Building a Language for Sustainable Community Development in Desert Regions

Sustainable development requires an approach which can cross the spatial and conceptual boundaries that typically inhibit planning and design of the built environment. This paper presents a model for a regional "pattern language" of sustainable strategies, which is both interdisciplinary and scale interdependent. The strategies, or "patterns" encompassed in this prototype language vary from economic or legislative measures for encouraging sustainable practice, to technologies and design concepts for resource-efficient development. Patterns are organised in a hierarchical structure ranging in scale from those which apply to the design of an individual building to those which affect an entire bioregion. While by its nature such a language is meant to be continuously modified, its constituent elements are principles which have been substantiated by previous research and practice.