Recurring design problems have named, combinable solutions that can be composed at many scales, from a doorway to a region.
Alexander's 1977 book gives 253 patterns from regional planning down to window seats. It is the direct ancestor of software design patterns and of the modern design-system idea.
In practice
- A street of houses built to no common plan still reads as a street, because the builders reused the same handful of arrangements for doors, windows and setbacks.
- A design system with named, combinable components is the same idea: the value is that a team can compose without redesigning, which is why software borrowed it directly.
- Standing
- The direct ancestor of software design patterns and of the design-system idea.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Design & Systems
- Essay
- Why systems behave against intuition