The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 561.

I made myself the freedom to change the word architects in the text, with permaculturists. Because too few architects follow Alexanders example, instead they follow their own ego. But when Permaculture spreads its network throughout the world, like the mycel of the mushroom in the forests floors, again the living structures will araise on the Earth’s surface. And a new vision of the world will arise and manifest, like when the sun arises in the East. Se the fifth comment at bottom of this article: http://permaculture.org.au/2010/4/3/things-that-cant-go-on-forever-and-things-that-can-a-few-thoughts/

“Let us say, then, that extension, enhancement, and deepening of the whole is the crux and target of all living process. Living process have to do with the creation of wholes. Artistically, the essence of the builder’s art, is always to create a whole. When a building succeeds, it is because we perceive it, feel it, to be a magnificent whole, whole through and through, one thing.

It is not common to find this today. We may even say that the ugliness we see all around us, comes largely from the fact that builders – architects, contractors, developers – no longer know, or only rarely achieve, the making of a building which is truly one with its surroundings.

Thus, whatever a living process has to say about architecture, whatever it can teach us, and whatever it can give us, above all it must give us this: the ability to make a living whole.

This is problematic, of course. It is an enigmatic subject. We cannot make something whole, for example, unless we make it united with its surroundings. So, to be whole, it has to be “lost,” that is, not separate from its surroundings, part and parcel of them. And the pieces within a living whole, they must also have this special quality. So, the thing which is to be whole, and extends out into the world around it, must also contain wholes within it, and these smaller wholes must be part of the larger whole in feeling. So each is to be distinct, to be an entity. Yet it is to be invisible in order to be lost and not separate from the larger whole. Making a building whole, is an immensely complicated task. But, in any case, making the whole is the essence, the beginning and the end of our work as artists. And (according to chapter this is to be done going step by step.

Let us then start articulating the way that a living process can help us to create a whole. It is possibly helpful to remind ourselves that although this may tax our creative powers, nature manages it more easily. When a crashing waves breaks, it is whole. When a mountain rises up from the landscape over the eons, it becomes a whole. All this is achieved, apparently, by structure-preserving transformations. So if we hope to live like nature (and we can hardly aspire to anything stronger) we should, in principle, be able to extract the whole in what we make, derive the whole – the shape and substance of our work – always going step by step, and concentrating, at every stage, on the emergence of a new, living, breathing, feeling, whole.”

The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 251-255.

“One would imagine that at least the goal of bringing life to larger wholes would be understood and respected. In America of the 1980s I discovered, with something of a shock, that even this is not always so. In 1988, Dan Solomon and I were appointed by the City of Pasadena, California, to write a new zoning ordinance guiding and controlling the design of new apartment buildings throughout the city. In an early draft of the ordinance, as one of the major processes in a new set of rules to be following by any applicant for a new apartment building project, I included a draft rule which stated: “Any proposed new apartment building must help the life of the street and the neighborhood in some tangible way.”

This is the most obvious common sense. Almost any non-professional person who hears this, would have a reaction something like, “Well, yes, … of course… what is new about this? It is the obvious thing to do. A good idea.”

But that is not what happened in Pasadena. The chairman of the Planning Commission was outraged by this proposal and asked me, at the very first public hearing where I presented it, what I meant by introducing it. I told him that what I wanted to do was to create a positive impetus, so that from the very outset, each developer would be required to think about helping the street a building was to be built, to think of making positive contribution to the street, and would know, in advance, that he was required to do something which would make the street better in a form that could be explained and understood. My rule did not require that it be probably effective, nor did I try to specify detailed guidelines as to the meaning of the proposed rule. It was (to make a start on such things) merely a process requiring demonstration that that attention had been given to this issue, that a developer had asked himself sincerely what he could do to make any given new building project help the city block where it was to be built.

The chairman of the commission, when he heard my explanation, leaned forward from the dais of the hearing room, and first asked me in heavily ironic but angry tones if I was a Communist, and then requested that I remove this item from the draft without further discussion.

I tell this story partly because it is important, I think, for readers of this book to understand well in advance, to be prepared, perhaps, for a lack of sympathy even on such a deep and obvious matter concerning the living structure of the world. It does not mean that structure-preserving processes are impossible to achieve. It just means that in many circles, it may be necessary to prepare the ground rather carefully, so that people understand the point of what one is trying to do.

But I also tell this story for another more important reason. I wish to draw attention to the individual difficulty that each one of us must face when we try to keep hold on the concept of living process. The president of the Pasadena Planning Commission was antagonistic, certainly. But unfortunately there is some negative voice like this sitting inside most of us, sometimes even inside our own heads, discouraging us from really and truly making every process structure-preserving to the larger whole. This is a kind of mental inhibition (sometimes fueled by ego, sometimes by greed) which continually makes us focus on the local, and forget, or ignore, the extent to which we must make something living or beautiful happen in the large – or forget that it is our responsibility, at every turn, to heal and make more whole, the nature of the world.”

The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 250-251.

I highly admire Adrian, leaving a safe and well paid job, for starting his own firm with the purpose to heal and make more whole the nature of our world, by the use of Permaculture. I’m sure he’ll face the same kind of ignorance and selfishness as Alexander did, as we all do in our attempts to make the world more whole. But I now see a glimpse of hope, because Permaculture is gaining its way throughout the world, and more and more people understand that the mechanistic idea of order in the end will destroy us all. Read the fifth comment here: http://permaculture.org.au/2010/02/04/letters-from-sri-lanka-sarvodaya-builds-sri-lankas-first-eco-village/

i super appreciate your tactical approach to seeking an effective articulation of the intricacies of the permacultural way.

keep up the play of awesomeness in amidst the calgary craziness.

-kurtis