Rethinking Transition as a Pattern Language: an introduction - transitionculture.org

Yesterday I posted a document which contained the first rough attempt at sketching out a new way of communicating Transition, using Christopher Alexander’s ‘pattern language’ approach.  Over the coming weeks and months I will be blogging more about this, but in advance of the 2010 Transition Network conference (only a week to go!), I thought it might be helpful to give some more background on this.  What is a ‘pattern language’ and why might it be a better way of communicating Transition?  Here are some initial thoughts. 

What is a Pattern Language?

In 1977, Christopher Alexander and colleagues at the Centre for Environmental Structure at Berkeley University published a book called ‘A Pattern Language: towns, buildings, construction’, the second in a series of 3 books. Fifteen years later, a much younger me was a student on my permaculture design course in Bristol.  On Day 5 of the course, the teacher introduced ‘A Pattern Language’ to the group, as though it were some ancient, dusty, sacred text, in much the same way as I now introduce people to it.  He lovingly flipped through the book and introduced the concept of patterns and why this book was essential for the design of anything.