This week we're going to think about architecting spaces and talk about a couple of people who helped think differently about how we can use these concepts in Interaction Design.

Christopher Alexander, is an architect, and he wrote the books A Pattern Library and A Timeless Way of Building which are a pair of books that break down the ideas of living and working spaces—cities, towns, villages, houses, public space, living spaces—into a set of repeatable patterns that can be put together in various configurations based on the goals and needs of the people using these spaces. Each pattern encourages people to consider the needs of the users in the space and how that space might be configured or designed to enhance or encourage specific behaviors.

His library was set up as a language, as letters become words, which become sentences, his components become buildings which become towns or cities.

In the late 1980's the idea of a pattern library was adopted conceptually by a group of programmers- known as the gang of four. They saw that software developers were reinventing the same functionality over and over and believed that code could be broken down into reusable components of code that could be put together in a variety of ways. This led to the creation of object-oriented programming.

In 1996 Jenifer Tidwell thought similarly that interaction design functionality could be deconstructed in the same way. She presented an Interaction Design Pattern Library at CHI as part of her master's thesis. This in term became the book Designing Interfaces which has been a standard reference for how we design software for the last 25 years.

Now 20 years later, interaction design libraries are commonplace in our work, but back then it was groundbreaking.

Another pioneer thinking about architecting space was Muriel Cooper. Cooper started as a graphic designer - she designed all the publications and the logo of MIT press. Looking to do more, she moved into the Visible Language workshop where they had started experimenting with computers, data, art, language and design.

Cooper was the only female professor at the Media Lab for years.

The work she led considered information and language as a 3-dimensional space that could be navigated spatially as well as intellectually. The exploration of that space was like moving through a physical building space. What seems commonplace now with 3-d rendering tools and CAD programs, had never been seen before during this time. The work was dynamic and profound given the times and the capabilities of the technology.

Thinking about communication and language in a dynamic and spacial way was the next step to her evolution as a designer where before she had pushed and pulled static traditional print work as much as she could.

Her work as a designer and educator is often overlooked but her legacy lives on in the work of many of her former students, including Lisa Strausfeld and John Maeda and the work they have been doing over the years.

This week's homework is to dig into the patterns by Christopher Alexander and from your own perspective compare some current applications to the concepts in the patterns and what can be learned from his ideas.