permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/2016/05/08/christopher-alexanders-neglected-challenge-to-permaculture/

Making Permaculture Stronger <http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/>
by collaboratively identifying and addressing its weaknesses.
Christopher Alexander’s Neglected Challenge to Permaculture
Posted on May 8, 2016
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/2016/05/08/christopher-alexanders-neglected-challenge-to-permaculture/>
by
Dan Palmer <http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/author/dan/> / 23 Comments
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/2016/05/08/christopher-alexanders-neglected-challenge-to-permaculture/#comments>

Consider the opening statements of what are possibly the two most prominent
definitions of permaculture:

Permaculture (*perma*nent agri*culture*) is the conscious design and
maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the
diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems (Bill Mollison,
1988, p. ix)

A more current definition of permaculture, which reflects the expansion of
focus implicit in *Permaculture One*, is “Consciously designed landscapes,
which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding
an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs” (cited
by David Holmgren, 2002, p. xix)1
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These two statements share three key parts. One is the goal of systems or
landscapes that have the character of nature in the sense they replicate,
mimic, and in a very real sense actually are natural ecosystems. The second
is that these target systems produce for human needs. The third is moving
toward this goal via conscious design.2
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Let us focus in on this last part – *conscious design*. As the key method
or process given for approaching its desired destination, you would expect
permaculture to contain a clear definition of what *conscious design* is.

By and large the permaculture design literature defines design as a process
of combining elements into systems. The wording changes, but the core idea
remains that:

   1. the elements exist prior to their connection, and
   2. the crux of design is joining, assembling, or integrating these
   elements (into systems, patterns or wholes delivering on the permaculture
   principles).

Perusing the seminal literature, I first find this core idea clearly in
Mollison’s *Permaculture:* A *Designers’ Manual* (1988, note that I have
added all bold text in this entire post to emphasis
particularly relevant words and phrases):

“*Permaculture, as a design system, attempts to* *integrate* fabricated,
natural, spatial, temporal, social and ethical *parts* (components) *to
achieve a whole.*“ (p. 36)

“It is in the *arrangement of parts *that design has its being and
function…” (p. 36)

“Permaculture design is a system of *assembling* conceptual, material, and
strategic *components in a pattern* which seeks to benefit life in all its
forms.” (p. 36)

“The design [is] ‘*a beneficial assembly of components…*” (p. 37)

“For the final act of the designer, *once components have been assembled*,
is to *make a sensible pattern assembly of the whole.*” (p. 70)3
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This core idea has been accepted and repeated right up to the most recent
books on permaculture design. In their *Practical* *Permaculture* (2015),
Jessi Bloom and Dave Boehnlein share prevailing permaculture understandings
of the words *element* and *system*. In defining these words and their
relations, they explain:

“In its simplest form, a system is a *bunch of parts (elements) arranged*
such that their relationship to one another (their function) allows some
sort of job to get done or goal to be accomplished (purpose). For instance,
a bicycle is a simple system composed of a *bunch of elements* (handlebars,
chain, wheels and so forth) *put together* in such a way (handlebars
connected to frame, frame connected to wheels) that they function to
accomplish the purpose of transportation. We can see the same concept when
looking at the parts of the human body. A pile of organs sitting on a table
does not make a person. However, when those organs relate to each other in
just the right way and each performs its functions, *we* are the result.

When all the *elements of a system come together* in the right way, the
whole becomes more than the sum of its parts and emergent properties
appear” (p. 18)

Later in the book, they apply this interpretation of systems thinking to
permaculture design process:

“The *permaculture design process* *is about* *assembling components… into
mutually beneficial relationships. **Elements* can be *placed* in a number
of different *arrangements*, but *the* *connections *made* between them *is
what* builds systems* that work effectively” (p. 59)

“Every *element* in your design should be analysed in order to figure out
the best relative location to *create beneficial relationships with other
elements*” (p. 92)

“The *placement* of *elements* in *relationship* to each other is critical
to creating a functional permaculture design” (p. 99)

Let us consider one more example. In *The Permaculture City* (2015),
acclaimed permaculture author Toby Hemenway explains that permaculture
“offers a set of design principles for *creating useful relationships* that
guide us in formulating our plans, and a host of *connection-building
design methods* that help us decide which techniques to use to implement
those plans” (p. 23). As he explains, “permaculture, not surprisingly,
leans heavily on methods that focus on *creating relationships among the
parts of a design*” (p. 31). He then fleshes out four of these methods,
“each a powerful method for doing what is at the heart of permaculture
design: *creating connections and relationships among the parts* *of a
design*…” (p. 31). Here are his one-sentence summaries of these four
methods (pp. 33-44):

“Highest use tells us how to *connect design elements* or activities in
time by linking their functions or uses in a sequence. It tells us what to
do first.”

“Needs and resources analysis tells us how to *connect the parts of a
design to one another*.”

“The zone system *organizes the parts of the design* in relation to the
user or center of use.”

“Sector analysis *organizes design elements into useful relationships* with
outside influences that we cannot directly affect.”

The above quotes are representative of almost all published treatments of
permaculture design. I think it is fair to say, then, that they are
therefore representative of how permaculture designers in general talk
about (and thus think, teach, and practice) design.

We can put this core understanding into a table. We have just seen evidence
that the permaculture design literature generates sentences about what
design is via the formula of selecting an item from each of these three
columns and stringing them together:
*start with* *then* *them to form a*
elements assemble whole
parts connect system
components integrate pattern
things relate assembly

join plan

arrange design

place relationship

locate

organize

create relationships between

*Integrating elements* into *patterns*, *connecting components* into *whole
systems*, *organising parts* into *relationship*, and so on, are all
different expressions of permaculture’s unambiguously
dominant understanding of what permaculture design *is*.
Christopher Alexander’s Challenge

Christopher Alexander is a radical architect, builder and writer widely
known and respected by permaculture practitioners. Indeed, Alexander’s work
is referenced in high esteem by the authors of the three books just cited.

A core theme in the 14 plus books Alexander has published over the last
half-century is a critique of the idea of design as element assembly. Here
are two representative excerpts from earlier and later in his career:

*“Design is often thought of as a process of synthesis, a process of
putting together things, a process of combination.*

According to this view, a whole is created by putting together parts. The
parts come first: and the form of the whole comes second.

*But it is impossible to form anything which has the character of nature by
adding preformed parts” (*Alexander*,* 1979, p. 368*)*

…then, 33 years later:

“To grasp the nature of the subtle structure [of wholeness] fully, we must
learn to avoid the danger of trying to see [wholes]4
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made up of parts. Present-day conventional wisdom (perhaps Cartesian and
mechanistic in origin) tells us that everything is made of parts. In
particular, people believe today that every whole is made of parts. The key
aspect of this belief is the idea that the parts come ‘before’ the whole,
in short, the parts exist as elements of some kind, which are then brought
into relationship with one another, or combined, and a [whole] is ‘created’
out of these parts and their combinations as a result.

I believe accurate understanding of wholeness is quite different.”
(Alexander, 2002a, p. 86)

Now consider this statement, which starts to clarify what he means by *quite
different:*

*“This [approach to design] is a differentiating process.*

It views design as a sequence of acts of complexification; structure is
injected into the whole by operating on the whole and crinkling it, not by
adding little parts to one another. In the process of differentiation, the
whole gives birth to its parts: the parts appear as folds in a cloth of
three dimensional space which is gradually crinkled. The form of the whole,
and the parts, come into being simultaneously.

*The image of the differentiating process is the growth of an embryo.*

It starts as a single cell. The cell grows into a ball of cells. Then,
through a series of differentiations, each building on the last, the
structure becomes more and more complex, until a finished human being is
formed.

The first thing that happens is that this ball gets an inside, a middle
layer, and an outside: the endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm, which will
later turn into skeleton, flesh, and skin, respectively.

[image: 1]
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/1.png>

Then this ball of cells with three layers gets an axis. The axis is laid
down in the endoderm, and will become the spine of the finished person.

[image: 2]
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2.png>

Then this ball, with an axis, gets a head at one end.

[image: 3]
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/3.png>

Later, the secondary structures, eyes, limbs, develop in relation to the
spinal axis and the head.

[image: 4]
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/4.png>

And so on. At every stage of development, new structure is laid down, on
the basis of the structure which has been laid down so far. The process of
development is, in essence, a sequence of operations, each one of which
differentiates the structure which has been laid down by the previous
operations” *(*Alexander*,* 1979, p. 370-371*)*

So how might this apply in practice to a given design process? As Alexander
then explains:

“At the beginning of a design process, you may have an idea that the open
space should be ‘more or less over here,’ and the building ‘more or less
over there.’ Neither the pattern for ‘open space’ nor the pattern for
‘building’ is very precisely defined at this stage. They are like two
clouds, whose size is imprecise, and with imprecise edges. It is not even
perfectly certain, at this stage, that the cloud called ‘open space’ will
be entirely open—nor that the cloud called building will be entirely
roofed. What is happening, is that you place these two clouds, roughly, at
this stage of the design, with the full understanding that the design is
accurate only to within the order of magnitude of the clouds themselves,
and that all kinds of details which are smaller in scale, may be changed
later.

Later in the process, you may be placing the ‘entrance’ to the building.
Again, the pattern which you call the entrance is a cloudy volume, about
the right size, clear enough so that you can pin point its location, with
respect to other larger clouds, and to show its relations to the things
next to it, but no more exact than that.

And, yet another stage in the design process, you may place a column. This
column has a height, and a rough size—but again, at the time you place it
first, it has little more. Later, you make the column more exact, by
placing the edges of the column, its reinforcing bars, its foundation, and
so on.

Whenever we want to make one of these vague cloudy patterns more precise,
we do it by placing other smaller patterns, which define its edge and
interior.

*Each pattern is an operator which differentiates space: that is it creates
distinctions where no distinction was before *(Alexander, 1979, p. 372-373)

I find it curious that permaculture authors (including those cited above)
don’t acknowledge Alexander’s critique of their core understanding of
design,5
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not
to mention his extensively documented and detailed attempts to flesh out
and apply his alternative understanding.6
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Don’t these seem like worthwhile ideas to explore and try out? The idea of
design as a differentiating process? The idea of design as a program or
sequence of injecting structure into a whole, moving from larger wholes
toward smaller wholes? The idea that each smaller whole is placed, shaped,
oriented and sized according to its relation to the wholes it sits within,
and the wholes that surround it and overlap with it? Indeed, how else are
we supposed to *design from patterns to details?*7
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Same End, Different Means

As it happens, Alexander’s approach and the permaculture approach agree on
the end they are aiming for. Compare Alexander’s…

“…it is important that we, as a people on Earth, learn to create our towns,
buildings and landscapes so that they too – like nature – are living
structures, and that so our artificial world is then a nature-like system”
(Alexander, 2002b, p. xvi)

…with the two definitions of permaculture this article started with.

While permaculture focuses more on the agricultural productivity of such
systems and Alexander more on the built environment8
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/2016/05/08/christopher-alexanders-neglected-challenge-to-permaculture/#easy-footnote-bottom-8>,
there is a common striving toward landscapes or systems with deep natural
character (i.e., that “mimic the patterns and relationships found in
nature” in the statement from Holmgren, or that are “living structures” in
Alexander’s).

Going further, both Alexander and permaculture share the contention that we
can only approach such systems through a process of conscious design.

The two approaches part company, however, when it comes to specifying the
essence of this process – the means to the end.

For permaculture, systems and landscapes with the character of nature are
to be achieved by a process of assembling or combining parts or elements
into whole systems:9
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/2016/05/08/christopher-alexanders-neglected-challenge-to-permaculture/#easy-footnote-bottom-9>

[image: PermacultureDefaultDesignApproach]
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Screen-Shot-2016-05-09-at-9.54.44-am.png>

For Alexander, systems and landscapes with the character of nature are
achieved by a process of differentiating wholes into parts, as inspired by
the process by which an organism comes into existence:10
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/2016/05/08/christopher-alexanders-neglected-challenge-to-permaculture/#easy-footnote-bottom-10>

[image: ChristopherAlexanderDefaultDesignApproach]
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Screen-Shot-2016-05-08-at-10.00.29-am.png>
Summary & Conclusion

Permaculturalists have formulated principles and patterns intended to
capture key aspects of healthy natural ecosystems. They have then attempted
to mimic these principles and patterns in the systems they design.

Details aside, a common theme to how design is defined in the permaculture
literature is as a process of element assembly.

This is a process of starting with parts then creating wholes by *addition*.

Christopher Alexander argues that if we want to mimic the patterns and
relationships found in nature, we *must* understand and copy the patterns
and relationships *inside the process* by which nature produces these
patterns. We need to mimic the means as well as the ends.

He then proposes that the key to nature-mimicking design process is
*differentiation*:

“The key to complex adaptation… lies in the concept of differentiation.
This is a process of dividing and differentiating a whole to get the parts,
rather than adding parts together to *get* a whole” (Alexander, 2002b, p.
197)

This is a process of starting with wholes then creating parts by
*differentiation*.

This radically different understanding of what sound design process *is*
challenges a core idea in permaculture.

I encourage permaculturalists (including myself) to wholeheartedly *accept*
this challenge. Let us engage with it, understand it, discuss it, try it
out, reach some sort of clarity on what we make of it, and whether we see
any value in it.

Further, let us not forget that this challenge comes not from someone
totally outside or foreign to permaculture. A small portion of Alexander’s
thought and writing has already infused and enriched permaculture. Yet
somehow we have missed perhaps the most important thing he has to offer us.
In other words, we have *barely started* the important work of exploring
and assimilating the riches he has to offer. I for one *can’t wait* to see
where his thinking takes us next.

In conclusion, permaculture is defined as a process of *consciously*
designing agriculturally productive, nature-mimicking landscapes.
*Conscious* design implies *consciously* questioning our understandings of
what design is, and where necessary, making improvements. In Alexander’s
work, we find somebody we already like showing us a way forward.
References
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., Jacobson, M., Fiksdahl-King,
I., & Angel, S. (1977). *A Pattern Language*. Oxford University Press.
Alexander, C. (1979). *The Timeless Way of Building*. Oxford University
Press.
Alexander, C. (2002a). *The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of
Building and the Nature of the Universe: Book One: The Phenomenon of Life*
(Vol. 1). The Center for Environmental Structure.
Alexander, C. (2002b). *The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of
Building and the Nature of the Universe: Book Two: The Process of Creating
Life* (Vol. 2). The Center for Environmental Structure.
Bloom, J., & Boehnlein, D. (2015). *Practical Permaculture*. Timberpress.
Hemenway, T. (2015). *The Permaculture City*. Chelsea Green.
Holmgren, D. (2002). *Permaculture: Patterns and Pathways Beyond
Sustainability*. Melliodora.
Mollison, B. (1988). *Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual*. Tagari.
Acknowledgements

I thank David Holmgren
<http://makingpermaculturestronger.net/2016/05/22/a-conversation-with-david-holmgren/>,
Dave Jacke <http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/>, Rosemary Morrow, and James
Andrews <http://www.thrivepermaculture.co.nz/> for their supportive and
insightful feedback on an earlier draft of this post.
Endnotes

   1. Shortly after this statement, which is Holmgren’s summary of a
   definition in wide use by permaculture teachers in the 1990s, he goes on to
   explain that “For many people, myself included, the above conception of
   permaculture is so global in its scope that its usefulness is reduced. More
   precisely, I see permaculture as *the use of systems thinking and design
   principles that provide the organising framework for implementing the above
   vision*.”
   2. Mollison adds mention of maintaining the system once designed and
   implemented.
   3. The sequence here is unambiguous – 1. components, 2. their assembly
   3. pattern assembly of the whole. Start with details and move toward
   patterns.
   4. Here I have replaced Alexander’s preferred word “center” with the
   more familiar word “whole” which comes closest to his meaning – but see
   Alexander (2002a) pp. 83-85 for an explanation as to why he prefers the
   word “center”
   5. See for example *The Timeless Way of Building *(1979), *A Pattern
   Language *(1977), *The Nature of Order* – *Book One – The Phenomenon of
   Life *(2002a)
   6. Which is the common thread of his entire written corpus
   7. Interestingly in the chapter exploring his *design from patterns to
   details* principle Holmgren (2002) cites Christopher Alexander’s (1977)
   work on pattern languages as an inspiration for focusing the chapter on
   steps toward a pattern language for permaculture site design. Yet as is the
   case with all other permaculture references to Alexander I am aware of,
   Alexander’s underlying concern with healthy design process as itself a
   patterns-to-details or whole-to-parts sequence of differentiations is not
   discussed
   8. Though keep in mind that in the very next sentence after the
   definition of permaculture Holmgren cites (see the start of this post) he
   continues to say “People, their buildings and the ways they organize
   themselves are central to permaculture” (2002, p. xix).
   9. I haven’t found mention of an inspiration for this approach in the
   permaculture literature, as in an indication as to *why* this particular
   approach was chosen as the dominant or default approach. As best I can tell
   this approach was plucked out of the cultural milieu by Bill Mollison,
   equated with permaculture design, and subsequently accepted and propagated
   throughout the permaculture literature ever since
   10. While my focus here is to clarify the distinction between these two
   approaches to design, which are at first glance mutually exclusive, in a
   future post I’ll flesh out the fact that working from parts towards wholes
   via addition *has its place*. It becomes problematic when
   we (unconsciously or otherwise) let it *dominate* our approach to
   design. Like Alexander, I believe that if anything its place should be
   secondary and subordinate to working from wholes towards parts via
   differentiation, if, that is, we desire to mimic the way natural processes
   generate natural systems. But my main point is that it is not a case of
   *either-or* but (yet again) a case of *both-and*. In a healthy, holistic
   design process the two approaches exist in a complementary dance (where the
   whole-to-parts approach leads the dance).