Fire XI
From The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander (1976):
7. The more living patterns there are in a place—a room, a building or a town—the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.
8. And when a building has this fire, then it becomes a part of nature. Like ocean waves, or blades of grass, its parts are governed by the endless play of repetition and variety created in the presence of the fact that all things pass. This is the quality itself.
Author: bkerr
Posted: Saturday, June 28th, 2008
Category: Resources
Tags: far out, groovy, timeless way, tubular, whoa dude
August 19th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Whoa, tubular…that takes me back!
Also, got that organic thing going — reminds me of some work I’m doing with this cool bunch of folks at UM: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/
Some cool looking stuff they are doing. Yo, someone out there who reads this blog and is deep into IT stuff with relevant experience, what do you think via a view from the IT world - Swarm, Agent-Based Modeling in the Social Sciences, Ant Colony Optimization, etc.
Santa Fe Institute, MacArthur Genius grants, etc. all par for the course for faculty in this group.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Deb,
Not sure what “yo” addresses. At least two of us know most of the CSCS faculty and staff, and vice versa.
Did you have a question, in that last bit? Point?
August 28th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Cool. Just finished working on a retreat with them. They are not well known yet around UM.
Any thoughts about how CS applies to living patterns to the point of Fire XI…what comes to life as an entirety? (Ant Colony stuff..Swarm)
Have been looking into Meg Wheatley stuff in my field. Am learning about how her stuff becomes practical via the Berkana Institute. Some notes from an article she co-authored - Using Emergence to take Social Innovation to Scale:
Individual ants possess none of the intelligence or skills that are in the hive. No matter how intently scientists study the behavior of individual ants, they can never see the behavior of the hive. Yet once the hive forms, each ant acts with the intelligence and skillfulness of the whole.
This aspect of emergence has profound implications for social entrepreneurs. Instead of developing them individually as leaders and skillful practitioners, we would do better to connect them
to like-minded others and create the conditions for emergence. The skills and capacities needed by them will be found in the system that emerges, not in better training programs.
Because emergence only happens through connections, Berkana has developed a four-stage model that catalyzes connections as the means to achieve large-scale change: Name, Connect, Nourish, Illuminate.
Berkana works one creating opportunities for learning and sharing experiences and shifting into communities of practice. They are also attempting, they say, to work intentionally
with emergence so that small, local efforts can become a global force for change.
==== Point - Points
Curious to learn what lot makes up the social entrepreneur interested folks. Complexity Science folks seem to be open to the stress of diversity in the multidisciplinary nature of the work at UM, in their conversations. Therein lies a people issue. Haven’t seen many ant psychologists around to see how you magnify the simple to the complex with the people issues. Some of the groups that gather around A2 as entrepreneurs/free-lance/co-working space are open and welcoming. Others seem headed for mono-culture by virtue of membership hazing in/out stuff.
So rather than a building that connects with nature as described by Christopher Alexander, how might an idea like NAE gather like minded along the lines of “work[ing] with others in a way that is more fulfilling e.g. “collaborators” vs. “contractors” vs. “corporate members” (bosses) vs. “the Borg” (evil ants, resistance is futile) vs. “rock bands” (yeah music, here today, gone tomorrow, but wait — the reunion tour!”)
Collaborating on: a) the escape from the corporation/cubes and/or b) the creation of workspace to hang out with college/townie pals and/or c) a collective of some sort based on (philosophy statement/values)? Is a spouse/partner with benefits required? Pay+health benefits are nice. Then there are the elections and health care platforms.
But that’s another element of sustainability. Will leave that for another time.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Meg Wheatley has produced such a steady and prolific pile of bullshit through her career that she can stand on the pile and appear to be towering over more thoughtful competitors.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
And those thoughtful competitors are?
There’s a lot here, much of having to do with NOT. Would like to engage a bit more in what IS or IS becoming. That is a part of FIRE XI that is hopeful, compelling, attracting. Unless it is, of course, just a phase or a thing that will pass - like a facination with pet rocks. The Meg’s of the world do have the stature to gain a following.