HomeTown – Neighborhood Development

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II. OUR RECIPE

I have never had an original thought. Everything we do is based on wisdom and knowledge that has first been expressed by others. At best, we have taken the observations of others and combined them synergistically to create deeper, more profound reality and space.

Underlying our philosophy of design is the understanding from Christopher Alexander that the people of a place have a common design language. This language consists of design patterns embedded in their culture and in the culture or environment of the place. These design patterns are like words that by themselves mean very little but when you combine them carefully you can create a lot of meaning in a few words. Likewise when you combine the right design patterns thoughtfully and precisely you create what Alexander calls " dense space", space that is deeply comforting and nurturing to the human psyche, the Greek word for soul.

Robert Bellah is one of America's premier sociologists. Bellah in Habits of the Heart in 1984 said that Americans long to be more inter-connected and are willing to sacrifice some of their extreme individualism to have more committed relationships. Bellah's analysis of American culture at the end of the 20th century gave us the courage to take the risks to create communities that give people the opportunity to once again live more interdependently and interconnectedly.

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