MuNa/projects/ecuador-museum/ref/Salingaros-Chapter-11-Two-Languages-for-Architecture.md

NIKOS A. SALINGAROS

A THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE, Sustasis press, 2006, 2014.

Chapter 11 --- Two Languages for Architecture

Design in architecture and urbanism is guided by two distinct complementary languages: a pattern language, and a form language. The pattern language contains rules for how human beings interact with built forms --- a pattern language codifies practical solutions developed over millennia, which are appropriate to local customs, society, and climate. A form language, on the other hand, consists of geometrical rules for putting matter together. It is visual and tectonic, traditionally arising from available materials and their human uses rather than from images. Different form languages correspond to different architectural traditions, or styles. The problem is that not all form languages are adaptive to human sensibilities. Those that are not adaptive can never connect to a pattern language. Every adaptive design method combines a pattern language with a viable form language, otherwise it inevitably creates alien environments.

1. Pattern Language and Form Language.

2. Linking Pattern Language to Form Language.

3. Antipatterns Do Not Define a Language.

4. Analogies In Human Communication.

5. The Internal Structure of Form Languages.

6. The Transmission of a Style.

7. Minimal Complexity and Life Processes.

8. Architecture As a Living Process.

9. A New Architecture.

* Seven Points That Guide Architectural Design.

10. Conclusion.

1. Pattern language and form language

Architectural design is a highly complex undertaking. Heretofore, the processes at its base have not been made clear. There have been many attempts to clarify the design process, yet we still don't have a design method that can be used by students and novices to achieve practical, meaningful, nourishing, human results. In the absence of a design method and accompanying criteria for judging a design, things have become very subjective, and therefore what is built today appears to be influenced largely by fashion, forced tastes, and an individual's desire to garner attention through novel and sometimes shocking expressions.

There exist invariant laws behind design in general, and architecture in particular. This Chapter puts forward a theory of architecture and urbanism based on two distinct languages: the pattern language, and the form language. The pattern language codifies the interaction of human beings with their environment, and determines how and where we naturally prefer to walk, sit, sleep, enter and move through a building, enjoy a room or open space, and feel at ease or not in our garden. The pattern language is a set of inherited tried-and-true solutions that optimize how the built environment promotes human life and sense of well-being. It combines geometry and social behavior patterns into a set of useful relationships, summarizing how built form can accommodate human activities. The form language, on the other hand, is strictly geometrical. It is defined by the elements of form as constituted by the floors, the walls, the ceiling, the partitions, and all the architectural components or articulations, which together represent a particular form and style of building.

The importance of a pattern language for architecture was originally proposed by Christopher Alexander and his associates (Alexander et al., 1977). A fairly general pattern language was discovered and presented by Alexander, who emphasized that, while many if not most of the patterns in his pattern language are indeed universal, there actually exist an infinite number of individual patterns that can be included in a pattern language. Each pattern language reflects different modes of life, customs, and behavior, and is appropriate to specific climates, geographies, cultures, and traditions. It is up to the designer/architect to extract specific non-universal patterns as needed, by examining the ways of life and tradition in a particular setting, and then to apply them to that situation (Salingaros, 2000).

Living architecture is highly dependent on patterns, which shape buildings and spaces accordingly. A pattern is a set of relationships, which can be realized using different materials and geometries. Architects, however, confuse patterns with their representation, i.e., what an arrangement looks like. The pattern is fundamentally human, whereas its physical realization (representation) can occur in myriads of slightly different ways. All those representations, some more and others less successful, are what we experience first-hand as the pattern. Even as structures get rebuilt so they may no longer represent a pattern, the pattern itself persists in human memory because it is independent of any particular representation. Patterns are not material, though we experience them with our senses. It is far more difficult to understand them intellectually, and almost impossible to grasp patterns from within a world-view that focuses exclusively on materials.

One would think that designing an appropriate work environment would take precedence in our civilization, which is driven by commerce and industry. Yet that is hardly the case. A pattern language for work environments can be put together by examining the components of successful emotionally-comfortable work environments from different cultures and periods around the world (Alexander, 2004; Alexander et al., 1977; Alexander et al., 1987). A software developer today has many requirements in common with one of our distant ancestors looking for a comfortable place to sit and carve a bone or paint a piece of pottery. Being able to work in an emotionally-supportive environment boosts morale and productivity, and cuts down on workplace errors. For several decades, however, architects and interior designers have insisted on applying formal design rules to office environments. Such rules tend to give a standard compromise that satisfies almost none of the fundamental requirements for a good working environment. Their occupants usually characterize them as ranging from sterile to oppressive. Here is a fundamental disconnect between what architects imagine office space should look like, and the characteristics of the kind of space that users actually require to be productive in. This has not gone unnoticed by companies, which have undertaken their own pattern language development for office and work environments. A good pattern language can generate a personalized work environment at no extra cost. The trillion-dollar information and communications industry has embraced pattern languages, even as all of this extensive work remains outside today's architectural paradigm.

Alexander also uses the term form language to describe the geometrical basis of an architectural expression (Alexander, 2004). It has been used in this context by other architects, for example Robert Stern (1988). A form language is a repertoire of forms and surface elements that can be combined to build any building, and so it represents more than just a superficial style. The form language depends on an inherited vocabulary of all the components used in the assembly of a building; rules for how they can be combined; and how different levels of scale can arise from the smaller components. It is a particular and practical conception of tectonic and surface geometry. One extremely successful form language, the "Classical Language", relies on a wide range of variations of the Classical style of building based on Greco-Roman ancestry (Stern, 1988).

After centuries of Classical buildings, even with varied and successful adaptations to local climates, conditions, and uses, the Classical form language remains intact. Every traditional architecture has its own form language. It has evolved from many different influences of lifestyle, traditions, and practical concerns acting together to define the geometry that structures take as the most natural visual expressions of a particular culture. A form language is a set of evolved geometries on many different scales (i.e., ornamental, building, urban) that people of a particular culture identify with, and are comfortable with. It is highly dependent on traditional and local materials --- at least that was the case before the global introduction of nonspecific industrial materials. Along with many other changes that came along with the industrialization of the building process in the twentieth century, traditional form languages around the world have been lost.

2. Linking pattern language to form language

Here, a general theory of design is proposed, which supports many of the ideas of Alexander. Its essence is to link one pattern language to one form language so as to create an adaptive design method. The process may be summarized as follows, with details to be developed later in this Chapter.

Proposition: An adaptive design method arises out of a complementary pair consisting of a pattern language and a form language (see Figure 11.1).

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Figure (11.1) A pattern language links to a form language: Pattern Language + Form Language = Adaptive Design Method.

I have indicated very briefly what a pattern language and a form language are; we still need to understand what an adaptive design method refers to. Out of many contemporary approaches to design, there are very few that result in structures and environments that are adapted both to physical human use, as well as to human sensibilities. In the past, the opposite was true. Human use is straightforward to understand: the physical dimensions and geometry have to accommodate the human body and its movement. By accommodating human sensibilities, I mean that environments should make human beings feel at ease; make them feel psychologically comfortable so that persons can carry out whatever functions they have to unselfconsciously, without being disturbed by the built environment in any way. This imposes a strong constraint on the design process to adapt to the many factors (both known and unknown) that will influence the user on many levels, including emotion. An adaptive design method should accommodate all these criteria, and this Chapter shows how this may be accomplished.

A major source of confusion is that a design method could adapt to a style, but not to human use and sense of well-being. For example, it might adapt to (conform to) a set of predetermined geometrical prototypes, such as cubes and rectangular slabs. It takes on that particular form language. Minimalist modernism has a clearly-defined geometrical goal; i.e., its peculiar crystalline form language. It is successful on its own terms while at the same time ignoring, or not trying to accommodate, human patterns of use and the sensory response to built form and surface. This is the reason why minimalist modernism is incompatible with Alexander's Pattern Language (Alexander et al., 1977). In this Chapter, I will use the term "adaptive" to refer strictly to fitting the built environment to human beings, and not to abstract ideas or geometries.

Since there exist an infinite number of patterns that can contribute to a pattern language, and an infinite number of form languages, there are of course an infinite number of adaptive design methods that combine two languages. Each adaptive design method is unique. The crucial point is that there are also an infinite number of design methods that act against adaptive design by producing structures which are not suitable to human needs. In the absence of an accepted term for design that ignores human needs, I will call such actions "non-adaptive design".

Post-industrial design is not fundamentally adaptive. Its form language (or rather, set of related form languages) produces structures that are often hostile to human sensibilities. Studies by environmental psychologists have confirmed physiological reactions such as the onset of anxiety and signals of body stress in such environments (see Chapter 4). I want to look for systemic causes of this non-adaptivity. For reasons already discussed in Chapter 6, minimalism effectively precludes the use of patterns, both visual and Alexandrine patterns. That means that patterns of human activity cannot be accommodated within its design canon, thus characterizing it as non-adaptive. To proudly proclaim such a design method as "functional" is a mockery of the term, but it is admittedly a remarkably effective propaganda ploy that helps in its proliferation.

Architectural form languages survive because they often acquire non-architectural meaning, after which they can ignore the need to be adaptive to human needs. In that case, a form language is no longer part of an adaptive design method; it becomes split from its complementary pattern language. Instead of expressing an adaptive tectonic culture, the form language becomes a set of visual symbols that operate under the guise of moral principles (and thus become emotionally loaded). Using that form language then becomes an end in itself, detached from human life. This architecture has little to do with buildings that accommodate human beings, or with tectonics, but is a statement using a formal visual vocabulary. Such an architecture has its own purpose, disguised with moral precepts that together define a completely different world-view for those who accept them.

3. Antipatterns do not define a language

In the theory of pattern languages --- actually developed more extensively in computer architecture than in buildings architecture --- the concept of "antipattern" plays a central role (Salingaros, 2000). An antipattern shows how to do the opposite of the required solution. An ineffective solution is often repeated because the same forces that gave rise to it in the first place recur in other similar situations. Assuming that the futility and counterproductive nature of such a solution is evident (which is not always the case), its occurrence can be studied to see what went wrong. Documenting an antipattern can save future designs from the same mistakes by identifying a problematic solution before it is adopted. The problem is that some antipatterns persist out of habit, causing a source of errors to become institutionalized. As discussed in Chapter 10, repeated use makes an error more acceptable, while institutional support from that point on makes it decreasingly likely that an error will ever be identified as such. Sometimes this knowledge can be helpful in order to avoid making the same mistake repeatedly, but only after the mistake has been recognized.

However, knowing the antipattern does not automatically indicate the pattern, since the solution space is not one-dimensional (Salingaros, 2000). If there were only two possible choices, knowing which one is wrong tells you which one is right. That simple situation almost never occurs in practice. More often, there are immeasurably more wrong than correct solutions. Doing the opposite of the antipattern will not give the pattern, precisely because there can be many different "opposites" going out in many different directions in the solution space.

Antipatterns do not comprise a pattern language, just as a collection of mistakes do not comprise a coherent body of knowledge. It is therefore not appropriate to talk of a language of antipatterns, but simply a collection of antipatterns. Nevertheless, antipatterns could (and often do) substitute for, and displace a genuine pattern language, with very negative consequences. I have given rules for distinguishing between a true pattern language and a collection of antipatterns or non-language (Salingaros, 2000), based on their internal consistency and their connectivity to external patterns (see Figure 11.2). As I discuss later in this Chapter, a true language --- be it pattern language, form language, or spoken language --- has a non-trivial internal complexity characterized by a high degree of connectivity.

{width="1.8188746719160105in" height="2.679472878390201in"}

Figure (11.2) A true language possesses internal connectivity.

My present aim is to be able to discern whether a pattern language is genuine, so that it can be connected to a form language and thus define an adaptive design method. It is imperative not to be fooled by a collection of antipatterns, otherwise our resulting design process will be non-adaptive, even though this may not be known at the beginning of the process. We will eventually see it in the non-adaptivity of the results, at which time it will be too late to do anything about it (i.e., after an unnatural city such as EUR, Milton Keynes, or la Défense has been built).

Pattern languages have evolved, and, as with all evolved systems, they have developed an extraordinary degree of organized complexity. It is not possible to understand all this complexity, let alone replace it by a design method based on deliberately simplified rules. And yet, that has been the basic assumption of twentieth-century architects: that we can simply replace all the evolved architectural solutions of the past with a few rules that someone has made up (and which don't even have the benefit of experimental verification). The organized complexity encoded in a pattern language is the end result of an evolutionary development, and cannot simply be achieved all at once. A refusal to apply traditional architectural solutions (patterns) leaves architects only with antipatterns, by default. Really bad mistakes (in architecture, politics, or software development) happen when several things go wrong together. Therefore, sets of related antipatterns tend to recur, each antipattern contributing to the failure of the situation. The fact that they seem to go together is mistaken for the grouping of cooperating patterns in a pattern language. Stubbornly re-using these antipatterns merely recycles the same mistakes over and over again.

The analogous non-adaptive failure in a form language is more difficult to define. Most of that research is indeed very recent, and relies on mathematical properties (Alexander, 2004). A form language that adapts to human beings contains and codifies certain very specific geometrical properties such as fractal structure, connectivity, coherence, and scaling (as discussed in the previous Chapters of this book). Again, a form language that does not contain these mathematical properties is not a language at all, because it is too sparse to define a rich language of forms. I will call such a form language a "primitive" form language, or "non-language" (Figure 11.2). There exists a range of form languages, from non-languages, to primitive form languages, increasing in complexity of combinatoric expression up to genuine form languages.

The linguistic analogy makes it difficult to understand why a primitive form language would ever survive. Why maintain a system in use that severely limits one's expression? The reason we do this is that every form language has extra-linguistic attributes that help in its proliferation. Once invented, the limited visual vocabulary of a primitive form language may be copied unthinkingly by more and more persons. Unlike a true language, which survives through its linguistic utility, a form language can survive strictly through its iconic properties (and not its linguistic ones). Indeed, constant repetition through visual copying is the key to its transmission, promotion, and acceptance by an increasing number of architects. Familiarity makes people overlook a form language's linguistic deficiencies. (One is reminded of the collapse of literacy in the Middle Ages, when individual letters were copied as "runes" and ascribed with magical meaning by people ignorant of their original linguistic function).

An adaptive design method requires the union of a pattern language with a form language (Figure 11.1). If either the pattern language or the form language is flawed, then the design method will fail to create adaptive structures (see Figure 11.3). For example, high-rise towers set in vast open spaces satisfy neither a viable form language nor a pattern language --- they are iconic design failures that get repeated because architects make a lot of money building them. One may claim to employ a pattern language together with a primitive form language to create structures barely suitable for human habitation and use, such as contemporary buildings that try to use Alexandrine patterns. Those buildings may partially satisfy some functional patterns, but the more they stick exclusively to a minimalist or high-tech form language, they more they will feel dead and alienating, so that their users are uncomfortable.

{width="2.351394356955381in" height="2.1219706911636047in"}

Figure (11.3) A non-language cannot link to a true language.

Two instances of partial success come to mind. In the mixed example of central Tel Aviv, an early modernist form language is tied to a traditional European urban pattern language, as laid out by Sir Patrick Geddes, with successful results. The buildings do not connect so much on an architectural scale, yet they do connect well on the urban scale to create a lively environment. Other illustrative examples with mixed success include dwellings built by alternative "counterculture" architects soon after the Pattern Language (Alexander et al., 1977) appeared. They satisfy all the patterns, but they look somewhat chaotic and unbalanced --- far from satisfying Alexander's original intent of ordered geometrical coherence (Alexander, 2004). The reason is that their builders had no form language to draw upon. These buildings were built within a culture that did not wish to refer to any tradition, and did not have the capacity to create a new form language (the multicolored "psychedelic" art of that culture was never applied to architecture in a way that would help the geometry).

In the opposite instance, one can use antipatterns together with a form language to damage both built and natural environments. Twentieth-century buildings were built using a distorted version of the Classical form language that are inhuman either because of scale, megalomania, or the desire to intimidate. They may look nice from a distance, but are hostile in actual use. This is a characteristic of Fascist architecture. Some modernist architects were also very fond of employing parts of a form language of rich, detailed materials, but to intentionally create alien forms. The surfaces are adaptive in these cases, but the geometry is not (sending a mixed message of attractive materials in a hostile setting). Another failed example is found in recent traditional-looking mansions isolated in American suburbia. They use a form language (that happens to be irrelevant to the site) but no urban pattern language, so those buildings remain disconnected. They have a great image, but no functionality on the urban scale. It is only the correct pairing of pattern language with form language that results in an adaptive design.

The architecture of squatter settlements is an interesting case of genuinely adaptive application. Those slum dwellers use a form language that is determined by available scrap materials to build their own houses. Residents are preoccupied with basic survival, and have no wish to copy elements of a form language that was generated outside their immediate circumstances. There are simply no resources available to make an architectural "statement", although ornament and surface decoration appear on the most modest structures because they are felt to be essential. The human need to make a building adapt through form, surface, and ornament is innate. Everyday people who own and build their own homes definitely apply a pattern language (albeit unknowingly) because they want their dwellings to be as comfortable as possible. Here we have an adaptive design method, which, were it not for the miserable conditions of life represented by the overcrowded slums of the world, is an excellent example for architecture schools to study.

As the above examples make clear, an adaptive design method provides the means of creation, but not the product. It gives one the framework and tools for creative expression. It still requires a talented architect or sensitive non-architect to use the language to design a building. Working with a complete, richly-expressive language makes that task immeasurably easier. Great architects can use an existing form language in an innovative manner to create new architectural expressions, or they can invent their own form language. (A pattern language, however, cannot be invented: it has to be discovered). A primitive form language severely reduces architectural expression. With a flawed form language, new or old, even the greatest architect has trouble making something useful and adaptive.

4. Analogies in human communication

Two complementary languages --- pattern language and form language --- are necessary for the process of adaptive architectural design. I can think of a parallel for this in pairing two entirely distinct types of language to enable human communication. Spoken language is used together with nonverbal emotional cues. These independent channels usually interact when one is speaking face-to-face with another person, and even on the telephone. Nonverbal communication gives a message of friendliness, ease of interaction, emotional comfort, or hostility independently of what the spoken language is communicating. Nonverbal cues are the basis of a host of messages that are often more important than verbal content.

Human beings developed verbal and nonverbal modes of communication, and need both. Nonverbal cues carry through in telephone conversations because one can hear emotional signals encoded in the speaker's tone of voice and inflections. This is obviously not as effective as speaking in front of one-another. A sequence of decreasing information content corresponds to the gradual loss of the nonverbal language, and is represented by regressing from face-to-face meeting, to videoconference, to telephone, to handwritten letter, to e-mail, to typed memorandum. And yet, the actual text could be the same. This loss of expressivity is appreciated by the business world, where the value of serious communication is reflected in the price (in money, time, and inconvenience) that busy executives are willing to pay to arrange face-to-face negotiations.

As both lovers and fighters know very well, one can rely almost entirely on nonverbal language for rapid communication in certain situations. Indeed, in those situations, one can communicate affections or "read" cues without knowing the spoken language of the other party at all. It is also sometimes the case that verbal language is used to decoy the true feelings and intentions of the parties involved. Amateurs cannot disguise their emotional language and so betray their true intentions. Accomplished liars, on the other hand, lie on all informational levels simultaneously: tone of voice, facial expressions, hand gestures, etc. Psychopaths and hardened criminals learn to control their nonverbal cues so that the (contrived) emotional message supports what they communicate through verbal language, and thus succeed in deceiving their victims.

Here we are interested in building things rather than communicating a verbal message. Still, as the linguistic analogy makes clear, a building or urban setting conveys a wealth of information to human beings, and those signals influence the structures' eventual use. The built environment communicates complex messages on many different levels. An architect may naively expect that his or her design communicates a specific message in the most obvious aspects of its form, materials, and surfaces. The built structure may communicate something else altogether: a mixed, much more complex message, or the message could be strongly negative. The architect might offer a verbal explanation of the building's supposed message that totally contradicts what the structure is actually communicating in a sensory, visceral manner. Unfortunately, respected critics believe an architect's misleading words and ignore their own sensory responses to a building, which leads to cognitive dissonance for the public.

It is therefore imperative that we become aware that several different design languages are actively contributing to the overall effect on users. The language of building is necessary to express the building as form, to implement and embody thoughts and needs about space and use. The present model of two languages --- a pattern language and a form language --- is a simplification of what is a more complex phenomenon, yet it is a necessary first step to understanding the design process.

In addition to serving as a language for expressing architectural form, a form language communicates the state of mind of a society, or at least that of its ruling power elite. Corporate and totalitarian architecture looks and feels aloof; often faceless. The sensitive architectural historian can "read" messages such as power and authority, or, alternatively, compassion and respect for the individual in an architectural form language. However, such architectural messages are often disguised by propaganda, also expressed in architectural terms (Chapter 10). We are told by the architectural press that an obviously hostile building whose form deliberately creates alarm is marvelous because it is "innovative", thus deliberately confusing its architectural message.

5. The internal structure of form languages

All human spoken languages are contained in a general "meta-language", which has a grammatical or syntactical structure common to all known languages (Maynard-Smith & Szathmáry, 1999). Human languages, even in the most technologically primitive cultures known, are not themselves "primitive". Independently of their technological achievements, all groups of human beings have developed a richly complex spoken language. Differences arise in specificities, in the breadth of vocabulary for concepts important to that culture, and in their transition to a written language, but those do not affect the general richness of the language.

This point is easy to explain from the mathematics of communication. In order to describe and communicate complex human activities and interactions, a spoken language itself has to have an extraordinary capacity for encoding complexity. A natural language is an externalization of the complexity of human thought, and has evolved along with the human mind. Even an isolated, technologically primitive tribe has developed complex activities and concepts over millennia, and these are comparable in information content to the complex activities of an urban dweller in the most advanced industrialized nations. For this reason, both sets of people require, and have developed, their own richly complex spoken languages.

An artificial primitive language, on the other hand, would not be sufficient for verbal communication. It would consist of, say, six words such as: yes, no, hot, cold, eat, drink (Figure 11.2). It is a primitive language that an old model of computer would understand, or a person stranded among others who spoke a different language. In this example of a non-speaker amidst people speaking another language, however, he or she will rapidly pick up the host language, facilitated by innate meta-linguistic structures that define that person's own native language.

What we conclude from the study of spoken and written languages is that, whereas each language may appear totally distinct on the surface, its level of complexity is equally high. Every language's internal structure has to obey general principles that are common to all languages. A primitive language or non-language, by contrast, is characterized by the reduction or absence of such internal complexity and structure. The complexity of human thought sets a rather high threshold for the complexity that any language has to be able to express through combinatoric groupings. It has been proposed that the transition from a primitive language to a real language corresponds to the evolutionary transition from the language of apes (and people brought up in linguistic deprivation) to human language (Maynard-Smith & Szathmáry, 1999).

Turning now to architecture, a viable form language is also characterized by its high degree of internal complexity. Furthermore, the complexity of different form languages has to be comparable, because each form language shares a commonality with other form languages on a general meta-linguistic level (see Figure 11.4). A primitive form language severely limits architectonic expression to crude or inarticulate statements. So, while each form language may be distinct in its components, it is not really a complete form language unless it possesses a complex internal structure. The exact details of this structure must necessarily parallel the internal structure of any other fully-developed language, and in particular, that of a pattern language (Salingaros, 2000). Roughly, these properties can be described as combinatorial, connective, and hierarchical features, which we see in our own written and spoken language.

{width="2.4803707349081363in" height="2.050614610673666in"}

Figure (11.4) Two viable form languages share common features.

This argument is borne out by the enormous number of distinct form languages developed independently by different peoples around the world. It is reasonable to claim that for each spoken language, there is also a form language that those people use to build and to shape their environment. The means of verbal expression and accumulated culture defining a literary tradition has a parallel in an ornamental tradition and material culture, which includes a form language that is an expression of inventiveness in geometry and tectonics. A traditional form language has generated buildings the same way a spoken language has generated stories and poems, and these express a culture's complexity equally. The form language is stored in collective memory and recorded in physical materials, and is older than writing. Each traditional form language is distinct, yet possesses a comparably high degree of organized complexity in terms of visual vocabulary and combinatoric possibilities. Erasing a form language erases the culture that created it. It is no different than erasing a culture's literature, or its musical heritage.

It is only in recent years that the mathematical sophistication of traditional form languages has begun to be documented. Mathematicians and ethnologists are doing this work, while the architectural establishment continues to ignore indigenous building cultures and the human value of what they represent. For example, traditional building and urban geometry in sub-Saharan Africa is now revealed to be essentially fractal, thus revising our customary (and totally erroneous) conception of those cultures as mathematically under-developed --- fractals were re-discovered in the West only very recently. Loosely (and deprecatingly) classed together as "vernacular architectures", this vast body of diverse and complex styles, geometries, and ways of understanding space and structure shames the poverty of contemporary architectural styles. Traditional form languages are rich, complete, and technically (not industrially) advanced. In terms of richness and underlying substance, which are crucially important to life, contemporary form languages promoted by the Western architectural design magazines would seem to represent an evolutionary regression.

Form languages comprise evolved systems of human geometric expression. Separate from preserving traditional form languages for their informational and cultural value, the inevitable evolution of form languages makes possible entirely innovative architectural expressions. Such an evolution is possible only if a form language retains the high level of its internal complexity. Traditional form languages around the world were dismissed as "primitive" by Western colonial and economic powers, and were replaced by variants of Neo-Classical or Beaux-Arts form languages. Cultural colonialism in architecture comes about by destroying languages that are thousands of years old, as an affirmation of superiority and power.

Even so, colonial architecture had been complex enough to begin adapting to local pattern languages, and thus to evolve adaptively towards the local vernacular. Many older colonial buildings are now treasured, and are included in a country's cultural heritage. When the West turned with vehemence against its own traditional form languages, replacing them with an impoverished set of primitive form languages, colonial architecture was itself eventually replaced by non-adaptive "International Style" buildings. Worse of all, those people whose form language (and culture) had been erased were caught up in the same deception (that this was necessary for economic progress and prosperity), so they embraced the same industrial "look" after political independence.

6. The transmission of a style

A form language governs the built form in all its expressions: geometry, composition, structure, materials, surfaces, etc. When we reduce all of this to simply an image, we call it an architectural "style". I can now use the model of this Chapter to discuss and explain some significant events in architectural history. To begin with, we are faced with a serious contradiction. Why do some design styles proliferate even though they are poorly adapted to human use and sensibilities? (Such styles or design methods could be deficient because they lack either the pattern language, or the form language, or both). Even worse, it appears that the most damaging, least adaptive styles actually proliferate with the greatest ease.

The answer is frightening in its implications for our civilization. The most basic, primitive form languages spread the fastest in society (see Chapter 10). That is simply because they encode (carry with them) a minimum of information. The "style" as an informational unit that can be transmitted among human minds in a population carries over better when it is simplest. Flat sheer surfaces, transparent glass walls, pilotis, shiny "industrial" materials such as polished steel, etc. define a simplistic visual style, which offers an easily recognizable catchy image. These images are simple because they are the homogeneous products of synthetic materials. Never mind that the components of this primitive form language do not define a true form language; the public accepts them because of their visual simplicity encouraged by support from respected authorities, i.e., star architects and critics (Chapter 10).

People traditionally developed and preserved adaptive design methods, each containing a pattern language and a form language. An adaptive design method was conceived as a whole, without splitting it into its two distinct linguistic components. Indeed, it was itself part of culture and religion, which together formed a complex body of inherited knowledge and practices. The theoretical separation of design from culture is useful for analysis, but does not correspond to the practical reality of several millennia of human existence. Actual separation, however, did occur in the post-industrial age. Adaptive design split from culture (which had earlier split from religion), then the form language split from the pattern language. Architects shed off influence from tried-and-true solutions in order to seek individual expressions.

Detached as it was for the first time from a much larger complex system, a form language could evolve and propagate as an independent entity. This released it from traditional constraints, while at the same time giving a form language unprecedented channels and mechanisms for transmission. We know of biological entities that split from more complex organisms so as to propagate freely and with enormous success: they are the viruses.

I wish to draw an analogy with the replication of viruses. Extending the notion of image propagation further, we can look to recent events where biological terrorists use viruses. Because of its nature, the virus can exist in an inert, easily-transmittable form such as a powder. This is possible because a virus is a biologically simple structure with very low informational overhead. We know how the spread of a virus can be accelerated, as part of the arsenal of biological terrorists. First, disguise the pathogen in seemingly attractive substances, so as to have the victims consume it voluntarily. This corresponds to the promise that architecture and planning relying on primitive form languages solve social problems and liberate oppressed classes (Chapter 10). The people readily accept that. Second, artificially spread samples of the virus in as many places as possible so that the maximum number of persons will become infected. In the propagation of architectural images, the media play a key role, showing and praising carefully selected structures and urban projects (and ignoring everything else) (Chapter 10). Our architectural schools and press have also done a very effective job of promoting primitive form languages while unwittingly suppressing true form languages.

Someone who has been raised in the twentieth century and has been taught through association that "beautiful" objects have no hierarchical organization will then apply this rule subconsciously to design a building or a city. Even though people might find such environments intellectually acceptable, they can never overcome the negative sensations that such an architecture brings into play. The reason behind this typology can be traced back to artistic and design trends in the 1920s. Design in art and architecture overturned all established rules of treating three-dimensional forms and two-dimensional images. Form languages that people had developed as part of their culture and civilization were no longer valued or respected. Concepts such as hierarchical scaling were inadvertently eliminated from design. They had never been written down; they exist encoded in nature and as examples in all traditional art and architecture. The new artificial objects: paintings, sculptures, and buildings influenced the way we think. They served as mental templates for conceptualization.

Why did this occur only at the beginning of the twentieth century and not before? I believe that it had to do with radical social changes spurred by population pressure and political oppression so that for the first time, many people saw a chance of radical social improvement through technology. They were willing to sacrifice adaptive design in exchange for the (false) promise of a better future offered by industrialization (Chapter 10). Prior to that, people on all socioeconomic levels shaped their environment as far as they could to provide physical comfort and emotional well-being.

Another contributing factor was the creation of a new communications network formed by the convergence of telephone, telegraph, newspapers, magazines, and film. The new media tied the world together as never before, yet also made possible the rapid proliferation of advertising and political propaganda. The spread of modernism, combining visually simple images with the promise of a new utopian world, could never have occurred were it not for the new media (Chapter 10). Advertising created the desire for industrial products that we didn't really need. Just as in the case of internet computer viruses, which could not exist before the internet, primitive architectural form languages could spread only through the first architectural picture magazines. At the same time, advertising favors the transmission of simplistic messages, slogans, images, and ideas.

As a result of its tremendous power to shape people's minds, advertising quickly transformed from a medium for transmitting commercial information to an instrument of social change and control. Its first target was cultural traditions that blocked the consumption of inferior new industrial products. These inhibitions were overcome by making individuals ashamed of their instinctive preferences, labeling them as "backward", and thereby opening up the public to market influence. Thus, form languages that threatened the supremacy of the post-industrial aesthetic of glass, steel, and concrete slabs were stigmatized by the architectural critics. This style based on a specific industrial "look" could not be sold to the world until traditional form languages were eliminated. The way the built environment looked anywhere in the world would henceforth be controlled by the advertising media; all traditional form languages condemned to extinction in the interest of Western industrial and ideological dominance.

7. Minimal complexity and life processes

An excursion into biology is helpful here. There is a direct analogy between architecture and living processes. In examining how life arises, the Physicist Freeman Dyson proposes that two distinct processes characterize all living forms: metabolism, and replication (Dyson, 1999). Metabolism involves the physical interaction of an organism with its environment in a way that portions of the environment --- i.e., nutrients --- enter and are processed chemically by the organism. There is an interpenetration between the organism and the environment which maintains the functions of the organism via a chemical engine.

The other component of life, replication, is the distinguishing characteristic of forms that survive through copies. Although an organism needs pieces of the environment as raw material to build a copy of itself, the replicative process is fundamentally distinct from metabolism. Replication is directly dependent upon coding the organism's structure into a template (DNA), so that replication is theoretically tied to information storage rather than to interaction with the environment around it.

Perhaps the most important distinction between the two components of living structure is their independence. This is better discussed in terms of artificial life, as for example in entities generated by, and residing in a computer. It is possible to create the analogue of a metabolizing entity in the sense that it moves around on the screen and is nourished by devouring other nearby entities. It does not, however, have to reproduce. If one has played with the computer game "Sim City", then one imagines how an internally complex entity can survive indefinitely, and even grow in complexity as long as necessary "nutrients" are inputted. It can carry on an existence independent of other complex entities --- it only needs simple supplies.

On the other hand, it is also possible to create a computer virus whose sole function is to replicate. Such an entity does not metabolize --- it is simply a minimal piece of code (either computer, or genetic) that uses the internal machinery of a far more complex entity in order to make copies of itself. A pure replicator lacks the ability to metabolize, and thus cannot carry out an independent existence --- it is entirely dependent on more complex entities for its continued survival. Without them, it lies dormant as an inanimate, disconnected piece of information (i.e., a crystal). It comes to life --- in the sense of getting ready to replicate --- only after it enters the living environment of a host's body. This is the reason why biological viruses are considered not to be really "alive", but to somehow occupy the interface between inanimate crystals and living forms.

Therefore, despite architects' concerns about style and adaptation, they missed an essential point that links the two. The high threshold for organized visual complexity in traditional architecture (seen in all evolved cultures) played a decisive role, by helping to maintain adaptation in architecture. When humankind decided to abandon this complexity threshold (under utopian promises of a better future through industrialization), we opened the door to minimalist form languages that had unbeatable transmission properties. Humankind had always preserved adaptive design methods --- in which the pattern language guaranteed a high complexity for the complementary form language --- as whole (i.e., complete) culturally transmittable systems. By dropping pattern languages from the design methods in use, the form language could then be simplified as much as anyone wished, which is where we find ourselves today.

8. Architecture as a living process

The above concepts from biology and computer science can be applied to architecture to set up metabolic/genetic analogies. This is essential for understanding design as a "living process" that accommodates and coexists with human beings. I identify the metabolic (interactive) aspect of living structure with the pattern language. After all, a pattern language dictates how built form interacts with human activities, which is the defining characteristic of a useful, adaptive structure. A building is perceived as functionally "alive" when it accommodates human functions in a positive and nurturing manner. The essentials of biological metabolism: interpenetration, nourishment, and repair have their direct analogue in a pattern language. Buildings shelter and contain people, who in turn build them and maintain them. Changes affected during repair enhance the adaptivity of the original design.

Forms, spaces, and surfaces can also nourish people psychologically by promoting a sense of well-being. This geometrical/visual aspect is to a large part responsible for supporting human activities, though the effect is much more subtle and is thus all too often ignored. (Architectural theorists have dismissed this component of architecture outright, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge psychological and medical results on the effects of environments). The way something is built and the way it looks (i.e., its form language) have a major impact in whether humans feel comfortable or not inside and around such a building. Form language affects human response directly. A building that is built in a way that its visual appearance discourages or hinders human activity can be said to be effectively "dead", since no-one wants to use it (see Chapter 4).

Replication of a building style does not depend upon whether it is useful or not, but on its form language. The form language is therefore its genetic component (see Figure 11.5). A building replicates if for some reason (logical or otherwise) an architect decides to use the same design for another similar building somewhere else. We naively imagine that this copying is due to a building's success in accommodating human beings and their activities, but that is not necessarily the case. A building replicates only because its form language is used to build another building, and this decision is independent of the original building's success in terms of its human component. The principal factor behind architectural replication is the ease of copying a particular form language (which becomes an unbeatable advantage when dealing with a primitive form language). The analogy of a building as a living being is useful in predicting positive and negative effects on its users.

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Figure (11.5) Forms/patterns correspond to genetic/metabolic structures.

Other factors that influence the success of a particular form language include sociopolitical forces that condemn one style while promoting another style; the physical presence of numerous buildings in a particular style around us makes it easy for that style to be copied by everybody; the virtual presence of a particular style promoted in terms of pervasive visual images currently fashionable in the media; etc. Obviously, techniques of advertising and proselytizing can promote a primitive form language and spread it in the environment, after which its dominance and familiarity guarantee further spread.

To their credit, early modernist architects criticized the fact that many traditional form languages were not used to work with, but were being copied in the most superficial stylistic manner. For example, columns are supposed to be made originally out of tree trunks, but not out of hollow material. Falsifying a stone surface by means of paint looks ridiculous up close and when the paint starts to peel. Formica looks cheap and feels unpleasant to the touch. In recent years, people use plastic or painted metal siding that has the superficial appearance and texture of wooden planks. All of these falsifications are in fact a testament to the persistence of traditional form languages, but undermine and devalue the meaning of the original form language. Falsified materials falsify the form language. Unfortunately, the early discussion on the "honesty" of materials quickly took a wrong turn, and turned into an unquestioning support and promotion of industrial materials.

If the form language is too idiosyncratic, then the building, even though it may be perfectly adapted to its uses, will not likely be used as a model for another building. This helps to explain why certain very successful buildings were never used as typological prototypes. For example, Art Nouveau buildings did not take off like modernist buildings did --- simply because their form language is not as easily copyable. This is in part because their mathematically sophisticated form language could not compete with the form languages of early modernism (Chapter 10). Of the many competing form languages (including several related ones loosely defining modernism) in existence in the early twentieth century, the most simplistic ones had better survival qualities. To use a literary metaphor, if Art Nouveau were a written language, then it is perfectly suited for poetry, but less well-suited for more mundane prose like a shopping list or a computer software manual.

That said, poetry does nourish the human soul, which is the reason why all human societies use their language to compose poems. It is often the presence of emotionally-engaging poetry that helps to make everyday tasks bearable and even pleasant. Such is the effect of Hector Guimard's entrances to the Paris Metro stations (1900-1904), which provide a brief moment of architectural poetry as one enters or exits from the underground subway. For many people, they epitomize the dream of Paris. They were ruthlessly destroyed up to the 1960s (because they didn't conform to the drab minimalist aesthetic designated as orthodox by the architectural establishment). The French government finally realized that, in the eyes of the rest of the world, Paris would be architecturally impoverished without those characteristically Art Nouveau structures.

Other components of human expression are also codified in a traditional form language: dark passions, archaic qualities and wildness, ranging all the way to an almost savage intensity. These emotions are latent in the human soul, and thus find their geometrical and ornamental analogues in a particular culture's form language. Life itself is written in a passionate language. This is a far cry from the insipid homogenization of post-industrial architectural expression. In recent years, however, violence against architectural form (and human sensibilities) has become fashionable, but this trend must be strongly distinguished from what I am talking about here. Normal individuals never confuse intensity of feeling with actual violence, only psychopaths do so: those are driven to derive sensual pleasure and satisfaction from sadistic acts of destruction. A form language expresses optimist and creativity, never nihilism.

A society that is forbidden to express life and sensuality in a visual and tectonic medium turns out of frustration to perverse expressions of negativity, such as death and violence. There is no silencing the human spirit and its creative manifestations in material form; one can only redirect its modes of expression into negative channels. When we cannot express joy and wonder at the universe (because those who control cultural expression have a monopoly on the language), we seek out its opposite. The primitive and increasingly nihilistic form languages of contemporary architecture do speak to us directly, even though their message is not what their architects claim it to be. That's the reason for so much empty theorizing in the architectural press: it's an effort to disguise a fundamentally negative message.

Since a form language is one-half of the complementary pair pattern language + form language that comprises an adaptive design method, a form language must tie in seamlessly to a pattern language. Here is where the crucial distinction is made between effective and ineffective form languages, as far as human use is concerned. A primitive form language can be enormously successful at replicating, but be totally unsuited for human needs. The reason is that it cannot encode enough complex information to generate structures that actively engage humans in a positive way. Form languages that can be used adaptively have to join mathematically with a pattern language, and the join is possible only if the two languages share a comparable and compatible internal structure (Figure 11.1).

The process of joining two languages does not appear to have a linguistic parallel. We are used to translating from one language into another, but here I am referring to the creation of an entity (a building) that requires the cooperation of two distinct types of languages. Perhaps the best analogy is found in music. In a Song (say, where a poem is set to music), Opera, Oratorio, or Scripture presented in a musical setting, sung text is married to music, thus combining two linguistic expressions. The most glorious examples succeed in both dimensions: literary as well as musical, and thereby transcend the capabilities of each language alone. If religious text is used, it adds a third, spiritual dimension.

Two abstract languages can interface only if they both share similar structural characteristics (i.e., syntactical and linguistic). Otherwise, they cannot be conceived as complementary. One of these common characteristics is a hierarchical internal structure, while another is an internal combinatorial structure. Just with these two requirements as a criterion, we can exclude some styles as lacking the fundamental basis of a form language that can join a pattern language. Many modernist buildings are simply too plain in their vocabulary of forms, and therefore lack hierarchical coherence (see Chapter 3). Those that are more complex evidently have a greater range of visual expression, and thus offer a greater chance for adaptivity.

At the other extreme, the deconstructivist style tells you how to take forms apart, not how to put them together. Deconstruction has generated its own primitive (hence easily-copyable) form language, consisting of diagonal slashes, jagged lines, shiny high-tech materials, cantilevered shapes, concrete and glass walls, acute angles, etc. This comprises a large vocabulary of forms representing disordered visual complexity, but it all lacks linguistic connectivity. There is no system for synthesizing deconstructivist elements into coherent structures. Deconstruction started out in the field of linguistics, with the stated intention of disrupting the communication process (Salingaros, 2004). Its intent from the very beginning was to sabotage language, thus making it nihilistic. It is no wonder, then, that its architectural form language is incapable of generating coherent form. It can only give rise to fragmented structures whose purpose is to deny coherent expression. Architectural deconstruction has commandeered systems and resources (media, government, and academic support; architectural prizes and commissions) in its bid to displace other form languages. Its mode of propagation is therefore directly analogous to biological competition, where one organism tries to exterminate another.

It follows that it is hopeless to try to satisfy a pattern language using the form language of either minimalism, or deconstructivism. Perhaps because of this perceived impossibility, Alexander's pattern language (Alexander et al., 1977) has been all but ignored by the mainstream architectural profession. A major misunderstanding of the value of patterns has led to the neglect of pattern languages, because they were (correctly) seen to possess far more complex combinatoric properties than contemporary form languages in use. The inability of a primitive form language to join a pattern language should have alerted architects to the deficiencies of that form language. What happened instead is that the primitive form language was retained, while the possibility of an adaptive design method (that combines a form language with a pattern language) was abandoned. This decision, crucial for the evolution of architecture, was influenced by forces embedded very deeply in a culture shaped by advertising and ideology. A society that runs largely on images values an iconic architecture above all else, and is loath to re-attach it to something as abstract as a pattern language. Adaptation to human needs is incompatible with an image-driven architecture.

Architects have misinterpreted Alexander's Pattern Language as too restrictive. They felt that their creative imagination should not be fettered in trying to satisfy Alexandrine patterns. Perhaps they see that the most innovative part of their design clashes with patterns, and they certainly don't want to sacrifice it. I, on the other hand, propose an architecture that is ruthlessly adaptive to human uses and sensibilities: architecture that connects us to the world. If an architectural "statement" makes people uncomfortable, it should not be built. Review boards should not commission it, and juries should not award it an architectural prize. The pattern language provides a "reality check" for an architect's imagination. An architect that can create nurturing environments can adapt an innovative idea to patterns; it takes a secure and courageous one to do so.

9. A new architecture

Form language (actually, fairly primitive versions of a form language) is what today's architects focus on, almost to the exclusion of other design constituents. Architects are visually-oriented people, used to thinking in visual terms. I believe that the present discussion can help bring innovation through a new understanding of the complexity of the design process. It is possible to list several insights as points that can be used in practice.

Table 11.1. Seven Points that Guide Architectural Design.

1. Great architecture can, and does result from following a tried-and-true form language (in combination with a pattern language).

2. The more informationally-rich a form language is, the more adapted the architecture could become to the human condition.

3. Innovative architects have also developed their own form language (e.g., Louis Sullivan, Antoni Gaudí, Victor Horta, Frank Lloyd Wright, Erich Mendelsohn, etc.).

4. Non-adaptive architecture results from following a primitive form language, which does not have enough complexity to allow either richness of architectural expression, or adaptivity to human uses and sensibilities.

5. Genuine architectural and urban adaptivity can follow only from applying a pattern language that codifies human movement and practices.

6. An adaptive design method marries form language with pattern language.

7. If a form language is too primitive so that it cannot be married to a pattern language, then that form language should not be used.

It is possible to begin implementing a program for a new architecture, after we understand architectural forces as explained in this and previous Chapters. These ideas and suggestions should appear as totally practical to present-day architectural students, who have been trained in an architecture of increasing complexity through the use of computer visualization. They have an advantage over the previous generation of architects, who were taught through empty images and forms. Architecture depends on distinct complex languages. The basis for real, adaptive, and sustainable architecture, which was outlined here, is not currently taught in architecture schools, simply because the scientific results are very recent. Education is very easy to change, by replacing the teaching in leading institutions with a curriculum on how to design buildings and cities for human use and having an increased sense of well-being.

A priority for any architectural project today is to formulate or rediscover a viable form language, otherwise one is forced to copy the sterile styles around us. No shape or visual vocabulary should be used just because some alleged authority said that it is "honest", "liberating", or "fashionable". An architect who seeks an honest expression in his or her architecture has to employ the nature of materials to help decide on the form language. Preference should be given to local indigenous building materials. One can also look to the pre-industrial past for examples of appropriate forms and geometries. The latest industrial materials will be used if they are useful in a particular setting, but not because of ideology. Most of what we build today relies on industrial materials, but these materials don't have to express a modernist form language. There is a potential richness to these materials that was not cultivated because of the dominance of the modernist aesthetic.

An ornamental tradition often survives better in small-scale structure and surface design. This can be transferred from other visual expressions such an textiles or pottery back into architecture. Another source of forgotten clues to a lost form language may be found in regional historical furniture. This process of discovery should not be misinterpreted as superficial historicizing. The rest of the language must be invented by the architect, who needs to incorporate colors, forms, spaces, and ornaments according to the principles revealed in this book. The new form language should be richly expressive, individual, and distinct. Nothing should be complex for complexity's sake, nor should any forced simplicity be imposed.

The new architecture will, not surprisingly, look a lot like traditional architecture (Krier, 1998). If it is successful in connecting to human beings, it will certainly elicit the same feelings of naturalness as those historical built regions still preserved around the world. Yet, as Léon Krier emphasizes, we can build today urban environments that are every bit as comfortable as the greatest examples built in the past. The widely disseminated opinion that we cannot reproduce the best qualities of the past for a multitude of reasons is only propaganda: Christopher Alexander (2004), Léon Krier (1998), and many other humanist architects have built new structures that are innovative, yet timeless in their human adaptation. Those buildings are also more sustainable than buildings that simply try to make an architectural "statement".

These ideas are rapidly coming together with scientific support for a new architectural renaissance. We will see the inevitable turning away from the present architectural system of focusing on idiosyncratic expression, sooner or later, because of its irrelevance to human life. It is time to begin training the young architects who will build the future, and who will be asked to repair the wounds inflicted upon the built environment over the past several decades. In all probability, the demand will come from society itself. When that time comes, graduates of today's institutions who know how to use these principles will thus be more employable. Contemporary schools of architecture should be re-oriented to consider more traditional ideas helping innovation, in the way I have indicated here. This may well propel a re-structuring of architectural pedagogy that allows students to look beyond contemporary expressions for inspiration and knowledge. Young architects can once again be creating a sustainable and rich built environment.

10. Conclusion

This Chapter has presented a theory of design based on the combination of two types of language: a pattern language, and a form language. The pattern language encodes elements of human interaction with buildings, which are to be found throughout traditional architecture and urbanism. The form language, on the other hand, corresponds to whatever geometrical style the building or urban region has taken. In principle, there is enormous freedom to choose a form language for a new building today. Nevertheless, what is used in place of a form language in our times lacks the complexity and connectivity to define a true language. This often results in geometrically and informationally impoverished environments that are unsuitable or unpleasant for human use. Moreover, the adoption of an overly simplistic form language precludes the necessary cooperation with a pattern language, thus guaranteeing that human needs will never be satisfied via an adaptive architecture.

Once these mechanisms at the basis of design are more widely known, it would appear reasonable that the world could again learn to build its cities in a way to accommodate human beings. Another factor, however, comes into play: a form language, once it is split from a complementary pattern language, spreads among the population of minds according to how easy it is to copy. The characteristics of a successful form language (successful in terms of being used for many buildings) are the opposite of those of a form language required for adaptive design. The fast-spreading one is too simplistic for human use, whereas the useful one capable of adaptation spreads too slowly to compete. We are fighting against a scientific phenomenon: adaptive design is complex and thus difficult to spread, whereas pathological design spreads very easily through the visual media. Thus, it is critically important that students and teachers learn to recognize this phenomenon as it is occurring.