The Timeless Way: Making Living Cooperative Buildings with Design Patterns

Interfaces to information systems, and the buildings in which such systems are embedded will typically be the result of the work of a large number of different disciplines, potentially ranging from ethnographers to architects. A common language and conceptual framework has the potential for greatly enhancing the effectiveness and ease of cross-disciplinary communication. In this paper we describe some aspects of the notion of design patterns developed by architect Christopher Alexander and colleagues in the 1970's. We briefly show how Alexander-style patterns can be used for analysis and design in some of the disciplines implicated in the creation of successful cooperative buildings -- interface design, ergonomic design, functionality design and office design and suggest that pattern languages might be a way of bridging the communication gaps between professions to produce a shared vision of the cooperative building project.