In a general sense, patterns are a designer's rules of thumb, the intuitive principles, often unspoken, that guide design work. And just as our innate knowledge of grammatical rules allows us to speak fluently and create well-formed sentences, an architect's innate sense of patterns allows him or her to design fluently, to create well-formed buildings.
Max Jacobson, Murray Silverstein, Barbara Winslow, Patterns of Home, Taunton Press, 1992, p. 4.
