Beyond rational design patterns

During the last decades, the pattern movement has been dominated by patterns describing the design of technology or matter, especially when it focused on the design of software or buildings. Positioned in the physical world, patterns are technical, full of formal instructions, and often building on a rational understanding of the world they act on. We argue that technical and formal pattern structures support the rational line of thought very well but also limit creativity of people applying the patterns. In contrast to this, a creative and performative account to design does at least not prevent the emergence of new structures not yet formalized in design patterns. In order to start a discussion about this distinction in the pattern community, this paper proposes eight theses that may serve as a research agenda towards a better understanding of the role of patterns for creative and performative design.