Point, Click, Design: Design Your Own Sustainable Home, Office or Community Building Using PatternLanguage.com

By Judy Ostrow

Access: A monthly $5 membership fee is required to access the entire website (a portion is available for free).

Founders: Architect Christopher Alexander and his associates at the Center for Environmental Structure in Berkeley, California.

Mission Statement: Allow homeowners and designers to explore all 253 definable qualities in the built environment, as introduced in A Pattern Language (Oxford University Press, 1977), plus a wide variety of sequences that unfold the design/build process.

Highlights: Projects great and small—from village green to family home to office—are presented in a series of steps that illuminate functional and aesthetic attributes as well as seamless integration with the surrounding environment and the people who inhabit them.