A review on Pattern 1 BOOK: A Pattern Language

INDEPENDENT REGIONS

Submitted To: - Prof. UTPAL SHARMA

Submitted by: - Pallavi Palsokar URP 1211

INDEPENDENT REGIONS

[A REVIEW ON PATTERN 1

BOOK: A PATTERN LANGUAGE ]

Christopher Alexander, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley is most renowned for his architectural oeuvre which comprises twelve books and a range of building projects. The fundamental thesis at the core of Alexanders work is that there is an underlying structural between the pattern of a problem and the process of designing physical form which answers that problem. Alexander was born in Vienna and studied architecture, mathematics, and physics at Cambridge University. In 1958 he began doctoral studies in architecture at Harvard University while simultaneously pursuing research at Harvards Centre for Cognitive Studies. One of Alexanders most acclaimed books is A Pattern Language: Towns, Building and Construction (1977), in which Alexander and his colleagues provide 253 patterns that describe a range of environments ranging from living areas to kitchens, to bathrooms, to secret alcoves, to stair cases, to work places, to neighbourhoods, to ideal universities, to planned pathways. In this book, Alexanders writing is guided by the central thesis that there are unconscious patterns by which human beings identify and live in space and these relationships can be discerned and be brought into the conscious realm. The primary goal of the book is to provide a practical language that enables everyday users to become conscious of their living patterns. In so doing, they could be encouraged to create and improve their own houses, streets and communities and thus become an integral part of the design process, blurring the boundary between professional designers and everyday users. A Pattern Language, however, also develops a much broader philosophical critique of the modern alienated condition. The book argues for an ideal balance between work and family life, suitable public institutions, mixed use in neighbourhoods, and rich public spaces for carnivals and other expressions of irrationality. According to Alexander, in rich community-oriented settings, spaces transform from being merely functional to being social, and in such social settings there exist possibilities for spatial, emotional, and affective learning and cognition. According to Alexander, rich, community-oriented settings go beyond mere functionality and act as social settings that afford spatial and affective learning. A Pattern Language consists of suggestive diagrams (patterns) that, in built form encourage interaction between people and their environments at multiple levels. Descriptions of patterns discuss how to transform a specific space from being merely functional to being social, interactive and vital. The book contains 253 patterns relating to towns, buildings and construction. 94 patterns deal with large scale structure of environment: the growth of town and country, the layout of roads and paths, the relationship between work and family, the formation of suitable public institutions for a neighbourhood, the kind of public space required to support these institutions.
Landuse & Transportation Assignment submitted by Pallavi Palsokar 2

INDEPENDENT REGIONS

[A REVIEW ON PATTERN 1

BOOK: A PATTERN LANGUAGE ]

He believes that such patterns can never be created by centralized authority, or bylaws, or by master plans. They emerge gradually if these patterns are followed at lowest level of implementation and every building takes responsibility to shape the small corner it has and hence contributing to the change in world and setting the space into a pattern with the rest of the space. The author talks about regions made of hierarchy of social and political groups, from smallest most local group to large groups. Small Groups: - Families, Work Groups, Neighbours etc. Large groups: - City Councils, Regional assemblies etc. He talks about metropolitan regions composed of many groups, listed as follows: The Region (80,00,000 People) The Major City (5,00,000 People) Communities and small towns (5000 to 10,000 People) Neighbourhoods (500 to 1000 People) Housing Cluster and work communities (30 to 50 People) Families and work groups (1 to 15 People)

Each of the group modifies the environment it shares with others according to them and hence a pattern language is developed. The patterns such formed can be grouped further under regions, cities and communities. The pattern this assignment will be dealing with is Pattern 1: Independent Regions INDEPENDENT REGIONS Alexander starts this pattern with: Do what you can do to establish a word government, with a thousand independent regions, instead of countries. He talks about each regions being independent from each other. Each region should be small and autonomous sphere of culture. Arguments that support this are: 1. The nature and limits of the human government are such that it can manage certain size of region efficiently; beyond that size (population and area) management becomes inefficient. The optimum size is called the best size. He shows how in a city with population N governance can be difficult as the city grows in population (N).
Landuse & Transportation Assignment submitted by Pallavi Palsokar 3

INDEPENDENT REGIONS

[A REVIEW ON PATTERN 1

BOOK: A PATTERN LANGUAGE ]

The population of the city is N. No. of personal interactions to be handled N2.And such many channels of communication are to be kept open. As N grows beyond certain limit, the channels of communication needed for democracy and justice and information are too clogged and complex. Bureaucracy overwhelms human process. The author recommends the limits of a region as: 2 to 10 million. Beyond this scale people become remote from government, although many regions are beyond tens and hundreds of millions. He argues that these large regions do not have a natural size and its difficult to get a balance between the needs of town and communities with the needs of the world communities as a whole. As a result local needs are overlooks and the local culture is repressed and powers are barely conceivable to the average citizen.

RANK

METROPOLITAN REGIONS National Capital Territory, Delhi Mumbai Metropolitan Region Kolkata Metropolitan Area Chennai Metropolitan area Banglore Hydrabad Ahmedabad Pune

STATE/ TERRITORY Delhi, U. P., Haryana, Rajasthan Maharashtra West Bengal Tamil Nadu Karnataka Andhra Pradesh Gujrat Maharashtra

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

2011 POPULATION (MILLION) 21.75 20.74 14.61 8.91 8.72 7.74 6.35 5.04

Delhi, Mumbai and Kolakata have crossed the mark of 10 million and Mumbai and Cational Capital Region, Delhi being more than 20 million. What
Landuse & Transportation Assignment submitted by Pallavi Palsokar 4

INDEPENDENT REGIONS

[A REVIEW ON PATTERN 1

BOOK: A PATTERN LANGUAGE ]

Alexander said stands true for all the cities. Increasing urban poverty, ever increasing infrastructure deficit, all the facilities and amenities do not reach the people and increased in number of administrative levels make people more remote. Inspite of efforts made the situation in worsening as the population is growing at a much faster rate than the facilities are being supplied to the people. According to India: Urban Poverty Report, the urban population in India is growing at the rate faster than the total population, and by 2030, 41% of the countrys population will live in cities and towns (GOI 2009). This will create immense pressure on Indias urban economies with their already massive deficits in infrastructure and amenities. Moresoever big cities in India grow faster that small and medium towns. 2. Equity among regions in the world community. He says that the regions should have several million people living in it. If not, it will not be large enough to have a seat in world government and therefore will not be able to supplant the power and authority of present nation states. 3. Regional Planning considerations. Unless the regions have power to self governing they cannot solve their environmental problems. He says the state and country boundary lines cut across the natural regions making it impossible to solve the regional problems. French economist Gravier, who has proposed such concepts for regions of Europe, a Europe decentralized and organized around regions which cross present national and subnational boundaries. Facing such problems, scholars in India have worked out following factors for efficient implementation of regional planning: --Homogeneity of geographical factors. --Level of technological and economic development. --Confining regional boundaries to the ' state boundaries, but cutting across district or revenue boundaries if necessary. --Further, while planning for a region in a given state, too a much weightage should not be --given to socio-cultural differences in the area. In fact, the common socio-economic programmes for the development of the area may even lessen the existing differences.
Landuse & Transportation Assignment submitted by Pallavi Palsokar 5

INDEPENDENT REGIONS

[A REVIEW ON PATTERN 1

BOOK: A PATTERN LANGUAGE ]

--Finally, emphasis should be placed on integration of rural and urban areas their economy, culture and social organization. 4. Support for intensity and diversity of human culture. Great nations have their powers greatly decentralized, the beautiful and differentiated languages, cultures, customs and ways of life of earths people, vital to health of planet will vanish. He believed independent regions are natural receptacles for language, culture, customs, economy and laws and that each region should be separate and independent enough to maintain the strength and vigour of its culture. According to him regions must keep their distance and their dignity in order to survive as cultures. In Alexander's view, the world should be divided into a thousand or more independent regions, each with its own local government, and each part of a world government. Surprisingly, he doesn't suggest this as a means of centralizing urban planning within each region; Alexander doesn't believe in central planning. Within the region, each city and town is responsible for its own land; and within each city and town, each group or individual is similarly responsible for its own territory. If all of them conscientiously rely on Alexander's patterns as they do their planning, the world will be a beautiful place. Instead, he lists several other reasons: government becomes unwieldy at any other size; the current trend toward globalization is homogenizing cultures the world over, whereas his notion would preserve them; those times and places where the basic political unit has been the city-state have been seen an outpouring of art and architecture. Alexander talks about all the regions being mostly self-sufficient but it is not entirely true in the present Indian scenario. With globalization, the cities have started placing themselves in cities responding more to the global economy than the regional economy, which are losing its importance. Earlier regional economies were based on mostly industrial and manufacturing base but now many cities face decline in Industrial economy in the cities and the rise, in its place, of a new economy that revolves around finance, producer services, entertainment, information technology, media and so on which is referred as informational economy or post industrial economy or post modern economy. One important trend that is being observed in India is coming up of new township near large cities with an aim to decongest the existing cities. It is acting as a bypass approach rather than regeneration approach. The bypass approach has an effect on the regional economy. Old metropolitan centres are ceded to the existing mi x of
Landuse & Transportation Assignment submitted by Pallavi Palsokar 6

INDEPENDENT REGIONS

[A REVIEW ON PATTERN 1

BOOK: A PATTERN LANGUAGE ]

wealth and squalor, while new towns are developed as the location of new economy and a new class of producers and consumers, who carve out an economic space different from both the traditional activities of the population displaced to make way for the new towns and the mosaic of economic activities that characterise the older metropolitan centre. So the new town coming up in the country are either based on knowledge based activity or business driven so they align themselves with the global economy rather than the regional or the national economy. So the planning of these towns is very different from the administrative town that were planned like Chandigarh, Bhubhaneshwar, Gandhinagar etc or Industrial Townships like Durgapur, Rourkela, Bhilai etc. We are more inclined towards making our cities global cities and the importance of a region has faded somewhere behind the beautiful dreams of being a Global City.

Landuse & Transportation Assignment submitted by Pallavi Palsokar