my pattern language
most…wonderful places of the world were not made by architects, but by the people.
That’s a quote from A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, a book published in 1977 that I came across a few years ago while thumbing through the Seattle Public Library’s virtual collection on Libby. Something about the unusual title and the minimal, uncommercial cover called to me. I checked it out, perused it, then put it aside. I spent scant time with it, but its basic idea stuck with me.
The elements of this language are entities called patterns. Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.
The book lists two hundred and fiftythree of these, spanning in scope from regions to rooms and graded with the degree of confidence that the authors have in the solution’s immutability. Despite being defined loosely to allow flexible application, the patterns are also defined concretely, often specified numerically and illustrated with pictures and diagrams. The patterns are ordered by scale from big to small, but they also contain references that connect them into subnetworks. Forward references elucidate how larger patterns depend on smaller ones and backreferences contextualize patterns in larger ones.
I find the approach – flexible, deferential, and associative – rather appealing. In fact, the book abides by various principles of my
virtual bookwhat is a virtual book?
I wrote an essay called The Virtual Book but I never defined the term. By virtual book I mean a book unbound by the traditional and physical constraints of printed books. I say ‘virtual’ because the greatest possibilities I see are in the virtual world of computers. Ebooks and audiobooks are just the beginning. The possibilities that excite me challenge not only the physicality of books but also their more subtle attributes.
A virtual book can be multimedia. It can consist of words, images, video, audio. There, we got the obvious one out of the way.
A virtual book can be readerdriven. Instead of forcing readers to follow the author’s thought process, a virtual book can let each reader steer the way. Wikipedia does this already. It lets you search the page for keywords, skip to the section you’re interested in, and even escape into a tangential topic, never to return. This is a natural way to consume Wikipedia because its form affords it.
Books generally have one start and one ending, but a virtual book can be nonlinear. Wikipedia is again the obvious example. But letting the reader drive is only one way to create a nonlinear book. It’s also possible to create multiple entrypoints, or even multiple endings, like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.
A virtual book can be dynamic. It can change after its initial creation. Printed books, on the other hand, are static snapshots laboriously rendered by a particular author at a particular time. But what if a theory is debunked? Or a hypothesis confirmed? Or a record shattered? Or, in the case of storytelling, what if a loose end can be tied up neatly?
A virtual book can be nonmonolithic. It does not need to be discrete or selfcontained. It can consist of many interconnected parts that make up the whole but can exist without it. It can reference other virtual books, borrow bits from them, and lend bits of its own. For example, if Herbie Hancock’s memoir was a virtual audiobook, it could allow its snippets to be reconstrued into a documentary about jazz. (If Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary series was also ‘virtualized’, it could have been updated 15 years after its release to include bits of Herbie’s narration.) In fact, it could provide material for documentaries about many different topics: jazz, funk, hip hop, Miles Davis, Black Nationalism, Nichiren Buddhism, meditation, and crack addictions, to name some of the obvious ones.
A virtual book can be responsive. What if a reader could expect a book to field spontaneous questions? ChatGPT is an obvious candidate here, but the possibility is broader. What if Herbie Hancock returned to his memoir every now and then to answer questions that readers had left behind while reading it? What if readers could raise flags on issues that factcheckers would then verify or return to the author for amendment?
The possibilities are plenty, and they are thrilling. The difficulty in realizating them is not technological, but legal and political. Powerful companies – and therefore governments – are hugely incentivized to prevent the free exchange of “intellectual property”. To make virtual books possible, we need not only the technological power of software, but also its progressive politics.
Dedicated to Aaron Swartz.
idea, namely: multimedia, readerdriven, nonlinear, and nonmonolithic. As a big fan of wikis, I’m pleased to read that it inspired the first online wiki. And as a programmer, I’m intrigued to learn that it inspired the idea of software design patterns, which are a core part of the industry vernacular.
The book is, finally, an inspiration for me to create my own pattern language. I love interior design, placemaking, vibesetting, and lately I’ve been thinking about what elements make a homespace great. I’ve loved furnishing, laying out, and decorating my apartments, and I look forward to owning a house someday.
my patterns
- good bed
- walk-in shower
- diffused & ambient lighting
- plants
- comfy couch
- dishwasher
- ample natural light
- coffee setup
- TV with a good sound system
- artwork
- worktable with a monitor
- nice dishware
- easy & fast access to street
- places to set things down
my principles
- avoid causes of mental clutter & friction
- allow for incremental discovery and gradual changes
- cultivate meaning in objects and places
i) good bed
A full for myself, queen or king if I’m sharing with my wife. Two pillows for myself. Fitted sheet and a duvet, no top sheet. The duvet cover made of a high quality, breathable material in a nice color. It must have eight ties inside it to keep the duvet in place and a zipper at the bottom hidden behind a flap. While using the bed, I don’t want to notice a separation between the duvet and its cover.
The frame must be sturdy and stable. No squeaking when getting in and out of bed.
ii) walk-in shower
I never take baths. Even when I do, they’re not so much a luxury as a trifle. Showering, on the other hand, is special. It is, first of all, a daily respite, a place to relax and recharge. But what makes it invaluable is that it doubles as an opportunity to
listen to my subsconscioushow to think invisibly
(Originally posted on okjuan.medium.com.)
Does the brain control you, or are you controlling the brain? I don’t know if I’m in charge of mine.
Karl Pilkington sounds foolish, but he’s onto something. He tells an anecdote about a time when he finished his grocery list and moved on only to be interrupted by a thought that entered his mind suddenly: Apple.
That was weird — who reminded me of that?
The thought of apple just appeared and Karl doesn’t know how. It fell like a raindrop into his mind. This happens to us all the time, but we don’t notice it because we expect it. We think What’s his name again? and then something inside us slips an answer into our grasp: Mark. It’s like shaking a tree until fruit falls out. We don’t give the tree much credit. But Karl was leaving the orchard when the apple came rolling after him.
We talk about the subconscious as a mysterious engine that runs the dreams we soon forget after we wake up. But it’s also there in the day. It hums along softly in the background, chiming in helpfully when we need to remember someone’s name or what produce to buy.
But it’s more than our assistant. It’s our advisor, our consigliere. It’s the source of our gut feelings. Great ideas come from interaction with this humble inner partner, this invisible thinker.
Despite being teased by his buddies for his story about the apple, Karl echoed something the French polymath Poincaré wrote in his essay, Mathematical Creation:
At the moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it.
Like Karl, Poincaré tells stories of answers coming to him when he was no longer considering the question. And he welcomes it. He recognizes his subconscious mind as a vital actor in his work, a shrewd associate that finds a fresh lead while he rests.
Poincaré then concludes something that Karl would’ve been mocked for saying: resting is productive. Not because it reenergizes you for more work, but because it is work. Rest releases the invisible thinker to explore and find what you haven’t noticed yet. You can feel this happening in the shower when novel ideas surface in your mind without prompt. And though we can’t steer our “ambient thought”, we can tell it what to think about. As Don Draper of Mad Men tells his protégé:
Peggy, just – think about it. Deeply. Then forget it. And an idea will jump up in your face.
Our train of thought springs into existence already in motion and it speeds between ideas connected by tracks in our mind. Though we cannot access the underlying web of knowledge directly, we experience the result of its traversal. And by training and ruminating on new ideas we integrate them into the network. This is why jazz musicians can fling out new melodies every night. A chord change played by the backing band illuminates melodic pathways carved into the musician’s mind during training. At the gig they just get behind their instrument and go for a ride.
We tap into these networks not only for spontaneous improvisation but also for careful design. We draw from a well of memories and impressions, questions and conclusions, recreating and appropriating them for new purposes. A musician composes from real feelings, from their desires and their fears. A fiction writer sketches a character from the outlines of real people, from the beauties they’ve admired and faults they’ve despised.
This personal reservoir is where filmmaker David Lynch fishes for the strange and abstract ideas that appear in his work. In his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, Lynch describes his process more as catching ideas than creating them. He receives ideas from something inside himself, and consults this inner source to develop and implement them.
Lynch isn’t the only prolific artist with a mysterious inner partner. Novelist Cormac McCarthy is well aware of his own collaborator. He said:
Writing can be like taking dictation.
Like Poincaré and Pilkington, McCarthy has talked about the mysterious experience of receiving answers from the ether:
I’d been thinking about [the problem] off and on for a couple of years without making much progress. Then one morning…as I was emptying [the wastebasket] into the kitchen trash I suddenly knew the answer. Or I knew that I knew the answer. It took me a minute or so to put it together.
McCarthy often talks about the Night Shift, the period when we sleep and the invisible thinker takes over. Pilkington agrees – from his book The Moaning of Life:
I think I’m more intelligent in my dreams than I am when I’m awake… A few months ago I went to bed with a problem, fell asleep thinking about it and when I woke up I had a solution.
The invisible thinker rules this hidden world where our creativity lives. It collaborates with us to devise and improvise, and it even thinks for itself. When relieved from its duty as our advisor, it roams freely, eager to satisfy its own curiosity. We heighten our creative potential when we deepen understanding with our internal agent. Especially if we don’t just ask but also listen.
Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage — whose name is self. In your body he dwells; he is your body. There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (Kauffman translation, 1954, p.146)
. And for this moment to flourish fully and consistently, I need the right physical space.
Good design, as they say, is invisible. A good shower demands no effort or conscious attention from its user. It lets them get clean while their mind wanders. To achieve this, it must make it extremely easy to do all the basic things: get in, stand, wash, rinse, and get out. It sounds obvious, but the standard tubshower hybrid most of us have at home
fails this basic testwhat makes a good shower?
The standard bathtub-shower design seems like a good idea. Two in one. But the compromise at the heart of its design prevents it from being a good shower. The cost of the compromise is hidden in plain sight, difficult to notice due to its ubiquity. Allow me to shed some light on the ways that the tub compromises the shower.
We begin with the uncomfortable task of having to climb in, over a literal barrier, without any clothes to soften accidental contact. Clearing this hurdle is not merely a matter of stepping high and long because on the other side one must balance onefooted on a skinny, slippery ramp with sloping edges. It’s shockingly inhospitable ground considering its primary aim is to allow a bipedal, softskinned animal to stand barefooted in showering water and contort while applying lubricants that ooze dangerously downwards onto an already slick surface. But we’re used to this design, so we don’t notice its baffling unfriendliness.
If freed from the responsibility of doubling as a tub, a shower can focus on being a good shower. It can be easy to enter and to exit. Its standing ground, unobliged to accommodate the bare backside, can be tiled or otherwise surfaced with material that gives traction to the bare foot, even when covered in soapy water. The dimensions can be square and wide enough to allow a person to turn and easily rinse different parts of their body without having to watch their step or feel unreasonably constricted.
Good design, as they say, is invisible. A good shower demands no effort or conscious attention from its user. It lets them get clean while their mind wanders. To achieve this, it must make it extremely easy to do all the basic things: get in, stand, wash, rinse, and get out. The tubshower hybrid most of us have at home fails this basic test.
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Bonus points for nice tiles and for a flat entry with no intermediary ledge.
iii) diffused & ambient lighting
I hate overhead lighting that is bright and direct. The inconvenience of switching off five lamps in a living room is nothing compared to having to withstand the piercing glare of bare bulbs shining down horribly into my eyes. For switch-operated room lights, I much prefer track lighting aimed at the wall or lights diffused by rice paper pendants. The goal is to create a soup of light.
Also, as per pattern #252, pools of light, lights should accentuate or even delineate spaces and subspaces. Don’t just light a whole room, light each space within the room. And, importantly, “spaces” should be defined by human activity and experience: a private corner where you or your loved ones sit to read, an area where a little group may sit to talk or play games, etc.
Recently, while visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia, my wife Z and I sat in the corner of a coffee shop, admiring its beautiful interior. Throughout our trip, I had been pointing out places where patterns were applied or might have been. Suddenly I realized we were sitting in one. #179 alcoves calls for a subspace within a larger space to which a subgroup of the larger group can retreat to socialize in partial privacy without vacating the bigger communal space, thereby conserving the feeling of connection that comes with sharing space with others. (While writing this I notice that coffee shops are a place where it is crucial to create alcoves, and not just once, but many times over.)
The pattern calls for a lowered ceiling, which suggests that the pattern be planned during construction. (In fact, this imperative is codified as a general pattern: #207 structure follows social spaces.) But the coffee shop used a clever alternative to achieve a similar effect: they placed a light fixture directly above our corner seating and brought it down to a low height so that it functioned like a lowered ceiling. This technique merges #179 alcoves and #252 pools of light in the way that the book likens to poetry:
In a poem, the meaning is far more dense [than in prose]. Each word carries several meanings; and the sentence as a whole carries an enormous density of interlocking meanings, which together illuminate the whole.
The same is true for pattern languages. It is possible to make buildings by stringing together patterns, in a rather loose way. A building made like this, is an assembly of patterns. It is not dense. It is not profound. But it is also possible to put patterns together in such a way that many many patterns overlap in the same physical space: the building is very dense; it has many meanings captured in a small space; and through this density, it becomes profound.
iv) plants
Especially leafy ones. Pothos, monstera, ficus. I’m not a huge fan of aloe veras or succulents. Snake plants are ok.
v) comfy couch
Whenever I see a home tour on YouTube and it lacks a cushy sofa in the living room, I mourn it. Armchairs and chairs are not enough. For me, couches are fundamental.
I am picky how the couch feels to sit on, too. I think I prefer a slightly low and certainly a deep seat. Its texture and color matter, too.
Also, see pattern #251, different chairs, which provides seating variety to create options for different people or the same people in different moods.
vi) dishwasher
I don’t like to wash dishes by hand. It takes so long. And it feels meaningless, unlike other chores, like plant watering. Plus, I’m prone to excema.
vii) ample natural light
I need big and many windows. In the living room, at least, artificial lighting should be optional in the daytime. Northfacing windowsills (in the northern hemisphere) are fantastic for plants. Direct sunlight is nice, even if just a little bit.
viii) coffee setup
Preferrably an espresso machine with a grinder with a portafilter holder. At least, a pourover setup: a gooseneck kettle, a cone dripper, a scale, and a burr grinder.
ix) TV with a good sound system
Makes me sad to watch movies on TV speakers.
x) artwork
On the walls. Nothing fancy. Nicelooking stuff and stuff with personal significance (see pattern #253, things from your life). Not generic or massproduced prints. Trendy interior design brands have ruined Matisse figure prints, at least for a few years.
xi) worktable with a monitor
I say worktable instead of desk because my current worktable is actually our dinner table. It’s a great setup because we don’t use it much otherwise.
Preferrably with a big table surface. Bonus points for a mounted monitor that doesn’t take up any deskspace and can be swiveled out of the way.
xii) nice dishware
I like an assortment of glasses and mugs. Nice shapes, materials, and weight. Uniform cutlery. Matching set of dishes, bowls, and bowl plates.
I don’t care for the massproduced mugs, regardless of what image or words are imprinted on them. I like large handles so that it is easy to hold the mug with one hand without touching or bumping into the hot mug’s sidesurface.
xiii) easy & fast access to street
It’s annoying to fish for my keys or a fob to unlock doors. For that reason, I sometimes prefer parking on the street than in a garage. In general, I love being able to walk out of my home and virtually straight onto the street. I like views but they’re not worth long elevator waits. A view of a nice neighborhood street or leafy trees is enough for me.
xiv) places to set things down
I’m a strong believer in having a designated place at the entrance for placing house keys upon entry. (Also, see (c) cultivate meaning in objects and places.) And I recently noticed that there’s a similar satisfaction in having places throughout the house for settings things down. A surface next to each seat for setting down a drink. A convenient place to put items that you use regularly like spatulas, toothbrushes, towels, bathrobes, kitchen trays, and so on. A loading deck of sorts at the bottom and top of staircases, where one can set down things than need to be brought up or down at a nonurgent time. A common case for this kind of inbetween surface is to set down glasses, mugs, and other bits that need to be brought to the kitchen.
A key aspect of these places is that they are convenient (see (a) avoid causes of mental clutter & friction). It shouldn’t be necessary, for example, to activate your core to pick up or set down when sitting anywhere in the living room. There should be a spot right there, within reach from a natural sitting position.
After writing the above, I revisited the book. Thanks to its relative obscurity, the ebook version was available to borrow immediately from the library. I’m pleased to find out the authors encourage readers to come up with their own pattern languages. It occurs to me that some of the my patterns might have some tacit principles in common. I want to deduce them and make them explicit so I can reference them from relevant patterns and thereby uncover principles that underpin my whole pattern language.
a) avoid causes of mental clutter & friction
I’m trying to articulate the common principle, assuming there is one, between my preference for (i) a sole duvet and for (ii) a walk-in shower. In the same way I resent having to think about stepping into a bathtub and about where I step while I shower, I resent having to keep track of a top sheet while in bed. I much prefer to interact exclusively with the duvet. I am aware that it sounds contrived or even slightly insane, but these things cause me minor mental friction that I wish I could eliminate in totality. I love to relax my mind, and it’s hard to do so when distracted by little frills and imperfections.
I think there are many little bits in my patterns that can be traced to my intolerance for mental friction. My distaste for (xiii) having to unlock doors on my way out of my home or having to wait an indeterminate amount of time for an elevator. My preference for (xii) big mug handles, so I don’t have worry about holding the mug a certain way to avoid burning my knuckles.
Nowadays it’s easy for me to take for granted the convenience of bluetooth headphones, but, years ago, wired headphones caused me constant psychological chafe. It irked me to have to supervise that pesky dangling cord and it momentarily ruined my calm when it got yanked out of my ears unexpectedly. To minimize the probability of it catching on protruding bits, like the jagged knobs of our kitchen cabinets, I used to run the cord up my shirt along my back, out through the neckhole, and into my ears like I was in the secret service. (This was my variant of the common practice of running headphones under the shirt on the front side, which had the issue that, when not in use, the cord would dangle and swing down in front of you.) I bought my first pair of cordless headphones in 2018 and they were a revelation. The freedom was exquisite.
b) allow for incremental discovery and gradual changes
I realized how much I love walk-in showers because my current Seattle apartment has one. In fact, I love it so much that, when we got a roommate, I requested continued access to the bathroom where it is.
Living in different places and in different arranagements is a great way to learn what you like best and what you can’t do without. (This is one of the perks of renting, I think.) I learned, for example, how important it is for my wife Z to have a room to be alone in by sharing with her a one bedroom apartment that had minimal architectural division or sound insulation between bedroom and living room. We covered the french doors with curtains to create visual separation, but that didn’t do much to muffle sound. The important fact was not whether she was alone or not, it what whether she felt like she was in a private place to unwind and recharge.
Experimentation is possible also within a single home. For example, I’ve been able to relocate my various plants within the apartment many times, especially the ones that sit on individual wooden stools, which are easy to move and fit into small spaces. The same is possible with artwork, especially if you use command strips or some other hanging device that leaves no trace.
c) cultivate meaning in objects and places
A place for keys at the entrance is convenient for arrival and departure, and it effects a pleasant sense of transition. Arriving, it feels nice to unburden oneself of logistical paraphernalia necessary for navigating the world outside, which accentuates the feeling of returning to a place of convenience, comfort, and familiarity. Departing, it feels nice to equip oneself before stepping through the doorway into the world.
Ordinary actions like these can have meaning. This imbuing of meaning into inanimate objects and impersonal surroundings is the part of the process that transforms a house into a home. A building or even a room becomes a place where one is provided for and secure, where one can rest at ease.
A home is sprinkled with meaning throughout. A quiet, comfy place to read and relax. A welcoming common area to be together. A room of one’s own, a private space. All these are ordinary physical spaces that provide precious and intangible nourishment.
It’s obvious that we should avoid and dispel negative meanings from our home. Less obvious is the task of preventing neutrality and meaninglessness. The lack of meaning is more insidious than negative meaning for a few reasons. Firstly, because its presence is not obvious. Every bit and every corner without meaning is like a little leak that create together a void of meaning that can be felt but not easily traced to a source. They silently steal from our home’s potential as a place for rest and renewal.
Negative energy is easier to detect and pinpoint, and its invasiveness is felt more sharply, which spurs us into action. Meaninglessness, on the other hand, is stultifying. It confuses and bores us with its lack of specificity and sedates us by promoting numbness and detachment.