Navigating Pattern Language

Abstract

Numansgors is a village seeking to improve sustainability by housing renovation. In this process, the effective participation of homeowners faces multiple challenges. The Pattern Language Theory (PLT), a design methodology first proposed by Alexander Christopher in 1970s, shows its potential in tackling these challenges. However, as PLT has been applied in broadening domains, various approaches to using PLT are different from the original one taken by Alexander. As these differences and their basis generally go unarticulated, practitioners referring to such cases may fail to choose an appropriate approach and hence use PLT less effectively. Therefore, to support the effective ue of PLT, either in Numansgors or in other domains, this graduation project aims to support differentiating between diverse PLT approaches, and deciding on a PLT approach.
In the beginning, to better understand the topic, a literature review of PLT was conducted. The benefits of PLT were identified, which later confirmed its suitability in Numansgors. Besides, eight purposes of using PLT were summarised and were later found essential in deciding on PLT approaches.
Next, to understand the different approaches, an integrative review — which I called deconstruction, identifying and reconstruction — of multiple cases was performed. The external manifestations and internal reasons for different approaches were identified. On the outward, the different approaches are manifested in four components. On the inward, the approaches root in
practitioners’ diverging values and needs. These insights were concretised into three tools, which were later incorporated into the final research output.
Afterwards, to find out how the three tools could be used in practice, workshops were organised for inspiration. In these workshops, some other issues in deciding on PLT approaches were found. These issues were tackled by formulating a procedure to use PLT and refining the classification of activities around PLT. All these insights were synthesised into the final research output, the Activity Kit, to support practitioners in deciding on their PLT approaches. With this Activity Kit, practitioners can first consider their project purposes, then find the activities recommended for the purposes, and finally execute the activities with the support of relevant tools.
To validate the use of Activity Kit, the Numansgors project was taken as an example. A three-stage plan for Numansgors was generated by using the Activity Kit. It is recommended to evaluate the Activity Kit with more cases and keep up with the influence of the pattern language in Numansgors.