A language for building things that feel alive.
In 1977, Christopher Alexander and his collaborators published A Pattern Language — 253 interlocking patterns for shaping towns, buildings, and rooms. Each pattern names a recurring problem and the form of its solution, and each one points to the larger and smaller patterns that complete it.
We think the language was never meant to stop at 253, and was never really a hierarchy. This is an attempt to free it — as a living graph you can walk through, and extend.
Explore
Every one of the original 253 patterns is a node in a force-directed graph. Edges are the connections Alexander drew between them — click any node to read the pattern.
Compose
A pattern is never used alone. Follow the connections outward to find the larger patterns a design needs, and inward to the smaller ones that fill it in.
Extend
The world has changed. Add your own patterns — for software, for systems, for communities — and wire them into the existing language.