The idea of patterns and pattern languages was launched with the publication of A Pattern Language (Alexander 1977). The book contained 253 “patterns”, each one of which was intended to help address a common problem in the built environment. The patterns were general enough to allow the people who applied them to adapt them to their local circumstances. Significantly, they were not only concerned about what was being designed—a room, a house, a town or a region, for example—but also the environment that surrounded what was being designed: They were intended to help “repair the world” around them. This report is a reflection on the Save the World with Patterns and Pattern Languages workshop, an Imagination Run Wild session held at PLoP 2025. It builds on both the pattern language framework and the perspective by suggesting that this approach, imagined broadly, could help form the inspiration for as well as the platform through which, the type of transdisciplinary, cross-sectoral, and global work that is needed to help address the environmental and social challenges we face today could be organized. The report suggests two pattern language oriented collaborative enterprises. The first is the development of a “Save the World” pattern language and the second is a “Pattern Universe” collaborative platform that would integrate and share pattern languages in various domains and support the life-cycles of patterns, pattern languages, and projects using pattern languages. The authors invite the broader community to take part in the development and use of these enterprises—and others—and encourage anybody who might be interested to contact them.

Rebecca’s Web – Pattern Languages Will Save the World!