All too often, buildings and environments created today fail to address to the unique needs of their occupants and to their unique surroundings.

For the purpose of this pattern, we will refer to the needs of the people who occupy a building or other environment, together with the site where the building/environment is located, and the larger context surround that site, all collectively as its context.

As a society we tend to settle for general solutions - generic tract homes, generic office highrises - that do a so-so job of responding to this context.

Instead, we must seek to create particular solutions that not only satisfy, but expose and celebrate this context. To do this, we must first gain a true an deep understanding of what makes the people, site and other aspect of a particular context unique. Then, we must determine how to best respond to that uniqueness. In doing this, we must neither be constrained by existing solutions when a better solution is possible, nor discard existing solutions when they may be the most appropriate thing to do.

It is important to understand that this pattern is not about being unique for the sake of uniqueness, but about having buildings/environments that respond to the uniqueness that already exists in their context.