The Charles Eames Design Diagram

The Eames Design Diagram, aka 'Statement of the Eames Design Process' as displayed in the 1969 Exhibition Qu'est-ce Que Le Design? (What is Design?) at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. 

According to this diagram, the design process can only be successful when it identifies the overlapping needs of the designer, the client, and society "as a whole" and when it develops products that serve all three.

I've been thinking about this in terms of permaculture design, and ecological concerns (Carl Hastrich has thoughts in a parallel dimension in his piece Biomimicry and Design Definition). The first thing that stands out to me is that apparently innocent phrase "the concerns of society as a whole", how are we to understand this? It seems that there are two main ways we could interpret this. The first would be a political interpretation, following Otto Von Bismarck's description of politics as the "die Kunst des Möglichen" (the art of the possible). This interpretation recognises cultural limits around the type of design outputs that would be acceptable to wider society and accepts these as design parameters. The second interpretation would be an ethical accounting approach, one that might address society's concerns through techniques such as 'triple bottom line' criteria.

The second interpretation provides a meeting place for permaculture design, through the application of permaculture ethics as our accounting criteria. According to our permaculture thinking therefore, the concerns of society as a whole would be reflected by an area of activity in which care of the earth, care of people, and an equitable distribution of resources were recognised.

Permaculture Ethics: Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share

 Directly layering the permaculture ethics venn onto the Eames design diagram venn, is somewhat problematic, reflecting the true complication of the world. Finding a meeting point in which the intersections of both collections of sets overlap becomes more difficult.  There are surely instances for example that would fit within the interests and concerns of the designer, the interests of the client, and meet the criteria of earth care and people care, yet do not address the issue of fair share. 

In fact as we think about our situation as permaculture designers, this is obvious as we frequently find few opportunities to work with clients on projects which satisfy their expressed needs, realise permaculture and reflect our own interests and concerns (financial, intellectual, emotional etc.) in a way that allows us to work with conviction and enthusiasm. While we live in a 'destructoculture' world, design opportunities will tend to largely fall into business-as-usual frameworks that dictate the shape of acceptable outputs. This of course is the same factor discussed above as the political interpretation of "the concerns of society as a whole".

So we might divide "the concerns of society as a whole" into two sets: that which mainstream society deems as fitting its needs, and that which fits the ethical needs expressed within permaculture. This does not ease the difficulty of finding a meeting point in which the intersections of all sets overlap, but it does identify more clearly the nature of their misalignment. This is also a way in which we can identify projects in which we can be effective and those in which we cannot, and therefore concentrate our efforts in the former. A tool for recognising that sub-set of everything we are concerned about, that is amenable to our influence.

In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey describes the problems, challenges, and opportunities we face as falling into two areas: our 'Circle of Concern' and our 'Circle of Influence'. In concentrating on our circle of influence, where our energy is used most effectively, we tend to find that we expand our edge, widening our influence over more of the area of our concern.

The edge of our circle of influence in this design context, will often also be the place where the set of activities which mainstream society deems as fitting its needs rubs up against the set of activities which fit the ethical needs expressed within permaculture. So as we concentrate our energies on our circle of influence, we will tend to find our most productive activities happening right on the edge of that circle. Here where the forest of permaculture thinking keeps dropping its seeds into the surrounding fields is the creative interface with "the concerns of society as a whole".



Resources:

What is Design?
Permaculture Principles
Stephen R. Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Permafutures: Continuation

Microsoft's Productivity Future Vision

Via John Robb's Global Guerillas blog, here's a couple of corporate future visions of the 'Continuation' scenario from Microsoft and Ericcson:



Robb notes that: "Here are two corporate visions of what the future will feel/look like.  They are visually slick.  Unfortunately, the futures these videos depict won't happen."

Microsoft's vision is explored more on the company's site here.

Independent Scholarship

As the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design is self-directed, as an educational experience its similar to post-graduate education (although apparently its considered to be about an 'A Level' qualification). The handful of tutorials included in the cost are less contact time than the average masters degree, and the task of getting educated is largely left up to you in terms of both form and content, with the accreditation criteria a framework goal.

Some voices would like to pattern permaculture education into a more recognised tertiary education format, indeed this is something of what Gaia University has done, by creating degree programmes for eco-social education. I'm not so sure about the value of doing that however, especially in the more mundane context of meshing with the UK HE sector.

Free Thinking not Fee Thinking

With a bachelors degree and two masters behind me, I increasingly question exactly what is going on in universities, what value they provide and at what cost. Cost is obviously increasingly an issue in the UK, as tuition fees rise and government support retreats. Universities are cutting departments, students are getting into debt and as paying customers rightly demanding a different experience base don their actual needs. I doubt whether universities can ever meet some of those needs any more. The financial and resources crunch has implications for education as it does for everything else. Paying thousands of pounds for a course taught at some institution far from home for years as a prelude to a working life characterised by the need to pay that money back is going to be a less and less viable path of education.

The recognition of this is rising, with anarchist free schools making welcome reappearances, skill-shares and skill-swaps occurring elsewhere, the University Project, open source education, commentary from Kio Stark, James Marcus Bach (see videos below) etc.




There's a long history of independent scholarship of course, and a great resource to check out is Ronald Gross's work, especially his The Independent Scholar's Handbook, which is downloadable legitimately and for free from here, but would be worth paying for just for the bibliography.

Christopher Alexander: The Battle to Bring Life and Beauty to the Earth

Christopher Alexander

Last night I attended the Urban Design Group's 2011 Annual Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture, which this year featured Christopher Alexander as its guest speaker. The 2011 Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture, the highlight of the Urban Design Group's events calendar, welcomed Prof Christopher Alexander. Christopher was in conversation with the UDG’s patron John Worthington, discussing his career, his influential ‘pattern language’ and his forthcoming new book (with Hans Joachim Neis, and With Maggie Moore Alexander): The Battle to Bring Life and Beauty to the Earth; A Struggle Between Two World Systems.

Fundamental Aim: Wholeness

Key to his thinking here is the difference, and the titular struggle, between his vision of participative and place based design 'System A', and the way almost all mainstream, first world directed architecture occurs, 'System B'. System B, the business as usual approach favoured by governments, corporations and other large institutions is motivated by financial profit and observable all around us. In his lecture Alexander presented an example of the rarer System A approach, through an illustrated presentation of his work on the Eishin Higashino High School and College campus built near Tokyo, Japan between 1982 and 1985.

You Charm the Form out of the Configuration

Alexander was a gnomic presence on stage, evading containment within the discourse of contemporary architectural practice with Zen like turns of phrase, modesty and an idiosyncratic response to questions. He expressed the fundamental aim of his work as 'wholeness', and it seemed clear to me, though he never stated it explicitly, that his approach was essentially spiritually motivated. In appealing to essential harmonies, he presented his work not as conscious design, but as the act of 'dreaming the configuration' and then charming form from that configuration. In a challenge to his assembled professional colleagues, he proclaimed that 'Design is something that's going to get you in a mess'.

Do the Simplest Thing Always

As the lecture turned to a Q&A, the contrast between Alexander's method and those regularly used by architects was quickly reinforced. Repeatedly, the Ego of the architect was cited as a driving force that was both absent from Alexander's approach and a limiting factor preventing its wider application. This Egoic boundary was presented almost as if it were an unassailable condition, and it was clear that many of those present perceived their own professional identity to be synonymous with a heroic vision of the individual. A couple of questioners sought a middle path between their forms of practice and Alexander's; his reply noted simply the dangers arising 'the moment you touch a poisoned way'. Alexander's challenge was practical as well as psychological: he claimed to never use drawings and that in his work the construction phase was more important than the design one. He did not produce a 'finished plan' but adjusted buildings repeatedly during the building process, aligning them harmoniously with the site. He stated that this approach demanded the right kind of clients and the right kind of contractors, but never told how he harmonised his method with the requirements of planning and building control authorities...

Eishin Campus

While it was humorous to observe the challenge Alexander made to a room full of architects, I also felt a challenge to my own methods of permaculture design. The emphasis on the implementation phase, required me to think through the design frameworks I use again and recognise the importance of each stage. It was clear that Alexander saw construction as a time of observation and interaction, each step changing the site and providing new opportunities to creatively respond. This essentially is action learning, the 'praxis' that gives this site it's name.

I was left at the end of the lecture part inspired and part frustrated. I wanted to know more about Alexander's process than a short talk could provide, and so the book to follow (due early 2012) is excitedly anticipated. Tantalisingly, the pre-publication press indicates that the book outlines nine ways of working, "each one fully dedicated to wholeness, and able to support day-to-day activities that will make planning, design and construction possible in an entirely new way, and in more humane ways". Sounds like a great addition to any permaculturalist's bookshelf.

Permafutures

Video from the Permafutures workshop at the 2011 London Permaculture Festival:

Essex Permaculture

Essex Innit

Now I'm back in Essex, some of my thoughts are turning to permaculture in my home county, strengthening the network, building community and standing in the place where I live, so to speak.

Permaculture's presence in Essex has been ably manifest for many years by my mate and teacher Graham Burnett, through his Spiralseed courses and engagement with a wide range of local projects including South-East Organic Gardeners, Southend-in-Transition and many more. Claire White and I had the privilege of teaching on a Permaculture Design Course alongside Graham earlier this year at Growing Together project in Westcliff-on-sea, which looks like it could become a hub for permaculture activity in the area. The course attendees included Growing Together staff, SEOG members, Southend-in-Transitioners, the venerable Ron Bates and many other worthy Essex folk. 

Water Butt at Growing Together Gardens

Ron and Graham have for many years run permaculture courses at the anarchist-pacifist open house 'Dial House', in North Weald in the West of the county.

Introduction to Permaculture course at Dial House

Rosie, one of the course participants, and her partner Chris are living the good life according to permaculture principles at their retro-fitted eco house in Clacton, recently awarded LAND status by the Permaculture Association. Their experiences in are recorded at their EcoDIY webite.

Graham Burnett & Ron Bates at Manchester Drive Allotments

Essex is fortunate to have a few other permaculture  LAND (Learning And Network Demonstration) centres in the county: the Apricot Centre set in a 4 acre organic and permaculture designed garden in Manningtree, and three sites in the Essex/London borderlands: Forest Farm Peace Garden a community garden in Hainault, the Lambourne End Outdoor Centre in Lambourne End, and the Hawkwood Nursery project of OrganicLea in Chingford.

Earth Oven at the Apricot Centre

Spencer Christie runs Lauriston Farm, a permaculture inspired, and biodynamic registered 125 acre farm situated on the Blackwater Estuary just outside Goldhanger.

No doubt there are many other permaculture practitioners and interested parties out there across Essex, there's certainly a range of Transition groups across the county and people with similar approaches. If you know of any, indeed if you are one! - leave a comment with some way of getting in touch (or mail me jamespierstaylor [the AT symbol] yahoo DOT co DOT uk ) and we'll build the network.

Green Building - October 2010

A short course in green building techniques, led by Adrian Leaman of Wholewoods, taking place at the Hawkwood Nursery in Chingford.