CORPORATE BUSINESS PLAN

SUMMARY

1. OVERALL PURPOSE AND AIM OF THE CORPORATION
2. NATURE OF THE INTERNET ON LINE PROCESSES WHICH WILL PROVIDE THE CORE OF THE CORPORATION'S STRATEGY
3. STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION
4. FINANCIAL PLAN, FINANCIAL GROWTH
5. GROWTH OF THE ORGANIZATION
6. IMMEDIATE START-UP AND GROWTH IN FIRST TWO YEARS

I. OVERALL PURPOSE AND AIM OF THE CORPORATION

Purpose

The purpose of patternlanguage.com is to create, implement and make available an entirely new alternative delivery system for the built environment. This effort is to be nationwide and worldwide.

Detailed Purpose

The delivery system contemplated will have the following features:

1. The system is ecologically responsible and will manage design and construction in such a way that every building, and every built component, is to be entirely responsive to the land where it is built, and complements and enhances that land.
2. The system is highly responsive to needs of individual and groups. Every building, and every part of every building made in this new system is particular to the needs and aspirations and dreams of individuals, families, and small businesses, thus creating a world in which every part is recognizably unique.
3. The new delivery system will be founded on a coordinated process of planning and design, in which all kinds of users are able to - and encouraged to - participate in the design, planning, and layout of the buildings which are to serve them Thus, for the first time in post industrial society, people will regain a voice in the construction of the world.
4. The new system is based on a process in which design and construction are unified and interwoven continuously.
5. The new system of delivery will depend on an organized network of builders , engineers and architects. The procedures to be followed by these participants will be different from the role played in present day construction and building delivery. One of the methods to be used will develop a more significant role for construction workers, architects, engineers, in their cooperation with users and clients.
6. The system of delivery will place enormous focus on cost, cost consciousness and cost control. Loosely the method of operation may be characterized by saying that the delivery system will aim that for every thousand dollars, the system is able to extract the maximum good from the way that $1000 is spent.
7. The system will be very highly decentralized, and will rely on the autonomous activities of local architects, engineers and builders and crafts people, in every given township and rural region.
8. The focus of the delivery system will be on the harmony and beauty of the environment. Although such things cannot ever be guaranteed, the system will be set up in such a way that it places maximum emphasis on the contribution which each act of construction makes to the emergence of a living and harmonious human environment, in which rooms, buildings, gardens, and streets are genuinely beautiful in the ordinary sense that they give practical and spiritual pleasure to their inhabitants.

II. GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE

The delivery system contemplated will be organized in such a way that it is able to become operational both in highly industrial regions, and in third-world regions, and will be applicable as successfully in low-density agricultural regions, as in highly urbanized and high-density regions.

III. MEANS OF DELIVERY

The means of delivery depend on the following broad categories of methods:

1. User-design methods provided on the Internet
2. Liaison with selected builders
3. New forms of construction contract
4. New methods of program-budgeting, and construction management
5. Active involvement by craftsmen and users strongly encouraged and supported
6. Constant and active integration of building, land and landscape through professional means related to landscape architecture.

IV. CORPORATE ORGANIZATION

To accomplish the mission of the new delivery system, the corporation will include the following primary divisions:

1. Marketing: implementation of access by users, worldwide
2. Divisions by categories of use (i.e. office, houses, communities, etc), each as a fiscally autonomous unit within the corporation
3. Builders Network: and coordination of contractors
4. Professional Services
5. Software Division
6. Research and Feedback
7. Implementation Support

V. TEAMS AND PROFESSIONALS

The opening stages of the new corporation will be staffed by in part by a team of professionals who have more than twenty years of experience in such work. The professions include: (a) Architects (b) Engineers (c) Computer Programmers (d) Construction Managers (e) Anthropologists (f) Planners (g) Contract managers (h) Computer modellers (i) Ecologists

VI. START UP, PHASING, AND STEP WISE GROWTH OF THE CORPORATION

A very large venture of the type contemplated can only be created by growth. Specifically it can only be created by managed growth from small beginnings, streamed and calculated to reach the necessary size and scope within a finite number of years. The key to the gradual, step-wise growth lies in a distinction between two kinds of growth:

1. Growth of content areas
2. Growth of capacity to deliver in different geographic regions

VII. START WITH LIMITED CONTENT AREAS

The methods which are to be used, can be developed, and implemented, in quite small, highly specific areas of content, and can be sold, and implemented, even when these content areas are quite restricted. For example, among areas which will be dealt with in early phases, include

1. the layout of individual private offices,
2. the layout of very small greens and parks within city neighborhoods,
3. the layout, design and construction of small one-person cottages and houses,
4. the management of wild brush land on the perimeter of metropolitan areas,
5. the management of house design and neighborhood design in pilot projects. These five examples are limited and specific. Each of them has a relatively small development time, coupled with excellent background and experience in each of these areas.

Once these first examples are developed and tested, they can then be expanded in two ways: (1) expansion of geographic delivery and (2) expansion to other areas of content. Both forms of expansion can take place comfortably, as demand grows. Areas of content can be expanded quite extensively, in relatively little time. The fact that all of the on line user design processes are shaped by common principles and common format makes the expansion of areas of content manageable and relatively simple. Over time, the areas of content will include such parts of the environment as neighborhoods, schools, parks, streets, commercial centers, small shops, nearly every part of the manmade environment.

The generalized and generative nature of the on-line user design processes also enhances the ease of geographic expansion. Geographic growth of the other means of delivery would follow, through development of international builder's networks, modification and translation of contracts for other countries, and translation of budgeting and construction management software. The key fact, that all the on-line processes of implementation are highly reproducible makes geographic expansions especially easy. The fact that all delivery processes are shaped by common principles and common format, also makes the expansion of areas of content to, for instance, neighborhoods, schools, parks, streets, commercial centers, small shops. All manageable, and relatively simple.

It is the capacity for sustained and rapid growth which provides the underpinning of the corporation, and for the methods upon which the corporation will rely.

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