Applications
From Patterns
Contents |
Goa 2100 RUrban Design Project
The Goa 2100 project developed and applied the concept of "RUrbanism" - the sustainable integration of rural and urban communities. An excellent RUrbanism summary by Alan AtKisson (source: [1]) describes the influence of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language (near top of page 3) as well as biological systems (near bottom of page 4). Appendix 1 lists a number of goals, organizing principles, strategies, tactics and a 'dynamic fractal morphology'.
e-mail from Aromar Revi, Feb. 2/2007
"We have been inspired by Chris Alexander's work for a number of decades. Part of the Goa work was based on a systemic analysis of the key ecosystems, the ecotones and stocks and flows between them to draw out key design themes. We tried to work out from Pattern Language - but found it inadequate to address questions of panarchy, slow and fast dynamics, semi-permeable boundaries and the crucial task of developing a vocabulary for the design of soft and hard infrastructures and ecosystem 'services' which Chris never even attempted."
Implications
Aside from Stuart Cowan's Patterns of a Conservation Economy, I have found few attempts to extend Christopher Alexander's original Pattern Language to explicitly support sustainable/ecological design. The terminology that Aromar used is very similar to ecological concepts. By documenting key ecosystem patterns, other designers will more easily have access to the concepts that underlie the Goa 2100 project. At the same time, examples from Goa 2100 and similar projects can be integrated into the Pattern Language as implementation reference points.
Additional Materials
- India-Goa 2100 presentation on Goa 2100 project with numerous images and graphics
- Goa 2100: the transition to a sustainable RUrban design paper submitted to International Institute for Environment and Development (pay for view at [2] - Note: do not redistribute without the approval of Aromar Revi)
- Goa 2030: implementing a RUrban Sustainability Transition presentation with numerous images and graphics on the project, water and energy usage patterns (source: [3])
- Green Homes: From Cities to the House numerous images and graphics on various implementation aspects (source: [4])
