Patterns, patterns everywhere - Newsletter #7
New look, new name, and spring cleaning with Christopher Alexander.
This is a repost of my March 2022 newsletter, shared at Substack.
If you’d like to hear an audio version of this note, here you are.
Wow. Happy end of March. If you’re like me, you don’t have time to read this right now, so let me keep the up-front read to two minutes.
The newsletter has moved to Substack. That’s what looks + feels different around here and in your inboxes. Mailchimp fell prey to my distaste for software that fails to do what it promises.
When I signed up they asked for a name for this publication, and my monkey brain instatyped Shorthand. To its credit, I've been naming things Shorthand for the past several years. Bound, I suppose.
I doubt shorthand is a foreign concept to you. Some people know it as stenography (i.e. goofy symbols for fast writing) 1 or insider slang. You're probably wondering why the guy who writes longform pieces each month is naming his publication Shorthand. Ah.
I think of shorthand as the tl;dr — the insight with just enough detail to pique your interest and dive in yourself. It’s also the expert's expertise, spoken in tongues for close collaborators. Shorthand moves us beyond the basics in conversation, gliding over the hard-earned details we learned from years of mistakes and ahas. Knowing someone’s shorthand feels like hacking into higher levels of their cognition, and thus, a conversation that feels like you know them.
So, in true longform fashion, that’s why this is named Shorthand. 2
This month, the shorthand will discuss patterns, in an interwoven story of spring cleaning and a proper sayonara to the man who brought a language of patterns to life in the architectural world, Christopher Alexander. Rest in peace, good sir. 3
These patterns were made famous in his work A Pattern Language, which is the companion piece to one of my favorite books ever, A Timeless Way of Building. My worldview has been shaped heavily by Christopher Alexander. From design to architecture to thinking, I owe him so much for elevating my brain.
See, A Pattern Language is the classic text that gives us the vocabulary to speak wisely about the world around us. It’s Alexander’s shorthand, passed along so we can see the world through his eyes.
But it goes beyond mere architecture. It’s about how we share time with others. This summary from Alexandra Lange captures the sentiment perfectly.
“A Pattern Language” is not about architecture, but about how specific design choices can help us build better relationships.
Yep.
Christopher Alexander wrote patterns as repeatable, remixable solutions to design problems in the physical world. They laid the groundwork to democratize the building process for all of us. Really though, he wanted people to design their own pattern languages for all walks of life.
So, we’ll give that a shot here. This is how I choose to honor his life, which means we’ll close with some real talk that brings this all together. Promise.
Thanks for hanging. Read on if you’re curious. Click here if you’re not.
Love,
Bren
March...the most delightfully frustrating month there is. In Chicago, 3-5 of the days are world class — transparent reminders of why you're here. I can't even express how good those days are, but they erase every negative thought floating in your brain.
Then there's the rest of March, which is basically an exercise in discipline without losing your will to live here. I failed. Twice.
As such, we traveled. March brought a trip to a place that always feels like could be home — the desert. Outside of Phoenix on a mini mountain, to be specific. I feel calm surrounded by the vast red landscape of arid rock peppered with mountain peaks. Yes, I sound and resemble a highfalutin snowbird. I’m aware.
The back porch of our mountain stay. Gosh, what a place.
We brought the warmth home with us, and after a pleasant week with a few lovely 70 degree days, we’re back in the cold snap. I’m looking out a rain-beaten skylight from my new workspace, and well, I still live here.
In wildly constructive fashion though, Donna and I used the indoor time for a proper spring cleaning4. A full Saturday and part of Sunday later, half my clothes are gone, I have a new office, and we reshaped the rest of the place. New home.
After five years here, it’s been needed. We were still living with our pandemic (and my injury) spaces, and let’s be honest, they’d gone stale. For someone who thinks incessantly about environments, it was clear I was holding onto sunk costs.
So, we turned to patterns. Specifically, Christopher Alexander’s form of patterns — the tools that allow anyone to create beautiful, functional, meaningful places.
Alexander himself explains as such.
A pattern is a careful description of a perennial solution to a recurring problem within a building context, describing one of the configurations that brings life to a building. Each pattern describes a problem that occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use the solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice. (A Pattern Language, pg. x)
Combining patterns forms a language that we can build atop, rearrange, and create new combinations that fit our world.
A pattern language is a network of patterns that call upon one another. Patterns help us remember insights and knowledge about design and can be used in combination to create solutions. (A Pattern Language, pg. xviii)
His great collaborator, Michael Mehaffy, intertwines patterns wonderfully with the world I reside in — software.
Pattern languages are, at heart, nothing more than "a method of describing good design practices or patterns of useful organization within a field of expertise," as described by Wikipedia. The "pattern" encapsulates key relationships within the set of design elements, which, if configured in the "right" way, will produce the desired outcome. Each pattern typically includes a name, problem-statement, discussion conclusion, and hyperlinks.
Where the late great Alexander laid out his pattern language in the physical form of towns, buildings and construction, I’m writing my own patterns temporally. Spending time is, frankly, the only thing I consider myself to be good at. I greatly enjoy my time, and I aim to make shared time with others as great.
I don’t claim to have anything near a complete language, but I’ve found it helpful to frame those patterns that call to me. It took Alexander and his colleagues eight focused years to craft their own, which only came from deep exploration and reflection on the world he lived in — architecture. As he states, though, the goal in publishing A Pattern Language was to inspire more people to create their own.
The fact is, that we have written this book as a first step in the society-wide process by which people will gradually become conscious of their own pattern languages, and work to improve them…
…We have spent years trying to formulate this language in the hope that when a person uses it, they will be so impressed by its power, and so joyful in its use, that they will understand again, what it means to have a living language of this kind. If we only succeed in that, it is possible that each person may once again embark on the construction and development of their own language — perhaps taking the language printed in this book, as a point of departure. (A Pattern Language, pgs. xvi-xvii)
And so they have. Software developers here. Designers here. Epistemologists here.
In proper geeky fashion, over the past many years Donna and I have come to understand — and record — our own patterns for spending time. Most are small and are shaped to the space we inhabit.
For example, we’ve come to find that we love making dinner together, so a shared kitchen + main living space are critical for us. Alexander labels this a Farmhouse Kitchen (#139). We’ve lived in places where the kitchen is separated, and our life was so much different. I suspect this is one of the patriarchal patterns that carried from days where “being a good housewife” was the primary role of women. Those days are done. It’s good to see homes built to share important time together.
Back to spring cleaning
In our spring cleaning, refining my workspace was a priority. Specifically, I’ve longed for a late night workspace. So, I wrote a pattern.
Each of Alexander’s patterns are written with a solution, the problem, its context, and any related patterns. They’re written in his team’s voice — their shorthand — and a wonderful amount of humor. Here’s a pattern of my own.
Late night workspace
This pattern describes the design of a place to carve away at your craft late at night, when your head’s down on whatever creative endeavor is keeping you up. A key is having a space where you feel comfortable working without interrupting others’ sleep.
Problem
Late in the evening, I often want to dive into something that’s lingered from the day or I haven’t had the chance to get to earlier. Maybe I need to get work done. Sometimes my brain is just loose, and I feel free to create.
A proper workspace is my preferred enabling environment, but I didn’t have the components of power, space, privacy, and access that I needed. This led to many nights of no work being done, even when I had the energy — a misfit!
Context
For months, essentially since the Achilles injury, late night work changed. For the first several weeks, the only option was to adopt Donna’s bedtime; I couldn’t really get around on my own. This carried through most of the recovery days. Even with a monster machine to use late night, it lived in the bedroom. Typing is loud. The screen is bright. Yeah, no.
So, when my dear partner gave me the go-ahead to revise her pandemic teaching space into my own…fast forward a weekend, a payload of new plants, cuts all over my hands, and we’re here.
The space lives in our upstairs loft-like area. Ceilings are low but varied, and light shines through brightly. We are fortunate to have it, and I’m even more fortunate that Donna shared her truly awesome workshop for my own work. Gratitude overload, one sec. 🙌 🙌 🙌
Linked Patterns
This pattern ties to Create when the brain’s loose, Deadline environments, Personal workspace, and Work on what you love.
And that’s the pattern.
Downstream, this office move opens up an opportunity I’m more excited about — collaborating with my humans. With the space connected to the roof, I can now host groups of 3-12, provided the weather cooperates. For workshops, we’ll try to stick with two pizzas.
If you’re in Chicago and want to stop by for a workshop or design session, reply + we’ll find an afternoon/evening to make magic. You don’t know how happy that would make me. ☺️
Sum me up
This piece is, broadly speaking, a call to become expertly informed in any way you want to live a good life. We can do so by learning the vocabulary — the patterns — of those trailblazers who came before us.
Patterns can be used anywhere, for anything. Christopher Alexander wrote his about spaces that generate life in the physical world. Yours can be for raising your children or planning your career. A great start is using his pattern language to open your eyes to the space around you. If you’re building a home or designing a room, this is a must. 5 It’s almost a magical feeling to then see how patterns appear in your life each day.
The point is, understanding the language of our greats — the shorthand, if you will — can help us grasp deeper concepts about how the world works. It helps us talk about what we see, and gives us the language to create our own understanding.
Without Christopher Alexander’s work, I would be unable to discuss how homes can breathe life into families, or how civic spaces afford unique cultural experiences.
And that’s what I hope to convey in this monthly note. Shorthand aims to pass along expert knowledge — not in clouded technical jargon, but within the context to piece together your own thoughts, with the links 6 to chase down your questions.
Go have fun exploring your own patterns.
tunes wise, Saba released a flowing, fantastic, 47-minute reminder that he is one of Chicago’s best. I can’t get over how well this plays through.
Footnotes Exist!
1 I’ve been doing my research.
Shorthand on shorthand on shorthand.
2 An alternate version of this said:
“tl;dr my ass. You’re already halfway in. Keep reading.”
I got a good laugh out of it.
3 The best speech I’ve heard lately was Bill Murray’s magically vivid + concise tribute to Ivan Reitman at the Oscars. I can’t do it justice for Christopher Alexander, but know that I tried.
Bill Murray forever.
4 The same cleaning goes for ourselves. For the first time in 17 years, I shaved my face clean. I’ll spare you the imagery, but fair to say jokes were flying last week.
5 I can personally attest to A Pattern Language working for others. When my best friend was building his home, I gave him this book to leaf through. Within days, he reached out thrilled, “Staircase as a stage (#133) — this is perfect! I have to change the way our stairs open to the living room.”
He forced the change through with his contractor, and now he gets to live with that benefit each day. Quite a W.
6 In time, this will include hyperlinks to my public notebooks, like this.