00241 Patterns in Permaculture

The difference between pattern and design.

There is a difference between pattern and design. One example used by my permaculture teacher Dan Hemenway is the human hand.

You have four fingers and a thumb on each hand. The fingers have a pattern — three bones connecting and they open inward. The fingers have different lengths, though, and the thumb joint is aligned with the knuckles. The way those patterns interact is design for specific functions. The pattern is not the design, and the design is not the pattern. While pattern and design are two different things, they obviously work together "hand in hand.”

Patterns in Permaculture Design

Patterns are everywhere.

Everything in nature follows patterns and so does our world of technology, work, and supply. Think about the basic design pattern that these three — apparently separate and unrelated — systems share:

• a river system and its tributaries,
• the human body’s circulatory system,
• a system of gathering supplies and resources to supply manufacturing plants connected to distribution systems for the end products.

Patterns result when events set in motion the evolution of forms.

We could refer to this as “The General Pattern model of Events.”

Drop a pebble in a pool of water, and a series of concentric waves move out from the center point of impact. In this spirit, in the Design Manual Mollison identifies eight patterns in nature that replicate in human actions and structures. These are important because we observe them everywhere in nature. Their ubiquity suggests that they would be useful for permaculture design:

Waves. We see these on waters, and in solid forms as sand dunes and sandstone. Watch the patterns exhibited by large crowds of people moving into or out of a space.

Streamlines. Visualize the currents in flowing rivers and streams, often signaled by lines of foam on the water. Look at traffic on a freeway at rush hour.

Cloud forms. Look at the clouds in the air, and look at the shape of trees and cotton candy.

Spirals. These are everywhere. The galaxy, flowers, whirlpools, cities.

Lobes. Mushrooms and reefs. Watches and cell phones. Rounded stones by a river.

Branches. Rivers. Highway systems.

Scatters. Islands. Lichens on rocks. Farmsteads. Clumps of trees on prairies. People focused on laptops in parks. Clumps of people in a large plaza or park.

Networks. Honeycombs. The internet. Cell phone systems.

Landscapes and cityscapes are patterns of patterns.

When patterns intersect with each other — like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle — we call this tessellation. Cities within a metropolitan area are examples of tessellation. You could cut the map apart along the boundaries of the cities and put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle using those same boundary lines because the city boundary lines tessellate with each other.

When patterns nestle within each other — like bowls stacked on a shelf, one inside the other — we call this annidation. Your city, county, state, and federal governments are examples of structural annidation. The national government incorporates all of the state governments, which in turn incorporate county governments, who in turn incorporate city and town governments. It’s not completely uniform, of course. Cities cross county and metropolitan areas cross state boundaries all the time. It’s a close enough analogy for our purposes.

When patterns lay over each other — such as a flower petal pattern — we call this superimposition. The various requirements and demands of government on an individual or household are examples of superimposition. I am subject to the property maintenance code of Oklahoma City, the taxing authorities of the county public health department, library, local school system, City of Oklahoma City, state of Oklahoma, and the federal Internal Revenue Service.

Patterns in motion.

Since nothing in nature (or in the built environment) stays where you put it, patterns show motion and thus exhibit expansion and contraction.

Waves are an example of expansion patterns.

Nets (visualize the patterns created by drying a wet solid) are examples of contraction patterns.

All of the expansion and contraction patterns incorporate fuzzy edges, which produce edge harmonics. “Harmonics” refers to healthy interactions between elements in a system.

A wave of immigration expands the population of a given geography.

This transforms an area from an ethnic monoculture to a multiethnic system.

If the immigrants mostly settle in ethnic enclaves, the immigrants tessellate with the native population.

If the immigrants mostly integrate into the existing population, without forming their own neighborhoods, the immigration wave is an example of annidation, the nestling of the immigrants within the original population.

If the immigration was a military conquest, with the new group ruling over the original inhabitants, that’s an example of superimposition.

Relationships of the groups may be positive or negative.

The increased diversity could become a fertile ground of diverse beneficial connections weaving the different cultures together in a mutually self-supporting system.

If the groups are antagonistic to each other, the migration process could create conflict and competition for resources.

Positive outcomes are more likely if there are appropriate structures of translation and trade (discussed below). These allow differences to become productive connections.

If there are no translation and trade structures, negative outcomes are more likely.

Energy Follows the Pattern

Patterns give shape and definition to situations and systems.

Energy always follows the patterns laid out for it.

Rushing water will course down a hill following a predetermined pattern (which we refer to as a “gully”) until it flows into a creek, which in turn empties into a lake or ocean or joins up with a river. Thus the original energy from the top of a hill (rain) finds its way, by predetermined patterns, to the sea. The energy of the rain followed the pattern of the gully and the creek and the river to a sink (the lake or the ocean).

We see these patterns at work in human systems. If you set up a corporation, your energy will develop a hierarchy, even if you are a rabid individualist anarchist — because the corporation is a hierarchal pattern.

As you begin to learn and practice design, give careful thought to the patterns that develop in your design.

Never attempt to use a bad pattern to produce a good end, because bad patterns won’t produce good ends.

A pattern develops what the pattern is. If the pattern is “bad” (however we define “bad” in that context, whether it be wasteful, immoral, violent, or whatever), the end result will be a bad end. Nothing else can come of it, just as water rushing down a hill after a rain will follow no path other than the one that laid down for it. As water flows into the gully pattern, it will not magically reverse itself and flow gently uphill to water our flowers just because, you know, that’s what we want. The pattern of the gully takes the water down the hill. That’s the only result it will give.

In permaculture, we don’t get what we want, we get what we design.

If we want to get what we want (and need), we design to get what we want and need.

If we don’t design for that, we won’t get it.

Desirable Patterns

The most desirable patterns are those that —

• stack functions,
• provide redundancy,
• offer many beneficial connections,
• use natural methods, featuring the biological, the small, and the slow,
• are conservative of all forms of stuff (resources, energy, money, etc.),
• are conservative in their demands on people,
• regenerate resources, systems, energies

Boundaries and their Importance in Design

Everything that exists has certain characteristics, one of which is a boundary that separates it from other things. For the human body, the boundary is both the skin and an invisible structure we know as “personal space,” which varies from person to person (and culture to culture) in terms of its size in relation to its center, the person. These are the boundary conditions of the human person.

Boundaries are places where events happen.

A handshake occurs at the boundary of two human beings. Skin touches skin — personal space mingles together. There can be a lot riding on that simple handshake. It might seal an economic deal impacting thousands of people. It might be the beginning of a relationship that will result in two people falling in love and forming a new family. Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake, a perfunctory social amenity that we use when going through the motions. Sometimes a simple handshake can lead to great things.

A hug occurs at the boundary of two (or more) human beings. It involves more physical touching and more mingling of personal space. People who will shake hands may not be willing to hug. A hug suggests more intimacy than some people will offer as a result of a casual meeting or to someone whom they do not know well.

Boundaries give meaning.

In any given situation, there will be different kinds and types of things and systems. The boundaries of a thing or situation or system help define what it is. In a workplace, for example, we might find:

• The building structure
• The building’s location in a community.
• The site of your work in the building.
• The heating and cooling systems of the building.
• The human structures within the building.
• The patterns of authority and domination/subordination within the human structures.
• The impact of weather on the building and the work that goes on there.
• The impact of external invisible structures on the building and the work done there.
• Patterns of information flow within the workspaces of the building.
• The ages and sexes and conjugal arrangements of the people in the building.
• Etc.

Each of these things (referred to in permaculture as elements) and systems has a set of characteristics that identify it as what it is. That definition includes boundary conditions. Every boundary offers opportunities for intervention using permaculture design to grow a system —

• that creates little or no waste,
• that justly distributes surplus, and
• is sustainable over time.

Each place where these elements and conditions and systems intersect is rife with opportunities. Mollison identifies this as the Boundary/Edge Design Strategy:

The creation of complex boundary conditions is a basic design strategy for creating spatial and temporal niches.

Bring together diverse items/situations/systems to create new spaces for goodness, beauty, wisdom, and sustainability to flourish.

Edging of Boundaries and their Reactions

Everyone is well-practiced in the art of boundary discrimination, whether or not we realize it as such.

Everyone knows what they like and they don’t like and how to recognize what’s what. We know the difference between a silk purse and a pig’s ear.

People are well-acquainted with the potential of boundaries to cause problems. Consider the history of race relations. Or international relations between empires and states.

While boundary reactions are not always as extreme as those presented by race or war, in every situation where boundaries come into contact with each other, there is some reaction — for good, for ill, or for indifference.

Continuing to think in broad terms . . . there are two kinds of boundary interactions:

• Flows along boundaries, where the boundaries don’t actually cross each other but to a greater or lesser extent move along side by side, and
• Flows across boundaries, which may have to penetrate defenses erected by the “other side.”

Rain falls on your skin and flows off onto the ground. My skin is a defense of the inner body parts against the world. Injecting a medicine into my body involves penetrating my skin with a needle and puncturing a vein. The needle is a structure that penetrates that external defense so I can benefit from the medicine.

Or die of a lethal injection.

As a result, in nature and in human communities, boundaries are places that are fertile and productive. They are also rife with opportunities for problems and conflict:

• Boundaries can act as a net or wall against which stuff can accumulate.
• The boundary interaction may create new spaces into which stuff accretes.
• The supplies and components of two (or more) systems are brought into contact with each other at or close by the boundary.
• Boundaries may be fuzzy and variable (cf. personal space). In the space where they meet, the intersection of boundaries can create something entirely new.

Two atoms of hydrogen with one atom of oxygen meet at their boundaries and create one molecule of water, something new and completely different from the oxygen and hydrogen.

In design, we speak of the fertility of boundary areas as the edge effect.

It is one reason why cities and universities are such exciting places.

Many different kinds of people, structures, and media come into contact with each other in such geographies, creating a myriad of boundary zones/edges which are fertile and productive. Edge means that the participants experience more potential beauty and fertility and/or more potential conflict and competition. The design opportunities are:

• How do we design with existing boundaries?
• Do we need to make some new boundaries to increase the opportunities for edge effects?
• Do our existing or newly created boundaries need crenellations? These are indentations and their corresponding notches — think of the top of a castle wall or a jigsaw puzzle — which increase the boundary spaces and provide opportunities for parts to fit together smoothly to make a greater whole (tessellation, in other words).
• How can we create opportunities for different elements and systems to diffuse and intermingle? This has the effect of diminishing the impact of boundaries and creates new spaces composed of something of both, offering opportunities for both annidation and superimposition.
• Do we need structures or systems to carry resources across boundaries? Consider bees carrying pollen and traders moving goods.
• How can we place elements based on their compatibility with each other? How do we keep those who are antagonistic to each other apart?
• Can we use boundaries as nets or harvesting structures where stuff can accumulate without much (or any) work? People like the idea of reducing work while maintaining profit. We may not see much opportunity in a fence that catches tumbleweeds except that it illustrates the concept. What else can we do with this?

Creating Boundary Conditions

Keeping our goals in mind for each given situation, we design boundary conditions to help achieve those goals and avoid problems and conflicts

If we want something to move swiftly and quickly while keeping together (such as water through a pipe) then our boundaries are smooth and clean and do not obstruct the flow.

If we want to catch fish, we will introduce some deliberate turbulence in the form of fish traps or nets in the stream.

Lobes and notches offer sheltered spaces where resources can accumulate and microclimates can be nurtured.

If we want to accumulate stuff, we can make a boundary difficult to cross so the boundary itself becomes like a net or filter.

Look at a map of a large geographic area. Consider how cities locate next to big waters and rivers. If we aren’t living next to water, we’re piling up in places where forests meet the plains and there are ecosystems in transition. We the humans, at some really deep level, are beachcombers.

The design principle is:

Use differences as a strategy to build resources.

Every system seeks to acquire the things that it lacks. All boundaries have systems and structures of translation and trade.

Translating structures and systems help mediate flow along and across boundaries and can help resolve conflicts.

In nature, trees are translating structures that take in carbon dioxide at their leaf/sunlight boundary and yield oxygen, leaves, fruit, forage, and other resources. Coral fills a similar roll in oceans and reefs.

In human systems, since ancient times traders have moved along and through boundaries moving resources to places they are wanted and needed and exchanging value across borders.

Permaculture itself is a translating structure that brings different elements together and enables them to work productively with each other.

Translating structures and systems are important. The more diverse a cultural, social, and ethnic ecology, the more need there will be for effective translating structures and systems. Don’t think this is only about verbal language, although that is often a need. It is about helping people to realize, at a practical level, the ideal enunciated in the motto of the United States of America: “E Pluribus Unum” — from many, come one. As hydrogen and oxygen react to produce something new — water — a diverse cultural and economic ecology can interact to become something new.

Human history is, in part, a history of conflict. In the modern world, we have to some extent substituted due process for violence, yet due process often accomplishes violent and unjust ends so by itself it is not a panacea. We have to be careful in matching the ends we want with the appropriate means that can achieve our desired ends, in the multiple realities that we find in urban areas.

Results of Boundary Interactions

There are six possible results when two systems meet at a boundary:

1. There is no change to either system (0,0)
2. One side loses, the other benefits (+,-)
3. Both gain — Win-win (+,+)
4. Both lose — Lose-lose (-,-)
5. One wins, the other doesn’t change (+,0)
6. One loses, the other doesn’t change (-,0)

If we have two incompatible items or systems bumping up against each other and causing problems, we look for something that will give mutual aid to both of the competing systems and we put it in the middle.

We want to design as many win-win situations in all our diverse situations.

The second most desirable interaction condition is that there is no change on either side.

The third desirable is one wins, the other doesn’t change.

The three undesirable outcomes are ranked:

Most undesirable — both lose,

2nd undesirable — one loses, the other benefits,

Least undesirable — one loses, the other doesn’t change.

Avoiding Monoculture!

Mosaics are great. A mosaic is a network of neighborhoods, where subcultures congregate in specific neighborhoods. The subcultures get what they need — which is a safe space to be who they are — while at the same time taking advantage of the multitudes of boundaries and edges to create new and exciting happenings, commerce, entertainment, whatever arises in the spaces where people meet.

We design communities as patterns that minimize incompatibility and maximize interdependence. We place compatible items/systems together so that they give mutual aid to each other.

Mollison describes the Stupidity Principle as —

Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use or value them creatively.

This is a big issue in urban design, because urban planners and developers are always trying to design urban spaces as monocultures! Only One Thing Allowed!

Mollison’s Golden Rule of Design: Keep it small, and keep it varied.

Timing really is everything. How timing shapes events.

It’s one thing to see how an event happens, another to describe how the event unfolds, either shaping itself or being influenced by others.

Events happen as a series of pulses, of greater or lesser duration and velocity.

Pulsers are elements or systems or structures that organize the timing and velocity of events. The interaction of pulse and pattern give rise to the shape of events.

Pulsers may be biological, structural, or mechanical.

• A traffic light pulses traffic.
• Biological functions in your body regulate your heart beat (your “pulse.”)
• The election cycles of a government is a series of pulses that regulates the flows of governance.

Shapes result from the interaction of patterns and pulsers.

The genetic code for a species is its pattern.

How it grows into that shape is a result of the action of biological pulsers controlling growth and development. Your adult hand did not grow on your baby body. Your hand doesn’t have its own brain so it doesn’t know when it is time to grow an adult hand. This happens because pulsers in your body regulated your growth so that when the time came that you needed an adult sized hand, your hand grew to the appropriate size. The shape of your hand today is a result of the intersection of a pattern with a pulse.

Timing, Patterns and Invisible Structures

Timing (pulsers) plus patterns yield shapes.

Invisible structures are formed of patterns such as the “corporation” pattern which dominates in economic matters. When we connect time to the corporation pattern, we get a shape, something like Exxon, fully capable of producing an Exxon Valdez tragedy, or BP and its catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

If we use a different pattern, or set of patterns — like waves, networks, scatters — we get something different, like the permaculture movement.

People always wonder why the permaculture movement doesn’t select a pope, or at least start holding national conferences and establishing this and that which we “need” for our movement to be a success. The top-down hierarchal pattern common in human structures is the root of their questions. If we want something different, and in permaculture we definitely want something different, we must reach out for different patterns.

While invisible structures are important in all permaculture designs, they have an additional level of importance in urban and college permaculture.

People who are in college and who live in urban areas are unlikely to be able to grow all of their own food. Yet, their need for food is there and will not go away. Permaculture design offers options to provide for those needs in ways that care for the earth, care for people, and have a care for the future.

The World as the Tessellation, Annidation, and Superimposition of Events

Let’s review —

When patterns intersect with each other — like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle — we have tessellation.

When patterns nestle within each other — like bowls stacked on a shelf, one inside the other — this is annidation.

When patterns lay over each other — such as a flower petal pattern — we know this as superimposition.

This, one could say, is the World According to Permaculture.

Bill Mollison wrote in the Design Manual —

Patterning is the way we frame our designs, the template into which we fit the information, entities, and objects assembled from observation, map overlays, the analytic divination of connections, and the selection of specific materials and technologies. It is this patterning that permits our elements to flow and function in beneficial relationships. The pattern is design, and design is the subject of permaculture.

Two Aspects of Pattern in Design

When it comes to permaculture design, there are two basic tasks that happen over and over as we develop the design for our lives:

First we understand, by observation and discernment, the existing patterns at play in our lives.

Then we bring other patterns into a situation, system, or place in order to achieve our goal(s).

List of Successful Patterns

Fortunately, you don’t have to figure out all of this by yourself. Over the years there has been considerable observation of patterns. One of the in-depth sources of information and knowledge about successful patterns for design is the book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. You can get it through your local library, a local bookstore, or online. Most of the info is also found online at http://www.patternlanguage.com/, although to access all of it you need to sign up for a membership at $5/month. If you don’t get the book, either by buying it or from a library, you could pay for one month’s membership and learn a lot. The information there is very valuable, particularly when it comes to the 253 patterns they identify for urban living that you can use to replicate good ideas in your neighborhood.

Start on this page — http://www.patternlanguage.com/leveltwo/patterns.htm and read the Child’s History of Pattern Language first. (That's in the free section.)

Here are three examples of the 253 patterns discussed at the website and in the book:

DECENTRALIZATION: Individuals have no effective voice in any community of more than 5000-10,000 persons. Therefore: Decentralize city governments in a way that gives local control to communities of 5,000 to 10,000 persons. As nearly as possible, use natural geographic and historical boundaries to mark these communities. Give each community the power to initiate, decide, and execute the affairs that concern it closely: land use, housing, maintenance, streets, parks, police, schooling, welfare, neighborhood services.

TOWN HALL: Local government of communities and local control by the inhabitants, will only happen if each community has its own physical town hall which forms the nucleus of its political activity. Therefore: To make the political control of local functions real, establish a small town hall for each community of 7000, and even for each neighborhood; locate it near the busiest intersection in the community. Give the building three parts: an arena for public discussion, public services around the arena, and space to rent out to ad hoc community projects.

BIG BOX ALTERNATIVE — It is natural and convenient to want a market where all the different foods and household goods you need can be bought under a single roof. But when the market has a single management, like a supermarket, the foods are bland, and there is no joy in going there.

Therefore: Instead of modern supermarkets, establish frequent marketplaces, each one made up of many smaller shops which are autonomous and specialized (cheese, meat, grain, fruit, and so on). Build the structure of the market as a minimum, which provides no more than a roof, columns which define aisles, and basic services. Within this structure allow the different shops to create their own environment, according to their individual taste and needs.