I have recently been revisiting A Pattern Language, inspired by it’s utility in designing physical spaces from vision and concept to planning and implementation. I believe there is a similar “language” to be developed for whole systems literacy and design. Recently I came across 12 Habits of Mind by Linda Booth Sweeney which is pursuing a similar ambition (or so it seems to me). A confluence of inspirations for me to finally put some more form to this line of thought. And so…
Since my introduction to Permaculture–of which ‘APL’ is a seminal text–I have been inspired by the potential for Permaculture, and Whole Systems Design / Systems Thinking to be employed as a broader framework, one which considers resilience and the network dependencies within which any endeavor is embedded. (It already has this potential, mind you, however it is unfortunately best misunderstood as some eclectic Organic Gardening cult and needs a language so that ‘we’ may co-conceive the concepts and apply them to contexts. To that, here’s the general response and the wonky [highly recommended] one.)
I remember this coming through clearly in both meta and micro realizations for me on two separate occasions. The former upon reading Zones and Sectors in the City and seeing the application of the framework to the broader regional network of nested systems. The latter was a personal realization about the “zones” of my kitchen sink layout that led to a relocation of a resource (the dish soap) that saved daily stooping (wasted operations energy replaced with design). From these two realizations, I have developed an internalization of using this patterns-to-principles-to-details perspective for the design of business processes, sites and systems, websites and knowledge-bases, regional economic surveys, currency design, and the list goes on and on… but communicating these concepts betwixt ourselves is still a challenge. We simply do not have the common language to speak of it, and neither the assurance by some check-list or curriculum that we are holding as many of the variables and considerations as possible in our awareness as we consider manifesting a design.
By stacking functions, closing loops, encouraging resilience and thrivability, seeing waste as a design failure and work as a theoretical challenge to overcome, obtaining (in contrast to mining) a yield, and the different importances of energy, emergy, and exergy… all of these–along with a host of other considerations to site specificity, component integration, KPIs and boundary determination–should be at the forefront of “the design mind”. <rant> and design minds should be at the forefront of our “transition response team” (not kings and celebrities). </rant>
Having a framework of whole systems design that is the functional equivalent of A Pattern Language is the next opportunity to develop for Systems Thinkers, Permaculturists and the related family of Ecotechnolgists out there waging regeneration.
It’s churning in me… you?
Together on Earth,
Chris
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