Architectural Design

Wild Diamond Estates was developed with the use of an architectural design system called "The Pattern Language." We feel strongly that beauty is not just something that happens, but is something that must be developed. In our modern industrial age, there has been a tendency to put functionality ahead of form, profit ahead of beauty. Since most homes are built by large home builders, this is necessary for their profitability.

In the 1970's, a group of architects began looking in depth at the question of "what is beauty?" as it relates to architecture. They were curious how pre-industrial societies were able to produce such beautiful homes, usually without the help of an architect. Further, it seemed to them that with the advent of industrialization, architectural beauty was declining rather than increasing. This lead them to wonder if there really was such a thing as "beauty" or was it simply in the eye of the beholder.

Their research led them to many realizations. On the question of beauty, surprisingly, they found that there was a great deal of consensus on what was beautiful. However, it required that it be viewed from an emotional basis rather than an intellectual one. They would take people two different places that were similar in form, such as a garden, or a porch, and ask the question, "Which of the two places makes you feel more alive?" They would tell the participants that they understood that it was an odd question, but they were interested in how they felt in the place, therefore, just asked them to play along. What they found was that there was surprising consensus to the answers. A large majority of the people "felt" the same way about the place when they were asked to compare. However, whey the changed their focus and asked them to explain why they felt that way, there would be a wide variety of answers. They realized that beauty is best measured emotionally.

What they determined is that buildings that made people feel good were beautiful. In these buildings there were patterns which repeated from building to building. In the "beautiful" buildings, these patterns were done well. In the lesser buildings, these patterns were either absent or done poorly. An example of a pattern might be the entrance transition to a house. When it is done well, there is gradient of views or gardens or elevation that would cause someone to transition from the space outside the house, which is much more public, to the space inside the house, which is much more private. Because of the transition, when someone enters the house, their "energy" or awareness has shifted to a state more reflective of a home. In a poorly done transition, there might be no transition so that when you enter the house, you are still bringing the energy and awareness of the outside world in. It is a subtle point, but when you add up literally hundreds of patterns which might be present in a house, it all adds up to a big difference. In the articles section of this web site, there is an article which goes into this in more detail.

Another realization of the architects was that in pre-industrial societies, the reasons someone built a home were different than in modern times. In our article on why houses hold value, we talk about the fact that people have two reasons why they buy a house, one is qualitative, they want a home, and the second is quantitative, they want to make money. In pre-industrial times, there was not much of a market for homes. When someone built a home, it was with the intention that they would live their for the rest of their life and pass it on to their heirs who would continue to live there. Their reasons for building a home were purely qualitative.

Patterns were a way in which people could share qualitative thinking. In the same way that a society would develop a language so that they could communicate, they also developed a pattern language for building. It was understood that each home needed certain elements to make it comfortable and beautiful. Of course, every person was free to express that pattern in his or her own way. A pattern can be implemented in an almost infinite variety of ways.

There are three wonderful books about the pattern language. They are The Timeless Way of Building, The Pattern Language, and Patterns of the Home. Each of these books goes into much more detail of how patterns are used. Each is highly recommended.

At Wild Diamond Estates, we have teamed up with some of the architects who created the pattern language so that we could create a beautiful subdivision and help people design and build incredible houses. We believe that beauty is important.

Soon, we will have a tab on this page so that you can see a concept design developed by the architects for lot 3 that uses the pattern language. If you come on a tour, we will talk about the pattern language and show you how we used it in the design of the subdivision.