio.org] Relates towww.naturalhomes.org/pattern.250 No.253, „Things From Your Life‟. Don‟t be tricked into believing that decoration must be 'slick' or 'neutral' or 'modern art' or 'minimalist' or any other current taste-maker's claim to what is correct. The things that are most beautiful are the things that come from YOUR life, the things you care about, the things that tell your story. Model your home on you not the people who visit you. This is the shelf of precious things collected by Jill that sit below the truth window in her straw bale home. Here‟s an account of a visit from a friend‟s blog: www.rawculturecollective.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/a-visit-tojills/