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context, the situations in which it can be applied. This relationship establishes a hierarchy within the pattern
language (Borchers, 2008; in Neis et al., 2012, p. 92).
Within this hierarchy of relationships in the pattern language (which follow formal principles as
indicated above), there are also overlaps, cross-linkages and ambiguities. Alexander identified this
problem, and in A Pattern Language (1977) he developed 253 environmental patterns to solve it.
Through many years of study and testing, synthesised in the four-volume The Nature of Order (2001–
2005a, 2001–2005b), he attempted to solve these issues.
A Pattern Language and its further development The Nature of Order included two major topics:
the identification of life-forming geometrical properties that might provide a link between the pattern
language and its physical manifestation, and the method or process of construction, identifying a way
of building whereby each step of design and construction follows from the preceding steps to the next
steps in the building process. These patterns may be described as combined fragments of geometric
configurations that obey a kind of grammar, much as a natural language does. Just as a natural language uses a fairly limited set of elements recombined into endless possible configurations, similarly
the pattern language is intended to be recombined in a much more flexible, networked configuration
within the next level of the language – the so- called Morphogenetic sequences (Mehaffy, 2009b).
9.5 Morphogenetic Sequences
If the process of morphogenesis is applied to the design and planning of the built environment ‘deep
sustainability’ can be achieved. This hypothesis was presented by Alexander in his Schumacher
Lecture in Bristol (2004) entitled Sustainability and Morphogenesis: The Birth of a Living World.
This lecture explores the phenomenon of wholeness of a place, and proposes that the morphological
growth of a place gives it character and allows the built environment to adapt to changes. Based on
this natural process, the place achieves sustainability (Alexander, 2004). Alexander referenced most
of his lecture content from The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the
Universe (2001–2005a, 2001–2005b). To explain its application in the built environment, Alexander
described the context of morphogenesis in the natural world as follows:
Things in the biological world, almost by definition, are created continuously by morphogenesis, that is by a
process which is all the time growing and adapting, whether it be in a growing embryo or in a forest or a field,
and which gives form, progressively, while growth and change and adaptation are happening. In real morphogenesis the form of what is coming, or what is about to be, is always drawn from the form of what was in the
moment just before. That is, things are always going like that. If a tree is growing for 500 years, it is continuously
unfolding from its previous state, and then what we see and recognize is first of all in itself a process. But even
if you just look at it in its static state, it is at that moment the end product of transformations that have been going
on, and on, and on. And these are the things, which give it shape, form, and substance…Traditional society also
managed to do something very much like that – that is to say, morphogenesis…Whatever it was, it was shaped,
modified, shaped again, and adjusted and so on, and so on, and so forth (Alexander, 2004, p. 6).
Morphogenesis is the fundamental process of wholeness in nature. Alexander argues that process
in nature does not use a ‘plan’ in the development of organisms, but rather it acts to transform an existing whole into a new one. In doing so, nature preserves the structure of the earlier whole, but it often
amplifies, articulates and deepens it in some important way (Mehaffy, 2009b). He used the example
of the formation of the seed of the Shepherds Purse (Capsella bursa- pastoris) to identify this process
and demonstrate the unfolding of the whole (Fig. 9.7). Other examples include the unfolding of
embryos, the development of the foot of a mouse, a bird’s beak, river patterns carved in the landscape,
frog embryo growth, crystal growth, and the sequence in the Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction
(Alexander, 2001–2005b, pp. 18–44).
9 Living Structures: The Fundamental Properties of Wholeness
context, the situations in which it can be applied. This relationship establishes a hierarchy within the pattern
language (Borchers, 2008; in Neis et al., 2012, p. 92).
Within this hierarchy of relationships in the pattern language (which follow formal principles as
indicated above), there are also overlaps, cross-linkages and ambiguities. Alexander identified this
problem, and in A Pattern Language (1977) he developed 253 environmental patterns to solve it.
Through many years of study and testing, synthesised in the four-volume The Nature of Order (2001–
2005a, 2001–2005b), he attempted to solve these issues.
A Pattern Language and its further development The Nature of Order included two major topics:
the identification of life-forming geometrical properties that might provide a link between the pattern
language and its physical manifestation, and the method or process of construction, identifying a way
of building whereby each step of design and construction follows from the preceding steps to the next
steps in the building process. These patterns may be described as combined fragments of geometric
configurations that obey a kind of grammar, much as a natural language does. Just as a natural language uses a fairly limited set of elements recombined into endless possible configurations, similarly
the pattern language is intended to be recombined in a much more flexible, networked configuration
within the next level of the language – the so- called Morphogenetic sequences (Mehaffy, 2009b).
9.5 Morphogenetic Sequences
If the process of morphogenesis is applied to the design and planning of the built environment ‘deep
sustainability’ can be achieved. This hypothesis was presented by Alexander in his Schumacher
Lecture in Bristol (2004) entitled Sustainability and Morphogenesis: The Birth of a Living World.
This lecture explores the phenomenon of wholeness of a place, and proposes that the morphological
growth of a place gives it character and allows the built environment to adapt to changes. Based on
this natural process, the place achieves sustainability (Alexander, 2004). Alexander referenced most
of his lecture content from The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the
Universe (2001–2005a, 2001–2005b). To explain its application in the built environment, Alexander
described the context of morphogenesis in the natural world as follows:
Things in the biological world, almost by definition, are created continuously by morphogenesis, that is by a
process which is all the time growing and adapting, whether it be in a growing embryo or in a forest or a field,
and which gives form, progressively, while growth and change and adaptation are happening. In real morphogenesis the form of what is coming, or what is about to be, is always drawn from the form of what was in the
moment just before. That is, things are always going like that. If a tree is growing for 500 years, it is continuously
unfolding from its previous state, and then what we see and recognize is first of all in itself a process. But even
if you just look at it in its static state, it is at that moment the end product of transformations that have been going
on, and on, and on. And these are the things, which give it shape, form, and substance…Traditional society also
managed to do something very much like that – that is to say, morphogenesis…Whatever it was, it was shaped,
modified, shaped again, and adjusted and so on, and so on, and so forth (Alexander, 2004, p. 6).
Morphogenesis is the fundamental process of wholeness in nature. Alexander argues that process
in nature does not use a ‘plan’ in the development of organisms, but rather it acts to transform an existing whole into a new one. In doing so, nature preserves the structure of the earlier whole, but it often
amplifies, articulates and deepens it in some important way (Mehaffy, 2009b). He used the example
of the formation of the seed of the Shepherds Purse (Capsella bursa- pastoris) to identify this process
and demonstrate the unfolding of the whole (Fig. 9.7). Other examples include the unfolding of
embryos, the development of the foot of a mouse, a bird’s beak, river patterns carved in the landscape,
frog embryo growth, crystal growth, and the sequence in the Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction
(Alexander, 2001–2005b, pp. 18–44).
9 Living Structures: The Fundamental Properties of Wholeness