Why Patterns?


>> We live in a time of social and cultural change.
>> Old patterns are losing their validity and relevance – new patterns are needed and in demand.
>> We need a new approach which can formulate, generate and engage such patterns.

The pattern language approach of Christopher Alexander serves this purpose – The interdisciplinary and participatory building blocks for societal change.

In the last two decades, the pattern approach of Christopher Alexander – which has originated from architecture but has gone far beyond since – is now being successfully implemented in many new fields, such as design, media, arts, IT, management, pedagogy, health care, social activism, social innovation and grassroots movements.

It has become a powerful interdisciplinary and participative tool for collecting and communicating informal knowledge with the purpose of creating morphological coherence through the things which we design, make or put into practice. Lastly, as Alexander states, with the objective to build a society which is alive and whole.

The PURPLSOC World Conferences – In Pursuit of Pattern Languages for Societal Change  at Danube University Krems offer a platform for discussing, reflecting and acting on these newest developments in the application of the pattern approach of Christopher Alexander.

The objective of each conference is to stimulate the attention for pattern related work, both in the scientific community and the wider public, by showing its broad applicability and richness via best practice examples from inside and outside the scientific community. The next World Conference is planned for Fall 2019.