permaculture

[John Schinnerer <John-Schinnerer@data-dimensions.com>]

Aloha,

-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence F. London, Jr. [mailto:london@metalab.unc.edu]

>A pattern language developed together can become a critical planning tool 
>that can preclude enormous expenditures of time and money re-inventing the 
>wheel.  Unlike specific recipes, such a tool supports pathways and can do 
>so without ever coming to the same conclusion twice.

Agreed - with the caveat that sometimes "the wheel" (representing a previous
innovation that can be re-used rather than re-invented from scratch) is not
most appropriate and it may serve better to try "beginner's mind" and start
from scratch - *with* awareness of what is not desired/not appropriate so
one does not reinvent what is known to be inappropriate.

Some North American Indians quickly adapted, and mastered, various uses of
horses when horses were introduced by Europeans.  None of them, however,
adapted on any large scale wagons or any other wheeled conveyances typically
drawn by Europeans' horses.  Such vehicles limited the Indians' mobility,
restricting them to roads that wheels could traverse.  A travois hitched to
a horse could still go pretty much everywhere the horse could, whereas a
wagon could not.  They presumably discerned that this worked better for them
than messing about with wheels and all the associated infrastructure.

> ... I don't agree with recipes.  People have to work out what makes sense
in their
> situations.  Those of us who work in the field with homestead and
farmstead
> scale family situations can offer an assortment of strategies and options,
> but always they need to be tailored.  There is a tendency for people to
> emulate a successful operation, and this should not always be encouraged. 
> It is better for people to fill different market niches than to glut one
> particular niche.

And glutting a particular niche is pathological anyhow, sooner or later.
Nature (not to mention "business") offers countless examples.

Every design is unique in some aspects (or it's not design).  These are what
Harold Nelson (Advanced Design Institute, http://www.advanceddesign.org/ )
calls the "ultimate particulars" in a design - the elements that are unique
and specific to a given design, and appropriate *only* in that design.

>In my opinion, it is 
> preferable to teach the design process than to try to design for others
> because they have more depth of awareness of the factors in their 
>situation

I would say "a design process" or "design processes" rather than "the design
process," but other than that, I agree wholeheartedly.  If clients do not
have enough awareness of their own situations, they can learn to; this is
more appropriate (in design, anyhow) than a designer imposing their own
awarenesses.

A designer's work is to be "other-expressive" (where an artist is
"self-expressive") - to facilitate the creativity (self-expression) of
clients, to work with them to express *their* desires. 

John Schinnerer