xii
that link together in an intellectual network an ecology of ideas. To unpack the plethora of new terms
requires reading the book. I encourage the reader to dive deep and immerse yourself in this journey,
as this is not another typical work of speculative design theory, most of which can hardly be called
theories at all. A real design theory has to explain what good form is and how it comes into being; it
needs its injunctions and its methods. It is the application of these tools in practice from which the
paradigm emerges and not the other way around. Following the designation of the text, in the discussion that follows, these fundamental patterns are shown in small caps, such as The Whole.
What thinking can support the generation of the wholeness described in the pattern, The Whole?
In addition to getting out of our heads (at least partly) and leaving behind cherished but dysfunctional
precepts, the unworkability of contemporary paradigms (including sustainability), we also need the
mind, a higher mind that is. To access the abstract nature of climate change as an invisible, complexsystems phenomenon that is progressive and statistically evolving requires an integral cognition. It
requires trans-rational and trans-critical thought. Ecological design itself is a post-postmodern cognitive task, what Harvard’s Robert Kegan calls 5
th
order consciousness, the “self-transforming mind” of
the “inter-individual self.” Taking such an integral prospect, an altitude if we may, it becomes apparent
that the multiple perspectives of experiences, technology, ecology and cultures each have something
powerful to offer a sustainable future, as articulated in an Integral Sustainable Worldview.
Any informed person knows that climate change is one of the grand challenges of our century.
From the integral perspective, culture depends on human minds, which depend on life itself, which
depends on base matter. Culture is built on nature, and therefore nature is in fact more fundamental,
while culture includes nature in its depth. In this holarchic sense, nature is a part of culture. It is like
a building where nature is the foundation. No building can stand when its foundation collapses. Any
workable responses to curb or adapt to climate change call us to pay deep attention to both the success
of the human species, but also to the diversity of species and ecosystems that support life on the
planet. Roös therefore calls for Climate Change Co-Adaptation.
The example study area is a coastal town in Southern Australia. Embedded somewhere deep in the
archetypal psyche is an innate Affinity to Water that humans seem to have. Perversely, our desire
to settle near water, to look at it from our homes, to access it in our cars (and to use it as our sewer),
ends up degrading the real degree of life in the very coastal places we seek out. It is a tension found
from the California coast to the Aegean Islands to the shores of Victoria. In Christopher Alexander’s
thinking, a good pattern is the order of space that resolves the tensions inherent in a particular kind of
recurring design situation. Tensions between human biophilic attraction to water and coastal ecological conservation, between a riparian diversity and the relative monoculture of human settlement, form
the context of this critical pattern.
One of the characteristics of any integral theory is its embrace of the empirical realities revealed by
developmental studies of individuals, cultures, socio-economic systems, etc. Wilber coined the phrase
“transcend and include” to acknowledge that each new stage of human developmental awareness has
the capacity to both include the workable aspects of a previous stage (its dignities) and to simultaneously transcend what is unworkable (its disasters). Modern thinkers, especially in the design fields,
tend to ignore knowledge from traditional societies as primitive and undeveloped, while postmodernists tend to romanticise traditional people as noble Edenic non- modern ecologists. This book takes a
more nuanced approach to Advanced Indigenous Knowledge as a way to access, for design purposes, a deep knowledge of the land and how people have adapted to live with the rhythms of the days
and seasons. In true integral fashion, the author practices taking the perspective of the land’s Indigenous
custodians for what it reveals about the place, knowledge that from other viewpoints may be occluded.
I have argued in other essays and books that the human experience of nature is as important as
designing for how nature works. Giving people rich human experiences of nature and natural forces
presents the opportunity to develop relationships with the natural world, and meaningful relationships
beget care. Connecting people to nature is obviously a critical aspect of any design-with-nature
approach. “Biophilic design” is the term of the day, although much of the current literature on the
The Made Order and the Given Order, Unfolding
that link together in an intellectual network an ecology of ideas. To unpack the plethora of new terms
requires reading the book. I encourage the reader to dive deep and immerse yourself in this journey,
as this is not another typical work of speculative design theory, most of which can hardly be called
theories at all. A real design theory has to explain what good form is and how it comes into being; it
needs its injunctions and its methods. It is the application of these tools in practice from which the
paradigm emerges and not the other way around. Following the designation of the text, in the discussion that follows, these fundamental patterns are shown in small caps, such as The Whole.
What thinking can support the generation of the wholeness described in the pattern, The Whole?
In addition to getting out of our heads (at least partly) and leaving behind cherished but dysfunctional
precepts, the unworkability of contemporary paradigms (including sustainability), we also need the
mind, a higher mind that is. To access the abstract nature of climate change as an invisible, complexsystems phenomenon that is progressive and statistically evolving requires an integral cognition. It
requires trans-rational and trans-critical thought. Ecological design itself is a post-postmodern cognitive task, what Harvard’s Robert Kegan calls 5
th
order consciousness, the “self-transforming mind” of
the “inter-individual self.” Taking such an integral prospect, an altitude if we may, it becomes apparent
that the multiple perspectives of experiences, technology, ecology and cultures each have something
powerful to offer a sustainable future, as articulated in an Integral Sustainable Worldview.
Any informed person knows that climate change is one of the grand challenges of our century.
From the integral perspective, culture depends on human minds, which depend on life itself, which
depends on base matter. Culture is built on nature, and therefore nature is in fact more fundamental,
while culture includes nature in its depth. In this holarchic sense, nature is a part of culture. It is like
a building where nature is the foundation. No building can stand when its foundation collapses. Any
workable responses to curb or adapt to climate change call us to pay deep attention to both the success
of the human species, but also to the diversity of species and ecosystems that support life on the
planet. Roös therefore calls for Climate Change Co-Adaptation.
The example study area is a coastal town in Southern Australia. Embedded somewhere deep in the
archetypal psyche is an innate Affinity to Water that humans seem to have. Perversely, our desire
to settle near water, to look at it from our homes, to access it in our cars (and to use it as our sewer),
ends up degrading the real degree of life in the very coastal places we seek out. It is a tension found
from the California coast to the Aegean Islands to the shores of Victoria. In Christopher Alexander’s
thinking, a good pattern is the order of space that resolves the tensions inherent in a particular kind of
recurring design situation. Tensions between human biophilic attraction to water and coastal ecological conservation, between a riparian diversity and the relative monoculture of human settlement, form
the context of this critical pattern.
One of the characteristics of any integral theory is its embrace of the empirical realities revealed by
developmental studies of individuals, cultures, socio-economic systems, etc. Wilber coined the phrase
“transcend and include” to acknowledge that each new stage of human developmental awareness has
the capacity to both include the workable aspects of a previous stage (its dignities) and to simultaneously transcend what is unworkable (its disasters). Modern thinkers, especially in the design fields,
tend to ignore knowledge from traditional societies as primitive and undeveloped, while postmodernists tend to romanticise traditional people as noble Edenic non- modern ecologists. This book takes a
more nuanced approach to Advanced Indigenous Knowledge as a way to access, for design purposes, a deep knowledge of the land and how people have adapted to live with the rhythms of the days
and seasons. In true integral fashion, the author practices taking the perspective of the land’s Indigenous
custodians for what it reveals about the place, knowledge that from other viewpoints may be occluded.
I have argued in other essays and books that the human experience of nature is as important as
designing for how nature works. Giving people rich human experiences of nature and natural forces
presents the opportunity to develop relationships with the natural world, and meaningful relationships
beget care. Connecting people to nature is obviously a critical aspect of any design-with-nature
approach. “Biophilic design” is the term of the day, although much of the current literature on the
The Made Order and the Given Order, Unfolding