New (Pattern) Languages of Inclusion

Within this context we have grown unused to working integratively in groups of different knowledges and interests and unused to representing the more synthetic and holistic outcomes that such working environments engender. Nevertheless, various people are undertaking work in this regard and the idea of new languages of synthesis generated by patterns is seen to hold promise. In particular, the work by Christopher Alexander to develop a practical alternative of creative synthesis based on pattern processes now constitutes an iterative body of theory and practice of some 40 years. Instructively, it resonates with - and in turn synthesises - a number of contemporary viewpoints: the use of systems thinking to map out intricate connections; the idea of the whole as an unfolding of an extant order, as promoted by the physicist David Bohm; the valuing of immediate human experience, typical of phenomenological inquiry; and the search, within chaos theory, for the patterns that make complexity manageable.

However, notwithstanding that Alexander’s work is becoming increasingly recognised, there remains a limitation: a workbook to assist those wanting to generate their own pattern languages.

Some specific research to address this limitation (Paine, 2004) has defined a number of lessons. This research adopted an holistic view of pattern: extending its well-known and practised ability as a tool of analysis, perception and static design by exploring ‘the other side of the coin’, as promoted by Alexander - the use of pattern as a tool to reveal our intuitive understandings of the whole in a way that generates positive action. To learn more about these latter attributes, ‘pattern practitioners’ from ten different fields (for example permaculture, choreography, Feldenkrais, pyschotherapy) discussed their work. Close relationships were found between pattern and a desire to work with the whole, and between pattern and ‘life’. The practitioners were involved in forming new patterns from existing patterns. In doing so they used similar tools: active observation, listening and questioning, intuitive understandings, and established ‘lessons’ developed through iteration. Their new patterns tended to be inherently more flexible than the contributory patterns, while still retaining robustness. There was also a strong interest in using pattern as a lingua franca to aid communication between themselves and others. The research then worked with a particular user group (in this case involved in the practice of sustainable development) to generate a specific pattern language. This work, coupled with reference to that of Alexander, allowed the development of further lessons about the generation of pattern languages. It was revealed that the exercise of writing the type of compound pattern envisaged by Alexander is inherently disciplined with its own rules (or patterns). Importantly in respect to the holistic objectives of pattern languages, these rules also resonate with the nine dimensions that the research revealed when also seeking an understanding of that otherwise ineffable entity, ‘the whole’. These comprise the eight dimensions nominated in Figure 1 plus a ninth non-written ‘ineffable tension’ inherent within the illustration itself. The rules form the Solution component of this Pattern.