---
title: "Common Land (67)"
created: 2026-07-01
updated: 2026-07-01
type: concept
status: compiled
namespace: pattern-language
pattern_number: 67
pattern_name: "Common Land"
source_repository: https://github.com/zenodotus280/apl-md
source_url: https://github.com/zenodotus280/apl-md/blob/master/Patterns/Common%20Land%20%2867%29.md
license_note: Non-commercial reuse with attribution; see namespace README and source LICENSE.md.
related_patterns:
  - "Accessible Green (60)"
  - "House Cluster (37)"
  - "Row Houses (38)"
  - "Housing Hill (39)"
  - "Work Community (41)"
  - "South Facing Outdoors (105)"
  - "Positive Outdoor Space (106)"
  - "Hierarchy of Open Space (114)"
  - "Public Outdoor Room (69)"
  - "Local Sports (72)"
  - "Vegetable Garden (177)"
  - "Connected Play (68)"
  - "Green Streets (51)"
---

# Common Land (67)

> Source pattern from the abridged `apl-md` corpus. Use as a design reference and constraint seed; do not treat as commercial-clean training data.

### Problem
>Without common land no social system can survive.

### Solution
>Give over 25 percent of the land in house clusters to common land which touches, or is very near, the homes which share it. Basic: be wary of the automobile; on no account let it dominate this land.

### Related Patterns
... just as there is a need for public land at the neighborhood level - [[Accessible Green (60)]], so also, within the clusters and work communities from which the neighborhoods are made, there is a need for smaller and more private kinds of common land shared by a few work groups or a few families. This common land, in fact, forms the very heart and soul of any cluster. Once it is defined, the individual buildings of the cluster form around it - [[House Cluster (37)]], [[Row Houses (38)]], [[Housing Hill (39)]], [[Work Community (41)]].

Shape the common land so it has some enclosure and good sunlight - [[South Facing Outdoors (105)]], [[Positive Outdoor Space (106)]]; and so that smaller and more private pieces of land and pockets always open onto it - [[Hierarchy of Open Space (114)]]; provide communal functions within the land - [[Public Outdoor Room (69)]], [[Local Sports (72)]], [[Vegetable Garden (177)]]; and connect the different and adjacent pieces of common land to one another to form swaths of connected play space - [[Connected Play (68)]]. Roads can be part of common land if they are treated as [[Green Streets (51)]] ...

---

> [!cite]- Alexander, Christopher. _A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction_. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 336.
> #APL/confidence/high
>
> #APL/Town-Patterns/Local-Recreation