MuNa/CLAUDE.md

# National Museum of Ecuador — Pattern Language Counter-Proposal

## What this project is

A public-advocacy counter-proposal for the New Building of the National Museum
of Ecuador (Quito), written from scratch to be **100% committed to meeting the
human needs of the people who will use the museum** — visitors, staff, school
groups, and the communities whose heritage it holds — rather than to
"inhuman" architectural spectacle.

Background: the Government of Ecuador ran an open international call (Stage 1
deadline 17 Feb 2026) for the museum's architectural preliminary project. A
winner was selected, but the winning design has provoked considerable public
objection over its failure to serve human needs, and is currently on hold and
may be abandoned. This project is not a competition entry — it is an
independent alternative vision, intended to be published to influence the
public debate in Ecuador while the winning scheme's fate is undecided.

Team: a small informal group (not a single firm), of which Bruno is one
member.

## Method

This project directly applies the methodology described in:

> Postle, B.; Salingaros, N.A. "LLM and Pattern Language Synthesis: A Hybrid
> Tool for Human-Centered Architectural Design." *Buildings* 2025, 15, 2400.
> (`ref/buildings-15-02400-v2.txt`) — Bruno is the paper's first author.

Core idea of the method: Christopher Alexander's *A Pattern Language* (1977)
encodes 253 human-centered design patterns, but at 1166 pages it's too
unwieldy for direct practical use, and requires expert familiarity to select
and combine patterns. The paper's workaround:

1. A web tool ([APL-Companion](https://apl-companion.netlify.app/apl.html))
   lets someone familiar with the patterns curate a **project-specific
   subset** of the 253, then export it as a condensed PDF (titles +
   paraphrased summaries only, no navigation chrome). We convert these PDF
   exports to Markdown once received (see Conventions below).
2. That pattern subset is fed to an LLM as context, along with a prompt describing the
   project (purpose, scale, local context) and a request for a **narrative
   description of the human experience** of the building — look, feel, and
   ornamental treatment — grounded only in the selected patterns.
3. The LLM's narrative is checked for fidelity against the pattern subset
   (any element not traceable to a selected pattern is a hallucination to be
   caught and regenerated away).
4. Optionally, the narrative can later be used as a prompt for AI image
   synthesis to produce illustrative (not prescriptive) visuals — the paper
   found this reliably reveals human-centered forms even with no style
   imposed. **We do not run image generation ourselves**, but we do write
   the detailed image-generation prompts (see `docs/illustration-prompts.md`)
   and embed the resulting images once generated elsewhere (by the user,
   via an external tool) into the combined presentation document.

The output of the method is words, not drawings — the operational chain is
*pattern repository → project-specific pattern subset → LLM narrative
synthesis → evaluation*.

## Our process for this project

1. **Pattern subset** — a subset pattern language for a national museum,
   built with the APL-Companion tool, prepared by Nikos Salingaros (not
   Bruno) and added to `ref/`.
2. **Condense the brief** — work through the official brief (see Reference
   material below) and extract only the aspects that serve genuine human
   needs (programmatic requirements, collection scale, site, functional
   spaces), discarding or flagging anything that pushes toward inhuman /
   spectacle-driven architecture. The critique transcript
   (`ref/youtube-transcript.txt`) of the winning proposal is used here as a
   source of **specific, concrete failures to avoid** — we mine it for
   named problems (e.g. illegibility, hostility to human scale, disregard for
   how people actually move/gather/rest) so the condensed brief and later
   narratives explicitly steer clear of them.
3. **Write narratives** — using the pattern subset + condensed brief, write
   one or more experiential narratives in the style of the paper's Section
   4.2, from these viewpoints (at minimum):
   - Visitor (general public)
   - Museum staff (curators, conservators, educators)
   - School group / children
   - Indigenous / community stakeholders whose heritage is represented
   Note that it is important that the narratives are mutually consistent,
   features described in a narrative from the point of view of one stakeholder
   must not contradict those perceived by another stakeholder.

## Deliverable

Two tiers of written output, both in Markdown:

1. **Working narratives** (`narratives/`) — the four stakeholder
   viewpoints, each cross-referencing `ref/` for shared facts and
   provenance. This is the drafting-stage material.
2. **Public presentation document** (`docs/counter-proposal.md`) — the
   four narratives combined in full under one preamble, for publication.
   This is the document actually meant to influence public debate, and the
   one illustrated with images. It deliberately does **not** reference
   `ref/` source material, pattern numbers, or grammar codes, and does
   **not** condense the four narratives — see Status below.

**Output format and layout (decided)**:

- A top-level `narratives/` directory holds one Markdown file per
  stakeholder viewpoint, numbered in the order listed under "Write
  narratives" above:
  - `narratives/01-visitor.md`
  - `narratives/02-staff.md`
  - `narratives/03-school-group.md`
  - `narratives/04-community.md`
- Each file opens with a one-paragraph pointer to `ref/project-chassis.md`
  (the shared invariants — site data, materials/color/ornament systems,
  named circulation realms, collection placement) so a reader who only
  opens one narrative still has the shared grounding, then the narrative
  prose itself.
- The shared chassis document itself (`ref/project-chassis.md`) is treated
  as reference material, not a deliverable narrative, and stays in `ref/`
  alongside the pattern subset and condensed brief it distills.
- `docs/counter-proposal.md` holds the combined public document (see
  Status below); `docs/illustration-prompts.md` holds one fully
  self-contained AI image-generation prompt per illustration placeholder
  (style guide pasted in full into each one, not cross-referenced, so any
  single prompt can be copied standalone into an image generator);
  `docs/images/` holds the generated illustrations — full-resolution PNGs
  in `docs/images/originals/`, and quality-85 JPEG copies at top level
  (referenced by `docs/counter-proposal.md`) kept small enough that the
  exported `.docx` stays well under typical email attachment limits
  (~20 MB for Gmail). `docs/counter-proposal.docx` is generated from the
  Markdown via `pandoc docs/counter-proposal.md -o docs/counter-proposal.docx
  --standalone --resource-path=docs` for sending directly (e.g. to Nikos to
  format/edit) — it is not committed to the repo, since it's a regeneratable
  export, not source material.

## Reference material (`ref/`)

- `buildings-15-02400-v2.txt` — the Postle & Salingaros paper this project's
  method is based on.
- `A Pattern Language Ecuador National Museum.md` — the project-specific
  pattern subset (55 patterns from Alexander/Ishikawa/Silverstein, numbered
  and paraphrased by the APL-Companion tool), prepared by Nikos Salingaros
  for this museum project. This is the core design-constraint input for
  narrative writing.
- `Ecuadorian_Form_Language_Grammar.md` — "Ecuadorian Form Language — Quito
  Grammar", a companion design-grammar module (generated by Kimi.ai, source
  unclear beyond that) covering Quito's climate response rules, a vocabulary
  of regional/historical form elements (indigenous, pre-Columbian, colonial,
  baroque, regional), composition syntax, and color/ornament systems. Written
  as a prompt module for an LLM. Relevant to us for the "look, feel, and
  ornamental treatment" part of narrative-writing (per the paper's Section
  4.2 approach) grounded in authentic Ecuadorian vernacular character, and
  for glossary terms (zaguán, corredor, zócalo, alero, etc.) worth reusing
  verbatim in our narratives. Its material/color/ornament vocabulary (CR1,
  OP2, OP4, and the E-numbered form elements) also underpins the shared
  style guide in `docs/illustration-prompts.md`, translated into plain
  descriptive language there rather than cited by code.
- `Muna Technical Bases for Stage 1.txt` — the official Stage 1 open call
  document: scope, site (Av. Eloy Alfaro / Av. de la República, Iñaquito,
  Quito, 13,004.65 m² plot, min. 25,000 m² building), schedule, selection
  process, and background on the National Museum of Ecuador.
- `Muna ANNEX-1_RulesMuseum_ENG.md`, `Muna ANNEX-2_RulesMuseum_ENG.md` —
  participation rules annexes (mostly administrative/legal boilerplate;
  ANNEX-2 is longer, worth checking for programmatic requirements).
- `MUNA Guide-for-the-submission-of-the-enabling-documentation.txt` —
  administrative submission guidance (procedural, low relevance to design
  content).
- `Muna.md` — template email for Stage 1 document submission (administrative
  only).
- `youtube-transcript.txt` — transcript of a critique (Nikos Salingaros and
  others) of the winning proposal, analysing it against human-centered
  design/pattern-language principles. Use per "Condense the brief" above.
- `youtube-transcript-2026-07-23.txt` — transcript of a later symposium
  (Salingaros, Nir Buras of the Classic Planning Academy, Pablo Álvarez
  Funes, and others) discussing *this* counter-proposal project itself and
  walking through Salingaros' own parallel narrative/image process (see
  "Salingaros' parallel process" below) — not a critique of the winning
  scheme, so not a source for `critique-failures.md`.
- `Salingaros-Chapter-11-Two-Languages-for-Architecture.md` — Chapter 11
  ("Two Languages for Architecture") of Salingaros' *A Theory of
  Architecture* (2006/2014): the theoretical basis for combining a pattern
  language (human/organizational rules) with a form language (geometric/
  tectonic rules), cited as document 4 in his process-report article (see
  below). Background reading, not itself a design-constraint input.

## Salingaros' parallel process (`docs/`)

Independently of, and in parallel with, our `narratives/` →
`docs/counter-proposal.md` pipeline, Nikos Salingaros ran his own version of
the same method end-to-end (his own narrative, his own images, and an
article about the process), for completeness and as the origin of some of
our own inputs. His pattern subset and form-language grammar (in `ref/`,
see above) are shared with — and prepared by him for — our pipeline too, but
from that point on the two efforts diverge: our narrative synthesis and his
are separate LLM runs with separate outputs, and his illustrations were
generated independently of ours (ChatGPT, vs. our Midjourney). Included here
for completeness, not as an input to be merged into `docs/counter-proposal.md`.

His files, in pipeline order:

- `salingaros-narrative-prompt.md`, `salingaros-form-language-prompt.md` —
  his own raw prompts to an LLM (distinct from our prompting approach),
  requesting the design narrative and the form-language grammar
  respectively.
- `Casa-de-la-Memoria-Andina-National-Museum-Narrative-Kimi.txt` — an
  intermediate narrative (from Kimi.ai) that Salingaros fed back into a
  second LLM as "a narrative another LLM wrote" to be merged with its own
  draft (see `salingaros-narrative-prompt.md`'s second prompt). A messier
  PDF-extraction duplicate of this file also exists at
  `ref/Casa de la Memoria Andina - National Museum Narrative-Kimi.txt`
  (stale, kept from an earlier stage — see `ecuador-e0k` to remove it).
- `3.Casa-de-la-Memoria-Ecuatoriana-Design-Narrative-Museo-Nacional-del-Ecuador.txt`
  — his final design narrative, "Casa de la Memoria Ecuatoriana", the
  output of the above merge. His counterpart to our `narratives/` +
  `docs/counter-proposal.md`.
- `From-Pattern-Language-to-Architectural-Image-Salingaros-revised.md` —
  his process-report article describing the whole pipeline (pattern
  language → form language → narrative → images → critique), written for
  publication (e.g. ArchDaily), citing the pattern subset, the form-language
  grammar, his design narrative, Chapter 11, his 30 concept images, and
  complementary hand sketches by Pablo Álvarez Funes. An earlier, shorter
  draft of this article was deleted (superseded, no unique content).
- `images-salingaros/` — his 25 ChatGPT-generated concept images
  illustrating his narrative. Unrelated to our `docs/images/` (which
  illustrates `docs/counter-proposal.md` and follows the
  originals/JPEG + pandoc export convention described above) — his images
  have no equivalent processing pipeline in this repo and aren't referenced
  from any of our Markdown.

## Reusable templates (`templates/`)

Generalized, project-agnostic instruments distilled from this project's
own method — distinct from `ref/` (this project's specific inputs) and
`docs/` (this project's specific outputs). Intended for reuse on future
projects, and as candidate material for a future paper or revision of the
Buildings 2025 methodology.

- `form-language-prompt-template.md` — a single-shot prompt template
  (with `{PLACEHOLDER}` fields for typology, region, site/climate, and
  historical strata) that generalizes the two-step prompting process
  Nikos Salingaros used to produce `ref/Ecuadorian_Form_Language_Grammar.md`
  (see `docs/salingaros-form-language-prompt.md` for his original
  prompts). Produces a structured form-language grammar document in the
  same section shape as that worked example, meant to be paired with a
  pattern-language module (per
  `ref/Salingaros-Chapter-11-Two-Languages-for-Architecture.md`) as input
  to a later narrative-generation prompt.
- `examples/sheffield.md` — a second worked example of
  `form-language-prompt-template.md`, filled in for Harbor House, a
  travellers' inn in Sheffield/South Yorkshire, unrelated to the Ecuador
  museum project — kept here to demonstrate the template generalizes
  beyond its Ecuador origin, not as project input.

## Conventions

- Reference documents received as PDF are converted to Markdown (or plain
  text, for documents like the academic paper where reflowing into headed
  sections isn't worth the effort) and the PDF is then deleted — keeps
  everything in `ref/` greppable and quotable rather than needing repeated
  page-range PDF reads. Check conversions carefully: PDF text extraction can
  silently mis-join hyphenated compounds and drop ligatures/symbols.

## Status

The full pipeline is complete: brief condensed (`ref/brief-condensed.md`),
critique failures mined (`ref/critique-failures.md`), shared chassis
extracted and reconciled (`ref/project-chassis.md`), all four stakeholder
narratives drafted (`narratives/01-visitor.md` through `04-community.md`)
and cross-checked for pattern/brief/grammar fidelity and mutual
consistency.

Those four narratives have been combined **in full** (not condensed —
repetition across viewpoints describing the same spaces is intentional,
not trimmed for brevity) into the public presentation document
`docs/counter-proposal.md`, stripped of `ref/` citations, pattern numbers,
and grammar codes. 13 illustration prompts were written
(`docs/illustration-prompts.md`), the images generated externally (by the
user, via Midjourney) and downloaded to `docs/images/`, and all 13 are now
embedded in `docs/counter-proposal.md` in place of the illustration
placeholders. `docs/counter-proposal.docx` is the current send-to-Nikos
export (regenerate via the pandoc command in Deliverable above after any
edit to the Markdown or images).

Open/next: no outstanding pipeline steps — future work is likely editorial
revision based on Nikos's feedback on the docx, or replacing individual
illustrations if a generated image doesn't hold up (e.g. the entrance
portal image shows three arches, not the five bays described in the text —
the text is the design intent and stays as-is; only the image's caption was
adjusted to not assert a bay count).

Since then, Salingaros' own parallel narrative/image/article material has
been added to `docs/` and `ref/` (see "Salingaros' parallel process" above)
— separate from, not merged into, `docs/counter-proposal.md`.


<!-- BEGIN BEADS INTEGRATION v:1 profile:minimal hash:7510c1e2 -->
## Beads Issue Tracker

This project uses **bd (beads)** for issue tracking. Run `bd prime` to see full workflow context and commands.

### Quick Reference

```bash
bd ready              # Find available work
bd show <id>          # View issue details
bd update <id> --claim  # Claim work
bd close <id>         # Complete work
```

### Rules

- Use `bd` for ALL task tracking — do NOT use TodoWrite, TaskCreate, or markdown TODO lists
- Run `bd prime` for detailed command reference and session close protocol
- Use `bd remember` for persistent knowledge — do NOT use MEMORY.md files

**Architecture in one line:** issues live in a local Dolt DB; sync uses `refs/dolt/data` on your git remote; `.beads/issues.jsonl` is a passive export. See https://github.com/gastownhall/beads/blob/main/docs/SYNC_CONCEPTS.md for details and anti-patterns.

## Session Completion

**When ending a work session**, you MUST complete ALL steps below. Work is NOT complete until `git push` succeeds.

**MANDATORY WORKFLOW:**

1. **File issues for remaining work** - Create issues for anything that needs follow-up
2. **Run quality gates** (if code changed) - Tests, linters, builds
3. **Update issue status** - Close finished work, update in-progress items
4. **PUSH TO REMOTE** - This is MANDATORY:
   ```bash
   git pull --rebase
   git push
   git status  # MUST show "up to date with origin"
   ```
5. **Clean up** - Clear stashes, prune remote branches
6. **Verify** - All changes committed AND pushed
7. **Hand off** - Provide context for next session

**CRITICAL RULES:**
- Work is NOT complete until `git push` succeeds
- NEVER stop before pushing - that leaves work stranded locally
- NEVER say "ready to push when you are" - YOU must push
- If push fails, resolve and retry until it succeeds
<!-- END BEADS INTEGRATION -->